Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
ASHER
She’s been sick for days.
It started with nausea. A few waves of dizziness, cold sweats, shivers that wouldn’t quit—but then the fever hit. Hard. Full-body tremors, skin burning one minute and freezing the next. She curled in on herself like something broken, and I haven’t stopped watching her chest rise and fall since.
Because if it stops—
If she stops—
I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do.
I held her hair while she puked. Hauled her limp body to bed when her legs buckled. Fed her broth one spoonful at a time while she whimpered and turned away. I’ve sat up all goddamn night, rag on her forehead, whispering her name like it might anchor her here, and yeah, I’ve pictured losing her.
Because fear’s a sick bastard like that. It plays the end on a loop before you even get close.
I’ve been sick before. Worse than this. I know what it’s like to burn up while no one gives a shit.
When I was a kid, my parents sent me and Alex up to the mountains during one of their precious charity events. Said we were a distraction. Both of us got sick—some virus tearing through us like wildfire.
Alex got antibiotics.
I got ignored.
They stuck me in a shed out back. No heat. No light. Just a cot and the sound of my own heartbeat pounding like a countdown. I saw things—heard things. Whispers from the rafters, shadows that moved when they shouldn’t. I thought I was dying. Almost hoped I was.
Meanwhile, Alex got tucked in, medicated, and monitored. I didn’t even get a fucking blanket.
That’s when I figured it out. What I meant to them. What I didn’t mean. An extra. A mistake.
But Sloan, she’s not extra. She’s everything.
Watching her like this? Eyes glassy. Lips cracked. Skin pale and drenched in sweat? It’s hell. Every second she’s like this, I feel something unspooling inside me. Tightening around my ribs. Clawing at the parts of me I keep buried.
Because if she doesn’t make it—
If I fail her now…I won’t come back from it.
She’s mine, and I don’t lose what’s mine.
She doesn’t even know. Doesn’t understand the weight of her existence, how it’s tethered to mine now. If she goes, I unravel. Simple as that. No plan B. No next fucking chapter. Just ash.
But today… Today she looks a little better.
Her fever’s broken. Her eyes are a little clearer. I noticed her voice came back in soft, raspy little bursts this morning when she asked for water without flinching. She even managed to eat a few spoonfuls of stew. Which after the last few days, is enough for me to breathe again.
Barely.
I’m still shaken. Still rattled. Still not okay.
Because if a fucking stomach bug almost took her from me, what else might?
Men. Wolves. The cold. Her own goddamn defiance.
I can’t lose her. I won’t.
Even now, as she lies curled on the couch wrapped in every blanket I own, her body tucked into the cushions like she was made to fit there, I can’t sit still. I keep pacing. Glancing at the windows. Running inventory in my head.
She notices.
Her voice is soft, raw. “What is it?”
I pause, glance down. She’s watching me through heavy lashes, a faint line between her brows.
“We’re low on fuel,” I admit. “Generator’s got a few hours left, maybe less. I’ve gotta get to town before the snow locks us in.”
She shifts slightly, tries to sit up. “Then go.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
She gives me a small, tired look. “I’ll be fine.”
I want to believe her. God, I do. But she’s still pale. Still weak. And despite everything—the warmth between us, the trust she’s beginning to show—I know her. I know that spark behind her eyes.
The one that never really dies, no matter how tired she is.
If I leave her untethered, she’ll run, and for once it won’t be because she hates me, or fears me.
Because it’s who she is. Because fighting is the only thing my sweet doe has ever known. This time, chasing her down wouldn’t get my blood pumping. It wouldn’t be a game. It would fucking terrify me.
So I kneel beside her again and brush her hair from her cheek. She leans into the touch. No flinching. No venom. Just… soft.
“Come on,” I say quietly. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
She doesn’t argue. Just lets me lift her, light and fragile in my arms. She rests her head against my shoulder as I carry her up, step after careful step, until we reach the bedroom.
I lay her down on the sheets she’s been sleeping in for days now, and for a second I just stand there. Watching her. Wanting to believe she’s safe here without chains or locks or threats.
She sees it in my face. The hesitation. The guilt.
And still, when I reach for the drawer and pull out the cuffs, she doesn’t fight. She just extends her wrists. Willingly.
Fuck, she guts me.
I move slowly, careful not to touch her more than I have to, but her fingers brush mine anyway. Like she’s trying to make it easier. Like she knows how much this is killing me.
“I’ll be quick,” I say quietly as the lock clicks shut. “Swear it.”
She nods once, already half-asleep again, cheek pressed into the pillow. Trusting me. Even now.
I press a kiss to her temple and linger a moment too long.
Then I turn, grab my coat, and head out—heart in my throat, chains on the bed, and the weight of her safety wrapped around every goddamn step I take.
The town is twenty miles out, but it might as well be another fucking planet.
A cracked two-lane road claws through the woods until it hits this barely-a-blip-on-the-map excuse of a town.
An old gas station bleeding rust, a crooked supply store with peeling signage and a bell that shrieks like it’s dying when you open the door.
A few cabins squat off the road like rotten teeth, paint stripped by too many winters.
I park, hood up, head down, just another guy with a gas can and a list. I keep my voice low, and I don’t make eye contact. But I see them. Fuck, do I see them.
Men. Too many.
Hunters mostly. Loud and laughing like the cold doesn’t bite. Stomping their boots clean, flashing rifles like badges, barking at each other across the lot. A pack. A threat. One with eyes that linger.
Two of them are standing near the pump, passing a cigarette between them while they talk about tags.
One’s got a beard like a bear and eyes that track too slow.
The other’s younger, sharper, with a cocky smile, camo jacket and a scar cutting through his eyebrow like he’s proud of it. He looks up. Right at me and smirks.
That fucking grin. That same greasy smirk Alex used to give Sloan. Like a hunter who’s already spotted the kill—tagged it, tracked it, claimed it. Like he thinks she’s just meat waiting to be taken.
My stomach coils.
I look away. Grip the nozzle tighter. Fuel’s low. We’ve got hours, maybe, before the generator dies out. That’s what I’m here for. That’s all.
Except it’s not.
When I head inside the rundown building to pay, it’s worse.
Some guy—mid-thirties, thick arms, wedding ring—follows a girl around the drink aisle with his eyes.
She’s younger. Way younger. She doesn’t notice, but I do.
I see the twitch in his mouth. The way he licks his teeth when she bends for a can of soda.
The way he waits for her to look up and give him something back.
She smiles. Just a flash. One of those nervous, polite little things girls are trained to give to keep men like him from snapping, and I fucking hate it.
I hate him.
But more than that, I hate the thought that that could be Sloan. Was Sloan. Out here. In a store like this. In a town full of men who don’t deserve to so much as breathe her air. Touching shelves she touched. Thinking they had a chance.
She didn’t know any better then. She smiled, she talked, she laughed with people like them. Let them into her life. Let them touch her, because I wasn’t there to stop it.
I hate that now, all it would take is one fucking second—one slip, one breakdown, or snowstorm I don’t make it back from—and someone else might get to claim what’s mine. Get to hear the sounds she makes or see the way her nose crinkles when she’s trying not to smile.
What if I don’t come back?
What if I crash on the road or catch something and die out there, and some hiker stumbles on the cabin while she’s weak and alone?
What if she runs?
Yeah, she’s sick, and sure I cuffed her, kissed her, but she’s still not all mine in the way I want. Not really. Not in the way that really fucking matters.
I toss a handful of soup cans into the basket. I don’t look at the labels. I don’t fucking care. I need to get out of here before I break something.
One of the men by the door watches me go. Big guy. Flannel shirt. Too clean. He nods at me like we’re the same fucking species.
News flash Lumberjack Joe. We’re not.
I slide back into the SUV and sit with the engine off, breathing like I just ran a mile uphill. My hand’s trembling on the wheel.
I can’t fucking do this.
This place—it’s not safe. None of this is safe. Too many roads. Too many people. Too many fucking eyes.
So the idea comes back. Not a whisper this time. A scream.
Alaska.
Or Canada. Somewhere savage. A place where no one goes unless they’re trying to disappear. No neighbors. No stores. No roads. Just trees, ice, and silence.
Just me and my sweet doe.
I’ve thought about it before. Joked about it, even. But now it’s clawing at me, hot and sharp and real.
I could build us a new cabin. Hunt our food. Burn the bridge behind us. Make it so no one could ever reach her. Not without dying first.
Sloan would hate it. She’d scream, kick, maybe even cry. She’d curse my name and tell me I ruined her life. But eventually, she’d settle—because deep down, she knows I’m the only one in this fucked-up world who’s ever truly cared.
And even if she didn’t forgive me for it, I’d still fucking drag her ass out there. I’m not losing her. Not to this place. Not to her past. Not to anyone.
She’s fucking mine.
I start the engine. Hands tight on the wheel, jaw grinding, chest aching with something too big to name.
If I want to keep her, really fucking keep her, then we don’t belong here.
We never did.
And the next time I come to town… it might be to buy a map of the places so far off-grid even God would forget we exist.
By the time I get home, the wind’s gone feral. Snow falls in thick, violent sheets from the sky, hammering the roof like fists. I haul the generator fuel into the shed, toss the supply bags inside the mudroom, and kick the door shut hard enough to rattle the frame.
She’s exactly where I left her—tangled in blankets, eyes open, cuffed to the headboard. Her wrist rests above her head, limp but not tense. She doesn't look angry. Just tired. Watching the firelight flicker across the room.
Something in my chest uncoils at the sight of her. I hadn't realized how tight the fear had wrapped itself around my ribs until that moment.
She’s here.
She’s safe.
She’s still all mine.
I cross to the bed and drop to my knees beside it, the key already clutched in my fist. The cuff clicks open and slides away with a soft metal clink. She doesn't move. Just watches me with that unreadable stare that never seems to blink.
“You’re quiet,” I murmur, brushing her wrist gently with my thumb. Her skin is warm, soft, no signs of a struggle. She let me lock her down. She trusted me. That trust slices through my guilt like a dull blade.
“You’re angry,” she says, voice scratchy from sleep or silence, I can’t tell.
My eyes lift to hers. “Not at you.”
“Then at what?”
I shake my head, jaw clenched. I don’t have the words to explain it. Not all of them. So I press my forehead to the edge of the mattress and breathe her in.
“The world,” I finally whisper. “Everything that wants to take you from me.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then her fingers move, brushing through my hair. Light. Careful. Like she knows I might shatter if she’s too gentle, or too cruel.
“What happened?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
I look up. My throat’s raw, but I force it out. “I realized I could lose you. That someone out there could see you, want you, take you, and I wouldn’t be there to stop it.”
Her eyes soften. The corners of her mouth twitch, like she might say something. Instead, she shifts, just enough to open space for me. I crawl up beside her, stretching out on the bed, and she curls into my chest without being told.
Her head tucks beneath my chin like it’s been there a thousand times before. Her breath warms the hollow of my throat. My arm wraps around her, holding her close, needing her there.
My hand slips under the hem of her shirt, fingers skating across the bare skin of her back, tracing the lines of her spine, every bump and curve seared into memory.
“You’re everything,” I murmur. “And I don’t know how to exist if I’m not protecting you. Every second you’re not near me, I see you gone. Taken. Dead. Screaming my name while I’m too far to fucking hear it.”
Her body shifts against mine, the faintest tremble. Her voice is soft. “You can’t chain me every time you leave.”
“I know.”
“But you did.”
“I had to.” The words scrape out raw. “Because if you ran, if I wasn’t here to stop you…I’d lose my fucking mind. I’d tear the whole world apart to find you, and I don’t know if I’d be fast enough.”
Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t pull away.
Her fingers curl into my shirt, gripping it like an anchor. Maybe she knows what it cost me to lock her down, how hard I had to fight every instinct to hold her instead. Maybe she forgives me. Maybe not. But she’s here.
That’s what matters.
“I want to give you everything,” I say, my lips against her temple. “The life you were never offered. Safety. Peace. But I can’t do that until I take care of the rest. The noise. The past. The threats of anything that can take you from me.”
She’s silent, but her hand moves, sliding up my chest until her palm rests over my heart.
“I’ve waited so long for this. For you, and now that I have you,” I whisper, kissing the crown of her head, “nothing gets to take you from me, sweet doe. Nothing.”
The fire pops in the hearth. Wind howls outside like a dying animal. But here, in this bed, she’s soft and warm and wrapped around me. My hand never stops tracing her skin, memorizing her like scripture.
The fear hasn’t gone away. Not fully. But with her pressed to me, heartbeat steady, breath syncing to mine—it fades just enough to let me breathe.