LIII #2
“You remind him there are still things worth bleeding for.”
A flush crept up my neck, and Theo’s arm tightened around my ribs, a silent, grounding pressure.
“When a starving man starts wanting,” Ruby went on, “that’s when things get dangerous. Not because he’s heartless. Because there’s something within reach.”
Her eyes dropped briefly—to the blankets, to the bed, to me pinned between her and Theo—then came back to my face.
“That’s what you are.”
Her voice softened.
“Reach.”
“Ruby,” Theo said, a low rumble I felt more than heard.
She gave him a look. “What?”
“Enough.”
That shut her up for all of two seconds.
Then she turned back to me, softer now, but no less invasive.
“So, I’ll ask you just once . . . ”
The question lodged under my ribs before she even finished it.
“Ruby,” Theo said again, a clear warning.
This time she snapped, pushing herself up on one arm to glare at him.
“No, I’m serious. We’ve stood watch over this town for a hundred years. I’m allowed to ask whether she’s planting roots or just passing through.”
Theo pushed off the headboard, the old bed frame groaning under the shift of his weight.
Ruby opened her mouth to argue—
and stopped.
The fire didn’t go out, but the room changed.
Light pulled back into itself. Shadows in the corners of the cabin stretched long and thin across the floor. The temperature dropped fast enough to turn my next breath white.
I followed Ruby’s gaze to the door.
It hadn’t opened.
It hadn’t creaked.
But Heaton was there anyway, framed in the dark as if the night had kept his outline and nothing else.
The gray strain from the drive was gone.
The mountain had put something back into him, and not gently.
Color rode high on his cheekbones. His eyes were black at the center, silver drowned beneath a charge so heavy it seemed to draw the cabin shadows toward him.
There was no softness in the way he held himself now. No slack.
Just power with teeth.
He took in the room in one sweep.
Ruby on the bed.
Theo behind me.
Me half-folded between them, blankets twisted around my legs, still pale from carrying the edge of his death through the bond.
For one suspended second, no one moved.
Then Ruby, because she had apparently never once in her afterlife feared anything, tipped her head and said, “So. Are we keeping her?”
Heaton didn’t so much as blink.
“The only one discussing that,” he said, voice low enough to frost the room over, “is me.”
He stopped at the edge of the bed and looked down at me with that charged, terrible restraint, as if the mountain had stitched him back together but left the seams hot.
His hand slid under my chin, cool and steady, tilting my face until he could see me properly.
“That bad?”
I aimed for sarcasm and landed somewhere closer to honesty.
“Felt like being buried alive.”
Something in his jaw locked.
Ruby pushed herself upright, one knee pressing into the mattress as she leaned over me.
“Well, that’s what happens when you spend decades pretending scraps are enough. If you’d managed your intake better, this wouldn’t be tearing through her like that.”
Heaton didn’t look at her.
“Noted.”
Ruby’s smile widened. “Oh. Touchy.”
Theo shifted behind me then, easing his arm from around my middle and sitting forward enough to give me room.
Heaton’s eyes flicked once to Theo.
Then back to me.
“Can you stand?”
I pushed the blankets aside, but my legs felt like water. I got halfway upright before my knees gave out.
He caught me before the fall could finish. One hand locked around my elbow. The other flattened hard at my waist, hauling me back into balance with a force that left no room for argument.
My shoulder hit his chest. Solid now, and I sucked in a deep breath.
He looked down at me, his eyes moving over my face with brutal efficiency.
Pulse. Pupils. Breathing.
Inventory first. Everything else after.
Behind me, Ruby leaned back on one hand.
“For the record,” she said brightly, “I still vote yes.”
Heaton’s hand tightened once at my waist, steadying me while another tremor ran through my legs.
“Theo.”
Theo caught the back of Ruby’s white dress between two fingers—practiced and unbothered, like he was dragging a stray cat out of a pantry—and steered her toward the door.
Ruby twisted to look up at him. “Oh, come on. What? The town likes her.”
“The town,” Heaton said, finally lifting his eyes to her, “doesn’t get a vote.”
Ruby laughed under her breath and let Theo guide her out into the dark, though not without one last glance over her shoulder.
“Just think about it, October,” she called, smile turning wicked. “We’ll still be here when you decide!”
The door shut behind them with a soft, final click.
A trace of irritation cut across Heaton’s face and vanished. Whatever he thought about Ruby’s suggestion, he set it aside the second my legs trembled again.
His thumb brushed once just below my ear.
“Can you walk?”
I nodded.
He didn’t trust that either.
He shifted closer, one arm circling behind my back as he turned me toward the door.
“Come on,” he said, staying close enough that if my knees buckled again, I’d fall into him instead of the floor.
“Next time, don’t carry the smoke.”