Four or five days of travel.
The deeper we go in, the more helpless I’ll become. And he has my phone, though it’s not like I’d have a signal out here anyway.
I really am alone—with Kiro. He’s utterly in charge of my destiny now.
I look over at the canoe. What if I jumped in and just paddled away? I could backtrack…maybe.
He seems to read my mind. “You think you can paddle faster than I can swim? You think you can run faster than I can? And even if you could somehow disable me or lose me, which would not happen, but even if…do you think you could find your way back?” He slides a knuckle under my chin, lifts my head.
He touches me now because he can. Because I’m his. Heat fills me.
He lowers his voice. “Even if you knew your way back, do you think you could make it? I’m not the only predator in these woods. There are bears, bobcats, wolves, of course. Massive ground-wasp nests. Unstable cliffs. A hundred ways to injure yourself.”
“I’d survive until I found a camper.”
“This isn’t an area campers like to come to, even in the high season. The maps warn them away. That’s something I learned in the professor’s cage. This is the wildest territory. And not a season for campers.”
“It’s not happening,” I whisper hoarsely.
He lets me go and turns his back, digs around in the pack. It’s almost like a taunt—run, go ahead. Try it.
He takes the tin cup from the pack and goes to the shoreline. He dips it in and drinks. If I run, he’ll catch me. We both know it. He dips it in again and brings it to the fire, extending the retractable handle.
“What are you doing?”
“You like your coffee hot.” He holds the thing over the fire.
Coffee. How could I forget? Being a prisoner of a feral man is a lot to comprehend before I’ve even had my coffee.
“It’s one thing I can’t provide you with indefinitely. Would you prefer to drink it all up or try to make it last?”
“How about neither? How about a nice big cup ofnot in your dreams is this happening?”
“Out here, you want to make things last,” he says thoughtfully. “I’m going to make you a small amount. I want you to have it for a long time, but then you’ll be without it. You won’t die, I don’t think. I’ll find new things for you to enjoy.”
“I don’t want new things to enjoy.”
“I’ll find them anyway. I’ll care for you, Ann. I’ll give you everything.” He looks up. “I’ll protect you. I’ll even die for you if I have to.”
My pulse whooshes. Kiro only ever says what he means.
“You’re mine now,” he explains. Like that clears it all up.
You’re mine now.
He splashes a bit of the water onto his finger. “It’s ready.”
I look over at the canoe. “I think you won’t like swimming after me in the icy water. This water is coming down from the glaciers or something, isn’t it?”
“The human body can adjust to a far wider range of temperatures than seventy to seventy-five degrees, Nurse Ann.”
His calling me Nurse Ann has this edge now. Like he’s calling attention to my deception.
“I didn’t tell you about what I was doing because I knew you’d hate it. I didn’t have evil motives. I only ever wanted to help.”
He waits with my heated water.
“You can’t keep me.”