At first, she was too distracted by how it felt to be so close to him. To have his scent in her nose and the beat of his heart under her cheek. To be held with such strength. But as he paused to put a copper key into a copper lock, the hunting cabin registered: Single-story, falling down, the kind of place that had been abandoned for far longer than the prison camp’s tuberculosis hospital. Indeed, except for the dead bolt, the place seemed utterly worthless, gaps in the exterior boards, the windows cloudy, the roof sporting a crumbling chimney.
The interior was just as bad, the floorboards cracked and sprung, no furniture around, dust on everything. There was also no bathroom, just a stretch of chipped countertop with a sink that was rusted out, and no appliances, only a gap in the cupboards where a refrigerator might have been.
Both of them looked at the gaping hole in the roof at the same time—and that was when the glow registered. With everything so frantic, she hadn’t noticed that dawn’s arrival was imminent… but now, through that wide-open aperture, the subtle shift from the deep black of night to the prodromal gray of day was alarming.
“There has to be an underground hideout. Callum never would have sent us here—”
“Lights!” Nadya said. “Through the trees. Someone is coming.”
A dance of illumination sparkled, the sets of headlights piercing the landscape and strobing as the trunks and branches broke up the beams’ penetrations.
Guards. It had to be.
“Goddamn it,” Kane muttered as he spun around.
Nadya glanced to the empty hearth and entertained a brief and unsatisfying idea that they could hide in the chimney. But what else could they do? They were sitting ducks, for both the guards and the dawn. If they lived through the former, they were certainly not living through the latter.
“I feel like this night is never going to be over,” Nadya said under her breath.
Kane slowly lowered her to the flooring. “Can you stand on your own?”
“Yes.”
“Stay behind me. I’m going to do what I can.”
Reaching up, she touched his face—and something about the contact made both of them go still. “Please leave me?”
“Never.”
Unexpected tears flooded her eyes. “You have nothing to repay me for.”
Car lights washed the front of the cabin, and with the door open, the dark interior was bathed in false illumination as bright and dangerous as the sun.
“Thank you,” Kane said roughly.
“For what?”
“Taking care of me. You eased me.”
“I didn’t have any medicine to give you.”
“Your presence was balm enough.” He was careful as he brushed the hood as if he were stroking her cheek. “It was you more than anything that gave me relief.”
His eyes burned with such emotion that she struggled to comprehend what was in his face, in his heart.
“How can you look at me like this?” She moved his hand away. “You know what I am.”
She tried to turn away, but he gently moved her chin back. And then with steady hands, he slowly lifted the hood. She was so shocked, she didn’t fight him.
“I see your soul,” he said. “That is why I find you beautiful.”
Tears fell from her eyes as no more than twenty feet away, the guards got out of their vehicles, the unlatching of the doors, the crunch of combat boots on the ground, as alarming as gunshots.
“Please leave,” she whispered urgently.
Kane shook his head. “That’s not how this is going to end.”
With that, he lowered his lips and softly brushed her own. As she gasped, he arranged the hood back in place and looked away to the males who were outside.