He’ll be pissed. Bringing an outsider into the inner sanctum is against protocol, especially with the heat we’ve had from the rescue team lately. Marcus will sniff around if she disappears.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. No signal. The storm has knocked out the tower on the ridge.
Good.
I toss the phone onto the side table. It skitters across the wood and lands face down.
I look back at her. She twitches in her sleep, a small sound escaping her throat. Without thinking, I reach out and cover her hand with mine. Her fingers are cold; mine are burning hot. She sighs and stills, her hand instinctively curling around my thumb.
The contact jolts me. Anchors me.
I lean back in the chair, eyes never leaving her face.
I have spent my whole life navigating the wilderness. I know every trail, every cave, every cliff in the Grizzly Peak District. I know how to survive where others die. I thought I was content with the silence, with the solitude of the road and the brotherhood of the patch.
Wrong.
I hadn't been living. Just waiting.
I look at the splinted leg, the result of violence and gravity. I hate that she is hurt. I want to hunt down the rock that tripped her and smash it to dust. But a dark, twisted part of me is grateful for the break.
It means she can't run.
It means she needs me.
It means I have six weeks. Six weeks to heal her. Six weeks to make her see me not just as a rescuer, but as the only man she will ever need. Six weeks to make sure that when the cast comes off, she doesn't walk away.
I stroke my thumb over her knuckles. Her skin is so soft it feels like silk.
"You're safe," I whisper into the darkness, a vow made to the shadows and the storm. "I've got you."
Downstairs, the heavy steel door of the garage rattles as the wind picks up. The world outside is chaotic, dangerous. Up here, in the dim light of the loft, everything has narrowed down to a single point of focus.
Her.
I am the Road Captain. And I have reached my destination.
She shifts again, the blanket slipping slightly to reveal the creamy skin of her shoulder. My gaze lingers there, hungry and possessive. I imagine biting that skin, marking it, leaving a bruise matching the shape of my mouth to cover the bruises from her fall.
I shift in the chair, jeans uncomfortably tight. I’ll deal with that later. Right now, my only job is to watch. To guard. To ensure nothing—not the storm, not the mountain, not her own fear—takes her from me.
I am a patient man. I can wait for the bone to knit. I can wait for the fear to fade.
But I am not letting her go.
The storm rages on, isolating us from the rest of Pine Valley. No one knows she's here. No one is coming.
Just the way I want it.
"Mine," I whisper again, testing the weight of the word.
It fits.
3
ALEXANDRIA
Heat registers first. Heavy, consuming warmth drags me up from the black ocean of sleep. Not the biting cold of the mountain ridge where I slipped. Not the sterile air of a hospital room. This air smells of woodsmoke and cedar, layered with something darker like musk and hot metal.