Hours later, Wulf lay on his side behind Rae in the stiff hotel bed and watched the moon rise. The horizontal blinds on the window sliced the silver moonlight into stripes as the moon skimmed over the buildings outside.
The shadows around the edges of the room drifted inward.
He stroked Rae’s soft shoulder, careful not to touch the brutal scrapes. She slept in his arms, warm and safe. Her chest rose when she breathed, slow and soft.
What could he do to keep her safe even though he was leaving?
The answer was simple. He had known it the moment he had found her huddled behind that rock.
He would take her with him.
Slowly, carefully, he must convince her that the safest place for her was with him, despite everything.
A week ago, in his car while they drove from The Devilhouse to his home, Rae had asked him whether he felt anything when he was with her. He would have made a polite answer nevertheless, but his heart had shuddered at her question, shocking him. His instinct had been to say yes, Oh God, yes, and Wulf had broken out in a cold sweat. He had equivocated in his head and stammered out an answer.
That night, in his bed, he had buried himself in her and knew that he was falling for her.
When he discovered that picture on her phone, he had thought she knew everything and was feigning ignorance to ensnare him. He hadn’t known whether to believe her when she had pled innocence. So many other women had pursued him for their own advancement. He had analyzed her every glance, her every gesture, everything she had said, for days, for nights, trying to believe in her.
Thus, he found his excuse to withdraw into the shadowlands again.
When those men had shot at her today, they might as well have been shooting at the sun to burst it like shattering a light bulb. His whole world hung on those seconds.
Turning off his horror so he could aim had been an act of will like none other in his life, and several events in his life had required momentous control.
His entire life, since he was eight years old, had been lived in the icy shadows. Brief flares had only sent him farther into the darkness, confirming that the light burned.
Rae slept, curled next to him in the bed.
Her warmth stole into his flesh.
It started where her hips fitted into his groin and where her back pressed against his chest. Her heat diffused through his skin and crept into his muscle, invading his body. It trickled down his arms and filtered through his legs, and he breathed in the sunny scent of her hair. Her warmth saturated him, filled him in, and last, it permeated that hard, painful mass of scar tissue on his back.
His heart beat harder, and his flesh warmed.
His breath caught in his chest.
Wulf had never realized how cold he had been, and for so long.