Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
As if he had misunderstood the question.
When the car went around a tight turn, Nadya grabbed on to the front of Kane’s stolen uniform, and his arms tightened around her. The corner was so sharp, she was sure they would roll over—they did not. Somehow, the vehicle righted itself and continued on its course—
The brakes were hit and they went into a fishtailing skid, the sedan dead-ending in a dusty swirl.
“Get out!” The male at the wheel wrenched around. “Take these keys. I’ll be back for you at nightfall—this car likely has a tracer on it so we’re rolling a lot of dice right now. I have to get it good and lost.”
Kane did not hesitate. He took the keys, opened their door, and gathered her as he would any kind of delicate package.
Carefully.
The moment they were free of the car, she looked up to the roof. Apex was gone, not anywhere that she could see or scent. There was no time to ask where he was—and it was likely the white-haired male did not know any more than she or Kane did.
With spinning tires, the car tore off in reverse, as if the driver knew there wasn’t time enough to turn around. In its wake, more loose dirt spooled up into the night air and a faint whiff of gasoline lingered.
“He’s right,” Kane said. “If they kept collars on us, they definitely put locators on their vehicles. Come on.”
As if she were walking beside him instead of in his arms.
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.