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Stubborn fuck.
He’d rather lick his wounds and bleed out than allow her to touch him.
I grip the back of my neck, squeezing the tension there.
He can sulk all he wants. I’ll give him time to cool off. But his injury is too severe and susceptible to infection to go untreated for long. We have enough medical supplies to help him, and for the first time ever, we have a trained nurse to provide proper care.
Which begs the question. Why is she willing to help? What’s her angle?
Not that I’d give her a choice. But she beat me to it, nonetheless, pleading to treat him while the knife was still impaled, then again after, asking him if she can look at the wound only to be rejected.
He’s been nothing but a dick to her. We all have. She’s here against her will, stuck in this frozen hell with four men who will ultimately destroy her.
She has no reason to help us.
“How can you stand it?” Wrapping her arms around her waist, she shivers with chattering teeth. “It’s fucking cold. Where’s your coat?”
“Don’t need it.”
It’s not winter yet. Until then, a T-shirt is sufficient. Meanwhile, she’s bundled in an extreme weather coat, ready to take on a blizzard.
The cold is the least of her problems. Does she not understand how grave her situation is? Where is her fear? Her terrified tears? Why isn’t she cowering in a corner?
After everything she saw tonight, she’s too composed, too quiet, as if she’s already broken.
But I know she’s not.
She’s still fighting. Still plotting an escape. Still radiating grief, loneliness, and hope from her expressive face, even when she’s trying so hard to be stoic.
That’s what gets to me the most. Here’s a woman who hasn’t given up, an extremely small woman who stands up to us time and again and still finds it in her heart to feel compassion and offer medical care to my antisocial brother.
Maybe it’s guilt. After all, she’s the reason Kody took a knife through his hand.
My throat stings with anger.
It should’ve been me. I’m usually the first one to jump in and take the punishment, but I was so goddamn distracted by her.
Distracted when she carried bones into our home with the brazenness of a grizzly bear.
Distracted when she called Denver out on his disciplinary methods.
Distracted when she begged him for leniency on Kody’s behalf.
Distracted when she threw herself into the fray in an insane attempt to stop the punishment.
The absolute gall of this woman.
I give her props for that.
For all of it.
It takes huge fucking balls to walk into a den of wolves, desecrate their dinner table, and fling around accusations and demands.
Just thinking about it makes me hard again.
“Have you ever left Hoss?” She peers up at me, her natural beauty glowing in the moonlight, more radiant than any woman has the right to be.
No reason to lie to her. What little I know about her, I’m certain she won’t ease off this line of questioning until she has answers.
“I haven’t left since the day I arrived. Same for my brothers.”
“Have you tried?”
“More times than you can imagine.” Turning toward the door, I head back inside. “No one leaves, so don’t bother trying.”
“Except Denver. Someday, he’s going to fly away and never come back.”
My stomach hardens. She’s voicing my biggest fear.
“Have you ever tried to fly the plane?” She follows me through the entryway, hanging up her coat along the way. “Do you know how to take off and land?”
I stop abruptly. “In all my research, I found two indisputable facts. There are a lot of pilots in the world. And I’m not one of them.” I resume walking.
“But you can be.” She chases, relentless, nipping at my heels. “Me, too. We only need to learn.”
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to learn. There are no manuals. He keeps the plane locked up tight and a sheet covering the instrument panel. He only allows us inside it when we’re loading and unloading. He doesn’t even let us near it when he’s working on it.” I stride toward the kitchen, surprised to see Wolf out of his stupor and climbing the stairs toward our room. “He doesn’t want us to crash and die.”
“He doesn’t want you to leave.”
That, too.
“What supplies do you need for Kody’s hand?” I change directions, heading toward the cellar.
“What do you have?”
“Follow me.” Bounding down the stairs to the basement, I pause at the bottom door and look back.
She lingers on the top step, chewing on her lip.
“What’s the holdup?” I bark, making her jump.
“What’s down there?”
I scoff and continue into the cellar. She’ll catch up, or she won’t.
Kody’s vodka-making equipment takes up most of the basement. In addition to standard pure vodka, he makes flavored vodkas that are out of this world.
He’s been tinkering with stills since he was ten, and over the years, he’s built an impressive setup. In recent years, he’s been obsessed with perfecting his formulas. More than anything, he wants to enter world-renowned contests and pitch to major manufacturers.
