He pushed the pace.
Not as hard as yesterday—but close enough that her feet complained with every step. Her skin was raw and wet inside her boots, but she ignored it and kept up.
An hour in, something changed.
Nothing obvious, but his breathing altered. A fraction faster and less controlled. His walk had lost its usual economy. She narrowed her eyes at his back. “Pav.”
“Yeah.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
She stared at him. “Your breathing’s changed.”
He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “We’re walking uphill.”
She pushed through the burn in her lungs. “You walked uphill yesterday, no problem.”
He said nothing and walked on. He didn’t look back or adjust his pace.
Infuriating man.
She let it go—not because she believed him, but because the slope was steepening and breath was currency she couldn’t afford to waste.
Ten minutes later he halted. The trees thinned and the ground dropped away. She stopped dead.
A gorge split the mountainside open—steep, jagged, the bottom swallowed by shadow. It wasn’t wide but it was deep enough that one wrong step would end it.
Ice glazed the rocks along the rim, turning the surface treacherous.
Her stomach dropped and she hugged her waist, scanning left and right. “Can we go around?”
His mouth flattened. “We don’t have time.”
He moved along the edge, reading the land with expert eyes. “I’ll go first. Follow my line.”
Her breath came sharp in her throat. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He looked at her. “You can.”
No reassurance or comfort. Only certainty.Damn him.
He swung over the edge and started down, each step placed with his now familiar precision. Weight committed only when the footing proved itself. The body of a man who knew exactly what it could do.
Except something was off. He was a fraction too slow correcting.
Her heart stuttered. “Pav?—”
He tested an ice-crusted rock, balancing his weight. With one arm trapped in the sling, the correction came late.
His boot slid.
“Pav—”
For a fraction of a second he was still upright—balance gone, control obliterated?—
The mountain took him.
