Page 12 of Torin

“You can’t. It’s bent.”

He pulls once. Metal groans, but the door stays shut. His jaw tightens. He changes his grip and pulls again, harder this time. The door gives with a shriek.

I stare at him.

He’s standing there completely naked beside the door he’s just wrenched open, and suddenly all that bare muscle is a little harder to ignore. Jesus.

He looks at the mangled metal, then at me. “You getting out?”

“Uh, yeah,” I mumble, aware that my cheeks are warm.

I unclip my seat belt and immediately regret it when pain shoots across my chest.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

I swing my legs out. The ground seems steady until I put my weight on it, and then my knees buckle.

His hand closes around my arm.

I jerk away.

He lets go immediately. “Sorry.”

That catches me off guard almost as much as falling did.

“I’m fine.”

He looks unconvinced but doesn’t touch me again.

I straighten carefully and take stock. My face hurts. My chest hurts where the seat belt caught me, and tomorrow I’m probably going to be one enormous bruise, but everything seems to work.

A drop of blood lands on the front of my dress. The stranger’s eyes follow it, and I wonder what I must look like to him—a woman in a wedding dress, driving alone through the mountains at this hour. His eyes move over me again, slower this time. His nostrils flare. “You’ve been at East Ridge.”

My stomach drops. So, I was right. He can smell them on me.

“Are you with them?”

“No.”

I look back at him. “You know them, though?”

His mouth hardens. “Yeah. I know them.”

He doesn’t seem particularly pleased about it.

“Are you going to tell them I’m here?”

“No.”

Again, no hesitation.

“Why not?”

His eyes meet mine. “You want me to?”

“No.”