Page 233 of These Tears

Every time he comes back from the fire instead of letting it take him, a fierce kind of pride swells beneath my ribs.

I know a few nights cannot undo what years put into him. They haven’t undone me either. But small steps are progress too, however small.

And Elias Crane, who once believed wanting made him monstrous… is beginning to hold me like a man who believes he is allowed to want.

Which makes leaving our winter-wrapped seclusion difficult enough – even without Inga staring at my bare hand as though I have misplaced a child or burned down the frozen little town square we now find ourselves in.

‘You lost your engagement ring?’ she asks, studying my finger. I’m not entirely sure her eyes can widen any further without popping out.

Elle, her friend who has decided to accompany us today, stills beside her and gives my hand a wilted glance.

Technically, lost is doing some acrobatic work there. But ‘Elias threw my ex-fiancé’s last remaining claim on me straight into the fire’ may be a bit overwhelming for them.

And that would be difficult to explain during the short walk from the post office to the judgmental face of a stone-carved Northman in the middle of the square.

I shift Sunna’s grocery bag from one hand to the other and tuck the offending one into my coat pocket. ‘Something like that.’

‘What did Jakob say about that?’ Inga murmurs, reaching for my hand and pulling it out, as though she can make the ring materialise out of sheer will.

He looked heartbreakingly calm for a man committing arson against my romantic history.

I give her a smile my mother used when there were secrets best left buried. ‘He took it better than expected.’

Inga’s mouth presses into an unforgiving line as she looks up at me, then back at my bare hand, shaking her head slowly.

‘Well,’ Elle says into the silence, her voice gentler than her friend’s expression, ‘the ring that matters more is the wedding ring anyway. Right?’

Right.

The guilt hits before I can arrange my mouth around the required smile.

These people have fed me, clothed me and welcomed me. Every time they call me his fiancée, and I let the lie stand, another patch of rot spreads through my gut.

Lies have a way of doing that. Sooner or later, they soften, split open, and leave the naked truth steaming in the cold.

Elias and I are not engaged.

But saying we are not involved would be another lie.

Captor and captive no longer fit. Lovers feels too simple. A couple? Too absurdly ordinary for two people who arrived here through an airport abduction, questionable choices and several criminal offences.

Whatever we are, the last few nights have made it impossible to pretend it’s nothing.

That night, after the chains fell off behind the mangled door and the room took its first breath, I slept with my body tangled with his as though some feral part of me had been searching for that exact shape of sleep all along. His arm had stayed heavy around me, his face buried near my neck, his breathing slow and even – for the first time since he plucked me out of England and dropped me in Norway.

Elias Crane.

Asleep against me.

Calm as winter finally giving up its harshness.

‘I guess,’ Inga says and hauls me out of my spiral, though nothing in her tone suggests conviction.

‘I’ve been looking for you!’ Elias’ voice suddenly reaches us from further ahead. We turn to see him approaching with those glorious broad shoulders and eyes forever searching for meaning in mine.

‘He’s a bit clingy, isn’t he?’ Elle notes quietly before Elias nears enough to hear.

Inga gives her a cold smile, but I’ve already noted how overprotective she is of her cousin.