Page 253 of These Tears

Beyond the trees, more dogs bark. Men’s voices follow from where the fire dances, but I look away and towards the sky again.

I know Elias is behind me before his boot touches the ground. Silence first. Then winter and pine caught in his clothes and clinging to his skin.

He stops beside the nearest tree to my left. His thumbs hook into the pockets of his trousers, but the posture does nothing to disguise the violence in his breathing. Snow cakes the rims of his boots.

There’s not that much snow down here beneath the mountain.

So he must have been up there.

I want to believe he was searching for me.

His shoulders fill the puffer jacket, broad enough to block whatever lies behind him.

The black beanie drags all the darkness out of his lashes and hair, leaving his skin almost star-bright beneath it.

His gaze moves over my face, my hands, the blanket wrapped around me. When his mind finally accepts what his eyes are telling him, he meets mine.

The trees stop looking quite so full of things waiting to come for me now that he’s here. My heart stutters, kicks, makes a fool of itself. My hands loosen around the blanket.

‘Can you feel your fingers?’

I flex them. ‘Unfortunately. They hurt.’

‘Good. Feeling is good.’ He gives a short nod. ‘Inga says you didn’t lose consciousness up there.’

I sigh, deciding not to follow up on that.

We look at each other, as if words would ruin whatever brittle thing has found us in the dark.

‘You know,’ I start, almost croaking from the effects of the eventful night, ‘I could photograph you without taking a single break.’

His lashes flutter closed in warm acknowledgment and then open again. ‘Go on. But you should know that the second you’re finished, you’re mine until neither of us can move.’

I press my teeth tight together and fight the phantom sensation of his body melding with mine. It’s never just a kiss with him. Never just a touch.

This is a man who spent decades learning to distrust affection whenever it came too close. This is a man who lives with chains in his mind so heavy they have found their way onto his skin. And he speaks of intimacy so freely now that it makes my heart somersault.

An absurd little thought sparks in the back of my dark mind: what would have happened if the Hunt had gone the way they intended? If I had reached the end of it, put on that dress and walked back into the firelight as their bride?

Would Elias’ family really have tried to marry us?

Would he… accept me?

‘Didn’t they tell you… you’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding?’

The bitterness poisons the words before I can stop it. I hate it.

Hate even more the shadow that falls over his face.

His attention drops between his boots, following something invisible across the frozen soil.

‘I hate lying, Elias,’ I murmur, letting my forehead fall into my palms as I draw my knees up and rest my elbows against them. ‘Lies always come back to bite you.’ I close my eyes at the onslaught of flashbacks from earlier today and take a long breath. ‘I thought Cromwell had found us tonight.’

‘Those fucking idiots!’ He drags a hand over his face, shaking his head.

‘They didn’t know what happened to me before. What we’re hiding from.’

He looks sideways.