I’m okay. Locked in cellar. Right side of house.

Rowan’s reply is immediate.

Hold tight, love. I’m coming.

I read his message twice before I lock the screen and bite down on my lip. My nose stings. An ache burns in my chest. Maybe it’s just an Irish expression, but I still hear it over and over in Rowan’s voice, as though he’s right here in my head.

Hold tight, love. 

“What’s your name?” I rasp out as I turn my attention to the crying woman who huddles against the brick wall. She’s about my age, slim, covered in streaks of dirt across her naked frame.

“I-I’m Autumn.”

“Okay, Autumn.” I set the phone down so the flashlight shines toward the ceiling and start unbuttoning my shirt. “I’m going to give this to you but I need your help to get it off.”

Autumn hesitates for a moment before approaching with tentative steps. We don’t talk as she helps guide the fabric over my dislocated shoulder, and though she backs away momentarily when I let out a cry of pain, she perseveres to free the shirt from my body. The fabric is soaked and muddy, and it might not keep her warm in the cool cellar, but at least she’ll be covered.

She’s just doing up the last button when an ax splits through the cellar doors.

“Sloane,” Rowan’s desperate voice yells, carrying above Autumn’s terrified scream and the wind and the driving rain. “Sloane!”

A raw ache grips my throat. My eyes fill with tears as I grab my phone and scramble closer to the doors. “I’m here, Rowan—”

“Stand back.” With a few more hits, the doors splinter and fall into the dark with the lock and chain. Rowan’s hand appears in the dim light.

“Take my hand, love.”

There must have been stairs in here once, but they’ve been removed, and I have to jump to grab Rowan’s palm, slipping on the first attempt with the rain and sweat on our skin. He repositions himself to lay on his belly, leaning further into the darkness.

“Both hands,” he demands, offering his palms to me.

“I can’t.”

A flash of lightning illuminates Rowan’s face, searing it into my memory forever. His lips are parted and I can almost hear the sharp intake of breath as his gaze snares on my misshapen shoulder and missing shirt. His features are anguish and fury painted in light and rain. Beautiful and haunting and terrifying.

Rowan doesn’t say anything as he reaches for me. When I jump, he catches my hand and grips it tight, hauling me up enough to grasp my elbow and pull me from the cellar.

As soon as I’m on the ground, I’m crushed in his embrace, trembling in his arms. I fist his soaked shirt. His scent envelops me and I want to hold on in this moment of comfort, but he forces us apart to look into my eyes.

“Can you run?” he asks, surveying my face. His eyes never settle as I nod, roaming my expression as though hunting for the truth. “You trust me?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice breathy but sure.

“I’m going to keep you safe. Understand?”

“Yes, Rowan.”

We look at one another for a final moment before he picks up the ax and grasps my hand. He looks back down into the cellar and it seems that he only realizes now that anyone else was down there with me, despite Autumn’s continuous cries and pleas to be pulled free.

“Stay here,” he says down into the pit, brooking no argument despite her elevated appeals. “If you keep quiet and hidden, he’ll think you’ve already run and he’ll leave the cellar alone. We’ll come back for you as soon as it’s done.”

“Please, please don’t leave me—”

“Stay the fuck here and be quiet,” Rowan barks, and he drags me away without another glance into the cellar, ignoring the despairing cries that follow as we run toward the back of the house.

We stop at the corner and pause as Rowan leans forward to scout the path to the barn. When he seems satisfied, he squeezes my hand, turning enough to look at me over his shoulder. He nods once and I’ve barely returned the gesture before he’s leading us across the debris-riddled backyard to the decaying barn. He enters the empty structure first through the open door, his ax raised, but the building is empty aside from tools and pigeons and an ancient John Deere tractor. Only once he’s satisfied that it’s safe does Rowan pull me deeper inside to stop against a wall at a point equidistant between the front and rear exits.

Thunder rattles the windows and the tools that hang from the planked walls. Rowan drops his ax to the dust with a dull thud. There’s a breath of time between us when we just look at one another, both dripping wet and covered in mud and grass.

And then his hands are on my cheeks to hold me steady, his breath hot on my skin as his eyes travel across the details of my face.

A thumb passes over my forehead and I wince. A finger follows the slope of my nose. He traces my upper lip and I sniffle, the taste of blood lingering at the back of my throat.

“Sloane,” he whispers. It’s not for me to acknowledge. It’s confirmation that I’m here, and real, but broken. Rowan keeps me close to the wall, shadowing me with his body, his hands drifting down my neck, lifting my chin to check every inch of my throat for injuries as I tremble in the dark.

“Your shirt—”

“I gave it to the girl. He didn’t touch me that way.”

Rowan’s eyes flash when they meet mine. He says nothing in reply, just drops his attention to my injured shoulder where an angry bruise already colors the joint in the first streaks of purple. With a warm palm on my good shoulder, he turns me so I’m facing the wall. He assesses the injury with a careful touch. Though I try to stay silent, a tight cry still escapes when he moves my arm from where it’s tucked against my side.

“Can you put it back in place?” I whisper when he turns me to face him once more.

“It might be broken, love. You need a doctor.”

I blink away the sudden tears that fill my eyes as Rowan drops to a knee, inspecting my ribs, tracing each one. They’re sore from the fall, but not broken. Rowan just ignores me when I try to tell him that, as though he won’t be satisfied until each one is checked with a pass of fingertips over bone. When he’s done, his hands lay on my hips, a long, tense breath covering my belly with heat that I feel down to my very core.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He presses his forehead to my stomach, his arms wrapping around my legs to hold me close.

For a moment, I don’t know what to do. I’m immobilized by the sudden current that fires through my trembling flesh. Every exhalation against my skin makes my heart beat faster until it’s a hammer against my bones. And then my hand lifts, my body taking control without my mind, knowing something I don’t—that it’s the most natural thing in the world for my fingers to glide into his hair. My nails trace over Rowan’s scalp and he sighs, pressing his forehead harder against my stomach as I do it again and lose myself to the cadence of a simple touch repeated.

The heat of his breath climbs from my navel, between my breasts, over my heart, following my surging pulse as Rowan slowly rises from his bent knee. I can’t bring myself to take my touch away. My fingers slide from his damp hair until my palm rests on his cheek and the stubble that rasps against my skin. Rowan leans into my touch. He brings his hand to rest over mine as though I might fade away if he lets go.

“Sloane,” he says, his eyes soldered to my lips. My name is a whisper of salvation and suffering as he says it again. A thick swallow shifts in the column of Rowan’s throat. “I can’t lose you.”

“Then you’d better kiss me,” I whisper back.

Rowan meets my eyes. His hands warm my cheeks. We’re just a breath of space away from one another, and I know everything will change once his lips touch mine.

And it’s true.