He releases a lengthy sigh before he places a kiss to my forehead. “You’re right. Give me five minutes.” He disappears down a side hallway, leaving me with the silent fall of snow from all around.

I expel the trapped breath from my lungs before I get to work. After I’ve lugged the boxes from the vehicle and stacked them near the raised stone hearth, I open the screen and use a remote to light the fire. To ensure the flames burn hot enough, I wedge additional tinder between the artificial firelogs.

This feels strangely ironic, as the last time Kallum and I were preparing to destroy evidence, I was the one in the shower while he built a fire. Kallum would say history repeats itself. At the thought, a chill prickles my skin despite the warmth.

While I wait, I walk to the backlit wet bar and debate between water and liquor. “Fuck it,” I mutter and grab an expensive-looking bottle of bourbon and pour a shot into a rocks glass. Then I kneel before the fireplace and set the glass on the hearth.

As I drag the first file box toward me, the second box vies for my attention, the contents within where I need Kallum’s input. But first…

I tow the lid off and remove the evidence of Alister’s assault on me. I withdraw the torn shirt I was wearing at the time and toss it on top of the logs. The skin cells I scraped from beneath my nails I sprinkle in next.

I watch the flames lick higher, the smell of smoke mentally luring me back to the marshland. Filling my lungs, I look through the window at the veil of snow glittering beneath the moonlight. Then I drag over the second box and lift the unlocked lid.

The sweatshirt Kallum gave me rests on top. I touch the sleeve, my thumb rubbing the soot stain absently as the firelight dances in my periphery to transport me back to that night.

My spine straightens at the sound of Kallum entering the room. Resigned, I push the box aside and toss back the whiskey to steel my nerves. Then I stand and face him.

The beat of my heart scales to a frantic pulse in my veins as I absorb the sight of him in only a pair of black joggers. I track the shaded blackwork tattoos covering the sculpted contours of his chest and arms, the healed-over scar along his side, down to the defined V-shaped abdominal muscles that descend beneath his waistband.

In one hand, he holds the shirt I was wearing the night I killed Wellington. In his other, the obsidian knife he used to sever the head.

Alcohol burns through my bloodstream, bolstering my steps toward him as I sweep my thermal over my head and let it drop to the floor.

His gaze devours every exposed inch of skin, his nostrils flare as I come to a stop just before him. I place my hands to the solid plane of his chest, his skin still warm from the hot shower, his hair wet and dark, his scent of spicy sandalwood heady and so overwhelmingly Kallum that a broken sound escapes as my hands wander over the scarred sigils carved in his flesh.

A muscle jumps along his tense jaw. “What about the evidence disposal?”

“Later,” I say, my voice as raw as my hunger for him. “I want you to make love to me, Kallum.”

A rough groan sounds from deep in his throat. “Fuck.”

Letting the objects in his hands fall to the floor, he slips his fingers beneath the straps of my bra and tows the garment down until I’m bared to him. The caged beast unleashed, he lowers down to grasp the backs of my thighs and lifts me against him. His mouth covetously seals over mine as he carries me toward the fire and sinks to his knees, where he splays me out before him.

He prowls over my body like a starved animal prowling over its prey. The empty black eyes in the skull of the stag look right into me, and I stare back into those hollow sockets as I drag my hands across Kallum’s inked skin, nails raking in hunger’s wake.

Kallum makes love to me on the rug near the fire. And it’s violent and passionate and tender, every touch branded to own, to possess. He buries himself inside me, his hips heavy between my thighs, the weight of his body a familiar comfort. A fierce growl is torn from the cavern of his chest as he rolls his hips and slams inside me.

Yearning and heartache are so similar in nature, the fiery ache of one easily exchanged for the other. I cling to his shoulders, consumed by the inferno as our bodies reconnect.

We’re both at the brink too soon, his thrusts increasing with force. He allows me to roll on top of him and straddle his hips. I shove his hands over his head and bear down on his wrists.

“Goddamn…” His tone is coarse, his thrusts driving up against me in desperate need.

This is the only time Kallum drops his guard enough not to see my next move.

I lower my face close to his, my eyes holding his bound as I say, “You never asked my name.”

As I stare into his intense gaze, I watch as it slowly registers, the understanding of what I’m saying.

“That night, you never asked my name, Kallum.”

Two things happen at once: I reach under the box and grab the handcuffs, latching one steel shackle around his wrist and the other to the metal bar of the wood rack. Kallum gets one arm banded around my lower back and drives his hips up to slam inside me with vicious, decimating thrusts. I seal my eyes closed.

“Look at me,” he growls.

My eyes instantly open, and an orgasm grips me, tearing through my body as I clench around the hard length of him. His muscles contract, and I feel him release deep inside me, his groan rumbling against my chest as I tremble through the peak of my climax.

A cruel and beautiful smile slants his mouth. “There you are, darkness.”

I pull back, slowly slipping farther out of his reach. The snow continues to fall in a hushed tone outside the windows, further insulating us as I quietly pull on my clothes.

“You said when the case was closed, you’d reveal every dark truth to me.” I toss Kallum his joggers. “It’s time to honor our deal.”

He sits up against the fireplace, his wrist handcuffed to the rack, his back to the flames. “I never asked, because I knew your name already, Halen St. James.”

I blink and nod, my thoughts churning as I cross my arms. “Question everything,” I say, my voice low, “the chance of our meeting, how you came into my life, even how long I’ve known you. Question everything…even the first time we met.”

“Oh, how I love the story of us.” He studies me closely, trying to gauge just how much of my memory I’ve recovered. “I might love it even more that you’re finally carrying handcuffs.”

“The longer I questioned, there were things that I just couldn’t reconcile,” I say, a shiver still clinging to my body as I let my thoughts tumble out. “In the university parking lot, you said, ‘come back to me.’ After you found me covered in blood, you said it just like that. The way you did when you carved a sigil in my thigh during the ritual, and in the SUV after the wreck—but it was then when it struck me, how odd of a thing that is to say to someone you’ve only just encountered. Then on the terrace, you said the first time you saw me was in the setting sun. Yet it was night when Wellington attacked me. So if I question everything, even the timeline, then all the hints you arrogantly dropped during the Hollow’s Row case start to paint a different picture.”

Kallum rattles the handcuff against the bar. “You know I’ll get free of this.”

I nod again, swallowing hard. “A magician with a bag of tricks. I’m well aware of your skills, Professor Locke. But first, I’m going to get what I came here for.”

I rub my thumb over the slashed scar on my palm, feeling the recurring pang in my chest. This has become a compulsion, like touching the verse on my forearm used to be.

As I remove the sweatshirt from the file box, I again touch the soot on the fabric. Then I hold the gray garment up to Kallum.