A Night by My Fire

in that certain way.

Yet this vagrant waited. Still. As if she counted the pulses stretching the veins in his neck. As if she knew him.

Unacceptable.

He did scare her. He was scaring her. And a point needed to be made.

The risk she’d taken saving a stranger larger than a linebacker and as grateful as a psychopath put her in a bad position. Someone had left him to die... good men didn’t get dumped in the cold.

Good women didn’t live alone in the tundra.

But this female, this thing, was forcing his hand. Holding his gaze as if to say that if he was going to kill her, she’d rather see it face on than wait for him to strangle her in her sleep. Yet as they held their ground, a strange thing happened.

He leaned down, began screaming another language in her face, and she flinched.

And that automatic, inexorable response was all it took.

Stephen staggered back.

He put distance between them... and those strange, blue eyes held something he had not known in ages. Remorse.

There was no word of apology, just the sounds of a panting animal and the silence of a woman pretending she was not frightened of it.

Speaking in a whisper, confused as he backed even further away, he said, “I don’t think I am going to hurt you.”

“Fuck… that’s reassuring.”

How did this go so sideways? “You should have let me drown.”

Visibly swallowing, sweat on her temples, she breathed out her personal truth. “I could never do that.”

By all that was holy, such a statement was even more upsetting. “...a noble woman.” He said the words with more disgust than admiration.

“You forgot to add dirty.”

Very dirty. The exact opposite of the sweet smelling women Mikhailov kept or the females Stephen had been sent to kill. Everything about her was an enigma. “It’s a wonder you have survived this world.”

She tossed back a braid, dared lift a brow, and asked, “Are we having an actual conversation now, or is this the precursor to something terrible?”

That was an excellent and worthy question. “The only thing I know how to be is terrible.”

He was not disparaging himself. He was being the epitome of existence: honest.

And it seemed, after a tired breath, she too would offer the same. “Seven hikers I have saved when I found them wandering, or hurt, or about to be eaten by nature they didn’t respect as they should have. Twice that number were dead before I came across their tracks. Survivors always have one thing in common—they wanted to live more than they wanted to wallow in their stupidity. If you don’t want to live, walk outside right now. Take all that anger festering where it matters. It’s dark, you won’t last long, but your rage might make you think you’re warm as you freeze to death.”

He paused before slowly retaking his seat on the couch. It groaned under his weight, complaining in creaks over a body honed by years of hard labor and determination. “Who would help you carry the caribou?”

Snorting, she gave a lopsided grin. “I’d just cut it up and make more than one trip. When I’m lucky, the smarter wildlife doesn’t get to it before I get back.”

“I will carry the animal, alone.”

A soft look; a female look. A look that said she understood he lacked the capacity to understand what this was. “You can’t. As you are, you can’t carry a caribou by yourself. You shouldn’t even try. You don’t know the way. There is no point in posturing. Not out here. Out here you’re nothing... you’re brand new.”

The weight of his elbows resting on his knees, Stephen turned his attention back to the fire, ending the conversation.

Chapter Three

Stephen didn’t think sleep would come, not like it did for the woman breathing softly in her tilted chair. He was weary, too tired to rest. But sleep did come, and when he woke, she was gone and didn’t return until hours past dark, banging through the door with a brace of rabbits and a bulging pack full of meat that could have only come from one animal.