A nape he desperately wanted to sink his fangs into.
“Knox?” She leaned closer to him, her breasts pressing to his back, wreaking havoc on him together with how her jaw brushed his neck as she brought her mouth to his ear. “Did you hear me?”
He grunted, barely leashing another growl, aware that this close to him she would hear it over the noise of the wind as it shook the trees.
“Not much further,” he bit out, cursed when he sounded terse. He softened his tone, which took a monumental effort when he was constantly on the verge of growling, wrestling the need to pin her against every damned tree they passed and kiss her. He should have kissed her when he’d had her pinned to that tree. “We’ll be there soon.”
He opened his eyes and focused on the route ahead of them, on protecting Skye. She went back to sweeping their tracks away, something a part of him knew was only going to delay Karl finding them.
The male would find them.
And Knox was fine with that.
He just needed time to get Skye settled in the lodge, get his fated female all safe and sound, out of danger.
And then he was going to deal with Karl and his men.
Chapter 13
It was pitch black by the time Knox finally slowed and began to walk up a rise in the woods where the trees were thin enough that she could see through the canopy in places. She wasn’t sure how he could see where they were going. She could barely make out the trunks of the trees they passed and only those that were closest to them, within a few feet. Either he had really good night vision or he really did know this valley like the back of his hand as he had claimed.
Snow swirled around them again, growing heavier as they entered an area where the trees were even sparser.
She huddled against Knox’s back, unashamedly stealing his heat. She had given up covering their tracks when the branch had felt as heavy as a lead weight in her hand, and the snow had been falling so thick and fast that it was covering their tracks for them. She had discarded the branch and opted to cuddle into Knox’s broad back instead. He had responded by shifting his hands higher up her thighs and drawing her closer still, and had told her to keep her head down.
Skye had rested it against his spine, close to his nape, shielding herself from the snow and wind.
Snow and wind that had his fleece shirt soaked through. She was freezing, every muscle in her body stiff and her mind sluggish, and she was wearing a weatherproof coat designed for the frigid climate. She could only imagine how cold Knox was in only his shirt.
“We’re here.” Those words roused her from the sleep that beckoned her and she took hold of his shoulders and pulled herself up.
Her eyes widened.
The lodge wasn’t small as she had expected.
It was a sprawling, single-storey log building that had a porch that ran around two sides of it—the front and an area to the right. Along that side, firewood had been stacked against a wall that capped it off at the far end, half-covered in a tarp. The middle of the lodge, where the door was, had a gable window above the sloping roof of the porch. Snow covered the entire roof and had built up in places around the raised deck.
Knox carried her up the steps to that deck and paused.
She realised he was waiting for her to get down. “I think I’m too stiff to move.”
He chuckled warmly, heating her through. “You’re fine just where you are. Hang on.”
He reached up to the top of the doorframe, grabbed a key, and opened the door. The inside was even darker than it was outside, but Knox unerringly carried her to a couch, turned her back to it and eased down.
She dropped onto it and was thankful when Knox kept his back to her, giving her a moment to convince her legs to move. She slowly lowered them and moved them together, slumped on the couch in the darkness.
“I’ll light a fire.” Knox went to move.
She lunged upright and grabbed him, locking her hand tight around his wrist. “No. The men. They’ll see the smoke.”
Knox turned towards her and gently placed his hand over hers, and she wished she could see his face. His voice was soft, tender, a comfort to her as he said, “They’ll see nothing in this storm, Skye, and I’m not about to let you freeze to death.”
His hand brushed hers, fingers grazing her knuckles, working black magic on her that had her relaxing, the momentary burst of panic releasing her from its grip. She covered his hand with hers and held it a moment, not wanting him to let go and fearing that he might.
Two years she had been waiting to see him again and she still couldn’t. She peered up into the darkness, wanting it gone so she could look into his eyes and see that everything was going to be all right.
So she could see in those same eyes that the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had affected her.
She was dreaming now.
She released his hand and took her other one back, tucked both against her damp jacket as the warmth that had been slowly filling her fell away, leaving her frozen to her soul. Two years. Two long years and not once had he tried to contact her. If the moment they had shared had affected him as deeply as it had her, he wouldn’t have walked out in the dead of night and never contacted her.
Knox lingered a moment and then he sighed and moved away from her. She busied herself with removing her boots, trying to shut him out and ignore what he was doing as he moved around only a few feet from her. A bright golden light flared and her head darted up, her eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light. It chased over Knox’s profile as he stared at the long match and then lowered it towards the grate of the fireplace. It didn’t take long for the fire to catch and spread, brightening the room and revealing Knox to her.
His dark blond hair was slicked back, the wet strands shining in the firelight, and the handsome planes of his face had settled in a hard expression as he stared at the fire, shifting a log with the iron to allow the flames to spread beneath it.
A distance had grown between them since she had taken her hand back, one she knew was her fault. One she wasn’t sure how to narrow down again. She hadn’t meant to push him away, didn’t want to be cold and bitter towards him, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing him again after two years, having him act as if nothing had changed between them, as if those two years hadn’t existed for him, was difficult for her. He had hurt her, and as much as she didn’t want to be petty and punish him, part of her wanted him to hurt too. She wanted him to know the pain he had caused her.
“I’ll… uh… I’ll get the generator going.” He stood and pivoted away from the fire, disappeared into a room off to her right, at the rear of the lodge, before she could say a word or stop him.
Skye unzipped her coat and looked at the L-shaped black couch, realised she couldn’t dump the wet item on it and forced herself to stand. Her legs were still stiff as she walked to the front door and closed it. She lingered there, clutching her jacket in front of her as she stared out into the swirling storm. It was a whiteout. That gave her comfort, eased the part of her that feared Karl was going to appear at any moment.
Knox was right and the men wouldn’t find the lodge in this storm in the dark. It would be a miracle if they found the lodge at all. They must have crossed the valley and covered a vast distance to reach this place. As far as she remembered, the glacier was a long way up the valley, almost twice the distance than the small hunter’s cabin had been from the trailhead.