Page 30 of A Snowed in Valentine's

That was true. The other possibility was that he might actually be falling in love with this woman, and that would be terrible because if it were true, then it meant a betrayal, not onlyof himself but of his entire lineage, of Alaina’s memory, of everything he’d known to be true or real.

A witch hunter in love with a witch. The thought didn’t sit well in his mind. But his heart and mind weren’t always in concert. This was one of the times.

Valentine’s Day was in a matter of weeks. The anniversary of Alaina’s death. And he just might be spending it around a witch whose body he had already explored more than once in a ravenous frenzy. Guilt prodded his mind at that thought. He knew he shouldn’t feel this way because Alaina was gone now. Yet a part of him also knew that heshouldfeel guilty because the woman now in his arms represented the danger he had devoted his life to eliminating.

I’m still alive,she’d told him the other day.What changed?

A crackle brought his attention to the fire, which was slowly dying, resulting in a gradual drop in temperature. The light in the living room had grown dim. They would be out of firewood soon. And what would happen then? Perhaps he would start tossing the floorboards into the fire to keep it going.

With some reluctance, he let go of Daphne, setting her gently on the floor next to him. She sighed in her sleep and curled up in a ball, her golden hair sweeping across her face. Smiling to himself, he turned and went to grab a couple of logs, chucking them onto the fire, one after the other.

He never saw the explosion coming.

One second, he was tossing logs into the fireplace, and the next, a gust of wind filled the fireplace, and there was a burst of flame. He fell backward onto his behind, staring in shock as the flames spread from the fireplace, snaking up the walls to the rafters.

The entire living room was on fire now, a flame brighter than he’d ever seen.

August’s eyes widened. The cabin was burning!

His heart threatened to explode as he hurried over to Daphne’s unconscious form. The explosion hadn’t roused her from sleep. From what August could see, the flames had singed a few strands of her hair. Her clothes were somewhat blackened. Other than that, she seemed okay. For now.

The fire was spreading overhead. Even the walls were ablaze now. The air seemed to shimmer with heat. How was a fire possible in this weather, he wondered, but a single priority filled his mind:Protect her.Hooking his hands under Daphne’s armpits, he pulled her as far away from the fireplace as he could.

“No!” he screamed as a burning beam fell from above. He moved his body and hers out of the way before it hit them, and it landed heavily on the floorboards. If he’d been a hair slower…

It didn’t matter. The flames were going to consume the cabin before long. The falling beam was only the beginning. They needed to get out of there before the whole place burned down around them. But how? The exits were still blocked by snow, making the cabin that had been his home for so many decades a death trap.

His eyes continued to scan their surroundings for something,anythingthat might help them escape. His gaze landed on the table in the corner, but he had only a moment to consider ducking under it with Daphne before the flames reached it as well.

Damnit!The cabin was growing hotter by the second. If falling beams didn’t kill them, they would get burned to death or suffocate as the flames consumed the breathable air around them.

He heard a deep groan, causing him to glance up.

“Oh, no,” he said.

And then he did the only thing that made sense to him at that moment: he dropped into a crouch, cradling Daphne in his arms,and shielded her body with his as the roof of the cabin came down, plunging everything into darkness.

***

He could barely hear a thing, and for a moment, he assumed he must be dead. Then, it dawned on him that if he could still fathom such an idea, then he must be alive. He drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with air and gratitude.

He was still crouched down, still holding Daphne’s body in his arms. Snow and blackened wood surrounded them, and there was some charcoal on the ground around him, but…he was alive. Slowly, tentatively, he lifted his head. The roofhadcollapsed, along with the rest of the cabin. But August had been spared. A pair of beams falling at the same time had gotten stuck among the rubble, barely a foot above his head. If they hadn’t, both August and Daphne would have been crushed to death.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived as concern gripped his heart again. There was no telling how long the beams would remain in place. He needed to find a way out of there. He searched their surroundings until he spied on a small opening in the rubble. His heart fluttered with relief as he pulled Daphne toward the opening, taking great care not to injure her in the process. He didn’t stop moving until he was clear of the collapsed cabin. Outside, the blizzard continued to rage, the wind howling in his ears, flecks of snow pelting him.

Damn,he thought, squinting at the spot where the cabin had once stood.

He never guessed the thing would explode. Perhaps it had something to do with the wood. The flames had engulfed the structure before he could contain them; between that and the fact that he’d been concentrating on Daphne, he’d lost his only home.

Daphne.

He drew his attention back to her, his heartbeat accelerating once again. She was still alive, right? Unhurt? The other possibility lingered in the back of his mind, but he refused to acknowledge it.

With trembling fingers, he took her hand in his, checking her wrist for a pulse, and breathed a sigh as he detected it, somewhat faint but steady. It wasn’t until he started to lower her hand that he realized something wasn’t quite right.

The binding mark—the Kane insignia—was gone.

The back of her hand was completely bare. August swallowed. The mark must have been burned off somehow in the accident. The explosion that had singed her hair must have also erased it. The witch was free again.

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