Page 13 of Rook
Wanting him was the worst possible thing she could do.
She scrubbed her hands across her face and busied herself with pulling on her boots, knotting the laces tight as if to punish her wandering thoughts. Focus. Get up, gear up, survive.
“Good morning,” she forced out. Her voice sounded scraped raw. She cleared her throat. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Functional.” Rook’s answer was brief, almost clipped. His gaze flickered from her to the slatted window. His jaw tightened, every muscle going alert. “Stay there,” he commanded. His voice was quiet but so final she almost obeyed.
He might have looked like a Roman general, but that didn’t make Sasha his legionnaire. She untangled herself from the blanket, her feet finding the splintery boards with a caution bred by years of sneaking out of places she should not have been.
The moth-eaten curtain was drawn mostly over the window. Rook stood tense and tried to peer through a sliver of the glass. His hand hovered near the table’s edge, his body drawn taut as a bowstring.
“Your fugitives?” she barely breathed. The words felt like prying open a door in her chest she desperately wanted to keep shut. They shouldn’t have been able to find them there, not unless they were using some ultra-futuristic alien tech. The cabin was not on any recent maps. It was a spot passed down from trail guide to trail guide, a local secret.
Alien slavers need not apply.
Sasha edged to the other side of the window and lifted a corner of the curtain. Cold air trickled in, raising goosebumps along her arms. Through the grimy glass, she could make out big, shaggy shapes moving outside. One of the shapes lumbered up to the porch steps, sniffed a bit of old tarp, then rolled onto its back like it owned the place.
Relief unfurled inside her. Not total, but enough to unclench her shoulders.
“I will take care of this,” Rook said, his voice low and dangerous as he rose to his feet.
Sasha’s hand shot out. “What’s there to take care of?”
“There are foul beasts stalking our camp,” he announced, his voice fierce with alarm. His frame seemed to expand in the small room, his chest rising as if preparing for battle.
“Those are black bears.” A sound that was half a laugh and half an exasperated sigh escaped her. “We’re in their woods. And they won’t try to come inside.” She risked a look at him, her head tilted, and tried not to smile at the confusion on his face. “There’s no food out. They won’t bother us.”
Her stomach chose that moment to protest, letting out a growl so loud that even Rook’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. For a moment, the night’s danger seemed absurd. Alien slavers were one thing, but California’s oldest, laziest residents were just going about their morning, unbothered by dragons or women with yesterday’s makeup smudged under their eyes.
Yet Rook stood rigid, prepared to face a monster. It took her a second to notice the faint wisp of what looked like actual smoke rising from his skin just above his collar. It shimmered in the weak light, coiling off him in barely visible threads.
“Are you smoking? How?” The words slipped free before she could catch them. She had seen impossible things in these woods. That still topped the list.
Rook glanced down at his arm as if surprised. “It does not matter. If you say they will leave, I shall trust you.”
There was a moment, a kind of standoff, where she expected him to charge out there anyway, fire in his hands. Instead, he hesitated, his gaze searching her face before backing slowly away from the window. He moved with that same odd nobility, like a general making a calculated retreat. He stood a few feet back, arms folded over his chest, the strange smoke still curling gently from his skin.
Sasha kept her spot at the window. Outside, the bears wandered off, their heavy bodies disappearing into the trees. Their bulk and steadiness felt different from anything she had spent the night running from. Bears did not worry about dragon slavers or dead exes. Their world was food and sun and the gentle rhythm of the seasons.
It must be nice.
Her chest went tight with longing. Not for their ease, she wasn’t built for sleeping all winter, but for the simplicity of being. The simplicity of existing without the weight of everything trying to chase her out of the world.
For a moment, she watched the empty porch as if she could absorb its peace. The day outside carried on with or without her.
Behind her, Rook finally let out a breath. She didn’t turn. She let herself wish for that kind of peace, even as she knew she would never have it. Not there. Not anywhere a man could set the woods on fire with a snap of his fingers.
Sasha pulled the curtain shut and stepped back from the window. She looked for coffee, or tea, or even an old can of beans. Anything that would taste like being alive and not hunted. For a while longer, she would let Rook think she was in control, that everything really would be all right. Because somebody had to be.
8
Rook tried not to stare at Sasha as she led him down the narrow trail. The light snagged in her hair, finding the hidden strands of amber and auburn beneath the chestnut, painting her skin in delicate, golden strokes. She moved with a purpose that never left him behind, a half-step ahead, always aware of his injured shoulder.
She was a beauty. A temptation.
Forbidden.
Not by any law. Not by his king. But by his own code. Rook was on Earth for a job, to hunt down slavers and mete out his people’s justice. He couldn’t be sidetracked by soft hair and bright eyes.
