Page 25 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
Unit A.
We had six small cabins on The Sanctuary’s grounds.
Two were always reserved for those brought under Sovereign Sanctum’s wing.
Unit A and Unit B.
They were used as housing while the women and children we were protecting were transitioned from their old lives to their new.
Which was why Madge’s eyes had bugged out of her skull when I’d told her I was going to put Piper, her son, and grandmother into Unit B.
She knew I was going off course. Maybe right off the rails with the way Piper immediately lit something inside me.
The woman the fucking storm that she’d ridden in on. Those eyes just as icy as the lake, her demeanor just as frigid.
All that delicious fire sparking underneath.
Something about her gripped me, and it wasn’t just the fact that she had to be the most stunning woman to ever cross my path.
Face this entrancing thing that I could stare at all damn day. Body nothing but bait. My unruly cock far too interested in falling right into that trap.
It was what was scored underneath.
The harrowed desperation that lit the blazing fire in those arctic eyes. Like the only choice she had was fighting every step of the way.
The woman battle clad.
Armor shielding every inch of her heart and turbulent spirit.
It made me fuckin’ antsy. Curls of awareness fluttering around at the edges of my consciousness, a quiet moan that told me she was in trouble.
Didn’t buy for a second that they’d been on their way to Moonlit Ridge for a short vacation.
There was something deeper. Something that made me want to reach in and dig out all her secrets. Promise her I would hold them. Do any fucking thing required to wipe that frenzied panic off her face.
But I couldn’t get close like that. Not with the way I was itching to dive in and discover.
I’d do well to remember it.
I forced my attention back on my purpose. The duty I’d pledged my life to.
A penance for the wrongs, like there’d be a chance in hell that I could make up for them.
I swept my flashlight out into the oppressive woods. The beam of light glinted against the mounds of snow that hadgathered thick, the branches of the trees sagging with their weight.
The night echoed back.
A vacant call of nothingness.
Still, I sat in the agitation that never faded.
Waited.
Nothing but the cold, hushed calm.
Blowing out a sigh, I turned and trudged back through the two-foot-deep powder, my legs disappearing up to my knees.
I swept my flashlight back and forth as I went, an edge of severity carved into my being as I searched for any trace that things had gone amiss.
