Page 102 of Crucible
But when I left the cabin, I didn’t flee in fear of them. I was terrified, yes, but not of them. It’s why I had to leave.
The thermal blanket that looks like a foil tarp is now wrapped tightly around my body as Thorin carries me from the fire. Seth not only managed to light it, but he’d built a small enclosure to keep it from going out. He’s crouching by it now, his lean frame shivering as he holds his hands close to the flames to warm them. I’d never noticed before how long and capable his fingers were until the glow of the fire touched them.
Why does that stick out to me at a time like this? Only a licensed therapist can tell.
Embedded in the snow next to him is the ice pick I’d stolen.
Thorin and I only go a few feet before he says to Khalil, who’s following us, “You go first, and then I’ll hand her to you to pull inside.”
Khalil does as Thorin says, and the moment he crouches and disappears, Thorin looks down at me like he’d known all along I was awake. Like a coward, I quickly snap my eyes closed.
“You’re a pain in my ass, wolf.” When I just continue to play dead, I think I hear him chuckle, albeit reluctantly. “Sleep, Aurelia. We’ll be home soon.”
I shiver in his arms, and he clutches me tighter.
Thorin lowers me to the ground again when Khalil calls out, and then I feel Khalil’s hands under my shoulders, dragging me across the snow. The last thing I see before I give in to Thorin’s demand is the mouth of the hollowed-out snow mound before I’m pulled inside its dark interior.
“She was screaming and stabbing the ground when I found her,” I hear Seth whisper when I come to again.
The storm seems calmer now, but that could change at any moment.
We’re not out of the woods yet.
“You think something attacked her?” Khalil asks right by my ear. I can hear the frown in his voice and his cold breath skating over my cheek. It must be his chest I’m lying on.
“Maybe…but she was alone.”
Khalil’s chest rises sharply, and then he and Thorin swear.
What? No. What is Seth talking about? There were wolves. Didn’t he see them? What about my injuries?
They don’t know I’m awake, so I keep as still as possible even though I want to check my arm and shoulder where the wolves bit and clawed me and thenscreamat Seth for making me sound crazy.
But wait—he wasn’t the one who found me.
It was—
“But that’s now our biggest problem,” Seth mumbles before I can finish the thought.
“What?” Thorin and Khalil both ask tightly.
“She kept calling me Tyler.”
It’s silent, and I wonder if they can hear my heart racing. Seth says I’d called himTyler? No, that’s not right. It’d felt so real.He’dfelt so real. Tyler was alive. He’d made it. He’d—
“You mean the kid we found a week ago?” Thorin asks dryly,
I black out again.
AURELIA
It’s morning when I wake up a final time, and I’m warm. Burning is more accurate. I also don’t hear the storm anymore. All I hear is the steady heartbeat beneath my ear. I could write a song to that chaotic rhythm.
“Morning, Sunshine.”
When I lift my head, I see Seth’s face staring down at me. He looks relieved and angry and hurt and…something else I don’t want to name because it’sinsane. “It was you,” I gasp as I curl my fingers into his thermal shirt. I feel his hard abs right below my fingers as my lips tremble with that same unnamed emotion. “You came for me.”
Seth’s cold lips brush my forehead. “I’ll always come for you, Sunshine. I told Thanatos that you were mine, and he couldn’t have you. Not without taking me too.”
