Page 13 of Gunnar

“I won’t let you get yourself killed, Alexandria.” His voice is rougher now, like it’s mingled with the sound of his beast. “If you run, I will come after you.”

A shiver goes through me.

I don’t know whether this should calm me or terrify me.

For a moment neither of us moves.

The road ahead of us is darkening. The clearing feels much farther away now.

He releases me abruptly.

I step back at once, rubbing my arm where his fingers were.

I look down the road again.

Then back at him.

“I’m not staying,” I say.

He holds my gaze. “You’re not leaving.”

4

Alexandria

The front door of the lodge is stuck.

Gunnar puts his shoulder to it, and it gives.

I step inside.

The air is colder than outside, and it smells kind of stale.

There’s dust on everything. A long table shoved against one wall. Chairs that don’t match. A couch that looks like it’s been through several lives and lost most of them.

One of the windows is boarded over from the inside. Another has a crack running from corner to corner like a fault line.

I stand there.

I don’t mean to. I just… stop.

Behind me, the door slams shut.

When the cops said safehouse, I imagined a secure unit. Modern. Alarms. Triple-lock doors.

Now I’m in a place that looks like it should come with a tetanus shot.

It looks abandoned.

I let out a slow breath.

“This is where you live?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

He takes in the room like he’s seeing it through my eyes for the first time.

“Yes,” he says finally.