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“I’ll explain later. I promise.” He turned his back on the fire and the weeks he’d struggled through to be here. Every step away he took felt like tearing a piece out of his own chest.

He’d fucking fought for this.

He’d earned his way up this mountain, past men who doubted him and a track record that said he didn’t belong here.

Now he was walking away from it for a stranger with a fake name and a fever because the alternative—leaving her out here alone, injured and burning up—wasn’t something he could live with.

He found her exactly as he left her, lying face up, teeth chattering. He crouched to slip an arm under her waist before she could protest again.

“Come on. I’ve got you.”

* * * * *

Whitley surfaced from a burning fog in her mind, suddenly breaking through the thickness that she’d been trapped beneath for…how long?

Too long, her mind told her.

Her eyes focused on her surroundings and she realized she was walking. Her legs were moving, one foot in front of the other.

Where was she walking? The last thing she remembered was devouring beef jerky. After that, a blank.

She threw a look at her surroundings, trying to make out any landmarks in the darkness. Maybe that tree was the one where she turned to go to her camp. Or the line of bushes marked that she was close to the hiding spot under the rock ledge.

The missing time felt like it loomed close, almost within her grasp. Then it slipped out of her hands and she lost an entire chunk again.

One second she’d been closing a bag of beef jerky and the next she was here, with no memory of the space between.

And her skin felt all wrong, too tight in some places, too loose in others. Every few steps she took, a wave of cold would roll through her despite the fact that her shirt was soaked with sweat. It trickled down her neck in a thick sheet, and she wanted to peel off all her layers and let the air cool her flesh.

She might not know where she was but she knew that she was experiencing a medical emergency. At this moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care very much.

An arm banded around her waist, taking most of her weight. She turned her head and there he was. The man from the mountain.

She couldn’t recall his name. But god, he was good-looking. She hadn’t let herself notice before. She was too busy being terrified that he was on the mountain to find her.

But through her half-conscious haze, she noticed everything, from the sharp cut of his jaw to the set of his muscular shoulders as he half carried her forward. She looked down to see his forearm roped with muscle where he’d rolled his sleeves to his elbows.

She could probably use his biceps as a pillow while she was busy dying.

A small, lucid part of her recognized that if she wasn’t such a mess, and she wasn’t in hiding, she might like to spend more time in this man’s arms.

The trees around them swam at the edges, dark shapes that bled into darker ones. She blinked hard, trying to force the world back into focus.

“Where are we?” The question burst out of her, and once the floodgate opened, more followed behind it. “How long have we been walking? Where are you taking me?”

“You’re sick. I’m taking you to a hospital as soon as we get off this mountain.” He sounded like his jaw was tight and he had to force his words through clenched teeth.

“I can’t go to a hospital. Do you understand? I can’t—”

“You’ll die if you don’t go to a hospital.”

Now his voice was steady and flat. Hearing that bald fact should have scared her, but the fever was burning away her ability to be scared of anything at all.

“Then at least I’ll die on my own terms.” She was aware she was still walking with him, propelled down the mountain, headed to places she couldn’t safely go.

He didn’t slow down. In fact, he tightened his grip as though her arguments made him more determined. “Fine. Then I’ll take you somewhere safe. There’s a doctor there.”

Panic sparked through the fever fog, slicing through the haze. “You’re military. Are you taking me to a military base? Because if it’s military, you need to turn around right now. I mean it! I’ll walk back up the mountain myself before I let anyone—”