007

MAEVE

The ceiling was wrong.

It was too high and too smooth, with no roots poking through it. For a few seconds I lay there, waiting for Noah's boots to scrape across the floor and tell me to get up.

Nothing. Only a quiet that felt expensive. The sheet under my cheek smelled like tobacco.

It all came back at once. The border. The cold floor. A hand around my neck, my bones cracking, and a voice growling mine into my hair like I was something he'd won.

I shot out of the bed so fast the blanket wrapped around my legs and nearly sent me to the floor. My heart was pounding like I'd just run a mile. I spun in a circle with my fists up, ready for him.

The room was empty. Just a huge bed, a table, a couch, and a window with the night pressed against it.

I looked down. I was still wearing his shirt. It hung to my thighs, soft and enormous, and it smelled so much like him that I wanted to tear it off right there.

My own clothes were back by the river with Noah, which meant this shirt was all I had.

"Fine," I muttered. "If you're going to keep me in your things, I might as well borrow something else."

The wardrobe was big and full of black shirts in neat rows. On the bottom shelf, I found a pair of jeans. I held them against my waist. They would have fit a bear. I stepped into them anyway, rolled the waist twice and the legs three times, and checked myself. Ridiculous. But better than wearing a stranger's shirt and nothing else.

Now the window. I crossed the room with my hand already reaching for the latch.

Then I smelled it.

Food.

A tray sat on the table by the wall. Meat, thick slices of bread, roasted vegetables, and a bowl that had stopped steaming a while ago. I took one step toward it. Then another, slowly, like it might bite.

My mouth ached. I couldn't remember the last time I'd smelled anything this good. Maybe I never had. Out in the bush, a good day meant a rabbit split between two people. A bad day meant bark and river water. Hiding had never left room for plates like this one.

"I need to eat fast," I whispered to myself. "To save my strength."

And save the rest for Noah.

He would be sick with worry by now, sitting by the water with that useless hand, counting the hours. I picked up a piece of meat and stuffed it into my mouth, then bread, then a roasted vegetable. Three bites, and I almost cried. It tasted warm even though it wasn't. It tasted like someone had cared how it turned out.

I made myself stop.

A plastic bag lay on the table beside the tray. I held it open and poured in everything that was left, knotted it tight, and folded it into the waistband of the jeans, wedged flat against my stomach under his shirt. The shirt hid the bulge. Good enough.

I went to the door and grabbed the handle.

It didn't turn.

I tried again, harder. Then I threw my shoulder into it.

Locked.

"He locked it?" I hissed at the empty room. "Who locks a door like that? Damn him. He’ll be damned for this, you hear me?"

No one answered. I hadn't expected anyone to.

That left the window.

I went back and pushed it open. Cold air rushed in, smelling of wolves. Lots of wolves. I would have to be very careful and not be seen.

A black cap lay on the couch. I snatched it up, twisted my hair into a rope, shoved it under the cap, and pulled the brim low over my eyes. Then I climbed onto the sill, took a breath, and dropped.

It wasn't as far as I'd feared. My feet hit the ground and my knees stung, but I stayed upright. I crouched against the wall and listened.

I smelled the guards before I saw them. Sweat and the sharp metal of wolves on patrol, all around the compound, in a ring that grew tighter the longer I breathed it in.

Shifting was out of the question. A wolf running loose in the middle of a pack's home would be dead in seconds. It wouldn't help.

"Careful, Maeve," I whispered. "Walk Slowly."

I crept along the wall, one hand against the wall. Halfway down, a pair of boots crunched toward me from the corner, a guard walking his round. My stomach dropped. I turned and slid the other way, around the side of a building, and stood against the wall with my chest heaving and my fist pressed to my mouth.

The footsteps passed.

I let out my breath and looked around.

Men. Everywhere I looked, there were only men. Two by a gate, one on a roof, a group laughing near a fire. Not a single woman. Not one.

Noah had told me and I had known it all my life. But it was different to see it, to stand in a place so big and so full and feel how empty it was of anyone like me.

I shook it off and kept moving.

I picked another route, then another, slipping from shadow to shadow, stopping every time the wind changed. My legs were trembling by the time the buildings thinned out. The ground got softer, and the smell of pine grew thick.

Trees.

I stumbled into the woods and put my hand on the nearest trunk. My whole body sagged with relief.

I'd made it.

I started walking, still careful, with the bag pressed tight against my stomach and the cap low on my head. Every step took me farther from that room, from that scent, from his hands. A few more minutes and I would be at the border. A few more hours and I would be sitting beside Noah, pushing food into his good hand and telling him he was a fool for worrying.

"Stop right there."

The voice came from behind me, deep and hard.

I froze.

"Turn around. Now."

I closed my eyes. "Perfect," I breathed. "Just perfect."

Footsteps crunched closer. A second voice muttered, quieter, "Wait. That looks like a female."

"It can't be," the first one said. "Probably not." Then he raised his voice until it rang off the trees. "I said turn around! This instant!"

My heart slammed against my ribs. I looked over my shoulder at the dark trees ahead of me, and the dark men behind.

"Lord help me," I whispered.

And I bolted.