A Crown of Ashes
he muttered, voice gritty, a ghost of something—worry, maybe—slipping through.
“Stay close.” He cracked the door, peering out, the drizzle outside a soft hiss against the shack’s warped boards. She pressed in behind him, her chest brushing his back, and cursed the way it felt—his heat seeping through wet fabric, solid and alive, tugging at her when she needed to focus.
The woods were dark, shadows shifting in the rain, and her grip tightened on the poker. “Cliff road’s west,” she said, voice low, nodding toward a faint trail snaking through the trees. “They want me there, they’re waiting.”
Bab Populer