I'm Elowen Grieve, and the rain came down so hard I could not see my own boots on the road.
I ran for the old tide mill with my coat over my head and Maddox's words still crawling under my skin.
The mill smelled like wet wood and old salt, and the whole floor hummed with the river pushing underneath it.
I got the door shut behind me and stood there dripping in the dark, glad to be anywhere that was not his house.
Then a shape moved at the far end of the mill, and I put my back against the wall before I could stop myself.
Bryce: Easy. It's just me.
It was Bryce. County sheriff, Alpha, the man whose quiet voice had made my wolf go still.
A storm lantern sat between us, and his canvas jacket was black with rain.
Bryce: Door's jammed. Water's over the causeway. We're stuck.
Stuck. Alone with him. My wolf would not settle, and I did not know if that was fear or something worse.
Elowen: How long?
Bryce: Hours. Maybe all night.
Bryce: You're shaking. Take this.
He put his jacket around my shoulders before I could say no, and it was warm from his body.
It smelled like cedar and rain and him, and I pulled it so tight my fingers hurt.
I tried to stop my teeth from knocking together. I could not.
His eyes went to my collar, where the sweater had slipped, and the old scars sat there in the lantern light.
I put my hand over them, too late, the way I always am.
Bryce: Who did that to you?
His voice was quiet. It was the quiet that scared me.
Elowen: I'm clumsy. I fall.
The lie came out smooth, because I have said it so many times it knows the way.
Bryce: That's not what clumsy looks like.
Bryce: Who the fuck hurt you? Say it plain.
Maddox's voice slid into my head then, sweet the way he gets before he is filthy.
He said I was a warm body and a dirty floor, and I should be grateful anybody wiped his boots on me.
My face went hot in the cold, and shame sat in me like a stone I had swallowed.
If he knew I was in this mill with a sheriff, he would not stop at my arm.
Bryce's hand came up and stopped an inch from my jaw, like he was asking.
Bryce: Look at me. Not the floor. Me.
I looked up, and his face was so close I could see the rain on his lashes.
Then his mouth was on mine, and it was not gentle, and I did not want gentle.
I got my hands in his wet hair and pulled him closer.
His hands found my waist and walked me back against the beam, and I kissed him like I was starving, because I was.
My wolf made a sound inside me I have never heard her make.
Bryce: Tell me it's not him. Tell me nobody put those marks on you.
His mouth was still wet from mine and his voice had gone rough.
Elowen: I have a mate. I have to go back.
I said it with his taste still on my tongue, and my wolf went quiet like I had hit her.
He let me go. He did not shout or grab.
Bryce: All right. But I'll be at that door when the water drops.
Bryce: And I'll be asking again.
I stood in his coat in the dark with my heart going like a trapped thing.
He had asked who hurt me, and I had covered for the man who did it, and all I could think was, please do not ask me again.