on myself just as Nicoli threw himself over me protectively.
I rested my hands on his chest, hunting for bare skin and soon found his throat, painting a frantic word against it. Run.
I couldn’t let him be found here with me, they’d kill him. And they’d do it slow and excruciatingly. I couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t bear it.
“You run with me or I’m carrying you. So which will it be, Winter?” he growled as he captured my chin, pulling so I was forced to look up. I met his eyes and a breath snagged in my throat as I found strength there in the depths of them. I didn’t have to die. Not with him at my side. And I wasn’t going to slow him down by making him carry me.
I nodded, the shaking of my limbs beginning to ease.
He pulled me up and suddenly we were running again, racing into the shadows between the thickest patch of trees where the snowmobiles wouldn’t be able to follow even if they found a way around the rocks we’d climbed. The dark was my friend for once, surrounding us and giving us cover.
“The snowmobile tracks lead down the mountain!” a man cried and Farley roared a command to follow the trail we’d laid.
The growl of their snowmobiles moved away and the claws around my heart began to ease. I hated how much power The Five held over me, even though another one was dead. There were only three of them left, but I knew I’d never truly be free until they had all paid with their lives. I was starving for more blood, I wanted to wet my hands in the heat of it and watch as my demons left this world.
We sped up the hill, keeping to the trees and finally reached the edge of them, spilling out and tearing towards the waiting cabin. It looked like a haven and the moment we made it inside, I felt my shackles cracking and my heart hit a rhythm I didn’t know. It felt like relief, but more than that. I was happy. Elated. We’d made it. They would be hunting for the culprits for weeks, but they’d never find them. And Quentin was dead. Dead dead dead!
A laugh left me as I pulled off the large jacket I wore, my skin burning hot. There was more life coursing through me now than there had been during my entire time with The Five. It was ecstasy in its purest form.
Nicoli shed his own coat, shaking his head at me with a playful expression. “You sure know how to make a guy worry.”
I smiled guiltily, biting down on my thumb as I gave him an innocent look, but his features turned serious.
“They’ll all meet their end, baby doll. Mark my words. You don’t have to fear going back to them. I won’t allow it.” His jaw pulsed with his hate for those men and heat spread between my thighs as I took in the speckles of blood on his cheeks and wondered why this angel had been sent to me. Maybe someone had answered my prayers at last. He was the exact kind of dark creature I needed to defeat them, the weapon I’d longed for.
I pulled Nicoli’s check shirt off and tossed it on the floor, leaving me in the tank top that was too long and the jeans that were too large. From the way Nicoli was looking at me though, I could have been in a ball gown fit for a queen.
His eyes roamed over my face and the wayward strands of my hair. “There is beauty in the snowfall, in the way the light breaks through the trees at dawn…there’s even beauty in death, in the end of the world, the brevity of everything we will ever experience, the passing into nothing. But I’ve never seen beauty like you.” He took a step closer and my lips parted as his words settled over my heart and made it squeeze and ache. “It’s not even the way you look that captivates me most, it’s the way you embody all those kinds of beauty. You are snowfall, and light at dawn, you are death and brevity and life and eternity. It bewitches me.” He reached out as if to touch my cheek, then dropped his arm, seeming to think better of it. “I’ll be your warrior, Winter. Because you need vengeance and I need redemption. But it’s more than that. I’m under some