“Like you said, we have to stay connected. Besides, unattached, I have no way of lifting you.”
“You’re not,” I struggle to say the words, “lifting me.”
Aksel runs his fingers through the rope, catching the end. His eyes settle onto mine, bright and daring. “I’m also not letting you fall.”
As he secures his own harness, the rope moves swiftly through his fingers like fishing line. His actions are cool. Natural. Confident.
Gathering my hair back into a loose bun, I follow him down onto the hood.
Aksel walks over to the granite wall. “Stay close enough to see my route—”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “It’s easier going up than coming down, right?”
Aksel tilts his head; the corner of his mouth twitches. Then his calloused fingers roam over the rock and slide into a fissure high above his head, and he begins to climb.
Aksel ascends the wall methodically. With the abrasive wind and snow, it’s slow progress. When he reaches five meters, I tuck my mittens into my shorts and blow on my hands.
My turn. Reaching up, I slide my fingers into a jagged crevice, and follow.
After a few treacherous minutes, I look down—the Defender is blanketed in snow.
Funneled in the cavern, snow whistles around me like a whirlpool, making it difficult to secure my fingers around the protrusions and cracks in the icy wall.
Spiraling gusts lash my cheeks. Snow pelts my face. Temporarily blinded, I fumble for a split in the rock, using my feet to propel me upward, but I find nothing.
Keeping my toes taut in the crevices, I stretch my arm.
I reach for a crag, even a narrow cleft.
Desperately, I claw at the rock.
Slipping, my fingertips slide along the smooth granite surface—
Got it.
I exhale.
Sliding my thumb securely into a chink, I reposition and continue.
But as I pass the triangular declivity, I hear a shrill screeeeeech!
I’m hit by a sheet of sliding snowpack. My body is knocked off the wall.
I’m falling …
The harness fastens around me like a snare. I’m suspended in midair. The rope swings, propelling me toward the granite.
I regrip onto the rock.
Adrenaline courses through my veins and I continue my ascent. Seconds later, I near the ledge.
Through the blurry white mass of snow and wind, Aksel’s silhouette emerges.
Keeping both feet propped against the rock, anchoring himself, Aksel hauls the rope adeptly toward him, one hand smoothly over the other. He’s knotted the end around a protrusion of granite—leveraging it to stabilize the rope.
As I summit, Aksel lunges for me, pulling me onto the ledge. His chest heaves as he drags me even farther back.
Clamping his arm around my waist, Aksel holds me against his side in a steel grasp as we scramble off the ledge and onto the unstable ridge cresting the snowpack.
Suddenly, a gust of wind lashes our backs.
Aksel’s arms lock behind my spine. Together we dive. We slide down the snowpack, landing in a tangled, rolling motion—then all of a sudden, I am lying on top of him, and then he is on top of me and then we are still.
Crack!
I whip my head to the right to see the ridge splinter loose.
In a rumbling wave, the entire snowpack collapses, burying the Defender.
When I look back at Aksel, his eyes are trained on me. Even in the opaque white of the storm, I can see every shade of green in his eyes. Flawless skin. Full lips. Arms so sculpted they look like they were carved from granite too.
In a low, husky voice in my ear, Aksel says, “Easy, right?”
CHAPTER 18
I am intently aware of Aksel’s arms knotted behind me, blocking my back from the ice and snow; his upper body shielding me from the wind. Aksel’s eyes move from my eyes to my lips.
An unfamiliar excitement ripples across my chest.
Abruptly, Aksel rolls off me. Sliding his hands from my back to my wrists, he lifts me to my feet.
“Keep moving,” he warns. “We have to keep our heart rates up.”
Bending down, he brushes the snow off my numb, quivering legs. “Who wears shorts running in twenty-degree weather?”
“It wasn’t this cold when I left,” I answer through chattering teeth.
He rubs my arms and shoulders as I burrow against his warm chest.
“There’s this tool called a weather app,” Aksel remarks in a raspy voice. “You should check it before you go out running.”
I half shiver, half laugh. “Weather prediction is only fifty-seven percent accurate at this elevation.”
“Eagle Pass motto: Be prepared.”
“Hepworth motto: Preparation is one percent physical, ninety-nine percent mental.”