out of her face and sitting up slowly. “Where am I?”
“My cabin. Who’s chasing you?”
She shook her head, her eyes flying to the window. “I don’t know who they are. I think I lost them, but”—her gaze moved quickly to the side—“uh, I got all turned around and then I just kept walking.”
Jak had an odd feeling about the woman. It was like . . . he sensed danger, but . . . that was stupid. This woman was half his size. No threat to him. But he felt . . . not right, and he wasn’t sure why. “What happened to your clothes?”
“The enemy took them before I got away.”
Jak frowned. “Tell me about the enemy.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I—” He ran a hand over his jaw, trying to figure out how to explain things to her. “I don’t know anything about the war. I’ve been living here since I was young.” He sat on the edge of the bed next to where she sat against the wall. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Does anyone talk about when it might end?”
She stared at him for a minute, a line coming between her eyes. “I don’t know a lot either. I’m uh”—she did that weird moving thing with her eyes again—“from somewhere else.”
“Somewhere where the war is not being fought?”
“Right.”
“Do you know why we’re fighting? And who we’re fighting against? There was a time when they were killing children. Is that still happening?”
“Listen, I don’t know anything else, okay?” She sounded kind of . . . mad.
The coat Jak had put around her shoulders slipped, showing the white skin of her breast and Jak’s breath stopped. He’d never seen a woman’s body before and he wanted to take the coat from around her shoulders, and the blanket from her legs, and look at her naked, study how she was different than him. Suddenly he wasn’t thinking about war or the enemy, or anything else outside of his cabin. His body felt hot, tight.
But this woman, she’d just been running from an enemy who had been bad to her in some way. And she was trusting him to help her. He stood, turning his back on her and walking to the window where he looked outside. The snow glittered, white gray and not touched except for the lonely footprints that led to his door. His own. At least if anyone came here, they would think it was just him. He could protect her. He looked to the place where he stored the bow and arrow Driscoll had given him a long time ago. He had spent hours and hours getting good with the weapon, becoming so good with it that when he used it, it felt like another part of his own body. He’d shoot to kill if he had to. His shots were strong. He never missed.
He smelled her approaching. She tried to be quiet but was not. She was no wolf. He waited . . . tensed and felt hands come around his waist. He turned fast, the woman very close to where he was. She’d left the coat and blanket on the floor and now stood before him naked. Surprise shivered through him, along with a jolt of heat. His eyes moved over her body, confusion rising like pinpricks on the inside of his skin. What is she doing?
“What’s your name?”
She seemed surprised that he’d asked the question, but after a second pause, she said, “Brielle. What’s yours?”
“Jak.”
She stepped closer, giving him a small smile as she ran her hands up the front of his shirt, over the muscles of his chest. “You’re different than I thought,” she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear.
“Different? What . . . do you mean? How would you know about me?”
Her gaze shot to him and she laughed in a nervous way. “I mean, from when I first saw you out there in the snow. I thought you were uncivilized, but you’re not.”
Uncivilized.
He didn’t understand. And she was still standing in front of him naked, and though it was making his body feel too heated, his mind was able to stay away like he’d learned to do when he stalked and hunted. It was easy for him now.
A naked woman was touching him, but that whisper of confusion wouldn’t let his thoughts quiet.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, his gaze moving over her nakedness again, seeing the pinky brown tips of her breasts, the way her waist turned inward, the