Page 19 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

Her pink lips that have spewed so many horrible things about me and everyone else in McBride Mountain on her little website twist at me, her jaw tightening. “She broke up with you, Killian. She left you. She’s not going back to your place.”

Fucking hell.

Raven isn’t wrong about what went down—or the fact that Willow’s leaving me was completely warranted. But rage boils in my blood at the thought of letting her out of my sight again. It reignites from the simmering fury that’s been there since the moment I found Willow in that cold water and pulled her from it.

Even now, cataloging her injuries mentally and seeing them marring her still-too-pale skin makes me want to punch through a fucking wall, to burn down the world until I find whoever’s responsible for this?—

Except it’s me.

That fight…

Willow had every reason to leave and believe what she told Raven—that she didn’t have a future with me on the mountain anymore. She had every reason to want to stay away. But coming back and ending up in the river like that, so far into the remote area of the mountains that even Connor, Liam, and I rarely venture there, doesn’t make any sense.

And seeing her with Raven confirms for me that something else is happening beneath the surface of how things appear.

Even if she wants nothing to do with me and didn’t want to see my face again, she wouldn’t have returned without going straight to Raven. She would have run to her best friend the moment she crossed past the “Welcome to McBride Mountain” sign.

Which means there’s something bigger going on here.

Something that could be very dangerous.

Especially to the woman sitting in that hospital bed.

That means I won’t cave about bringing Willow home with me.

Not a fucking chance.

Not when we don’t know anything.

Not when she doesn’t have her memory.

Not when she’s so vulnerable.

Not when—since the moment I saw her face in that river—my heart started beating again for the first time in a fucking year.

I won’t let her out of my sight again until I know she’s safe and I’ve unraveled this mystery.

Unless that’s what she wants…

I tear my focus from Raven and redirect it to the woman in question, who watches us with wide gray eyes, one with a bandage above it where the skin over her eyebrow was split open and had to be stitched closed.

“Willow, I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to”—I swallow the emotion clogging my throat at having to even ask her this—“but would you rather come home with me tomorrow or go to Raven’s?”

The mere thought that she might not trust me, might not want to come to the home we shared, is enough to make me hold my breath in anticipation of her response.

All the agony I’ve suffered the past year, knowing I lost the greatest thing in my life because of what I did, rushes over me, washing away the relief of having her back. Because I could lose her again just as quickly.

She could say no.

She could want to go with Raven.

Some subconscious part of her might still hate me and want to stay away.

Her uncertain eyes shift to her best friend and then return to me, searching mine, though I don’t know what she’s looking for because I don’t even know what’s there.

Anger.

Fear.