Page 72 of Lana Pecherczyk

“Oh no.” Her breath hitched. “You wanted a turn, and I made a mess of it.”

“That’s okay.” His fingers brushed her shoulder. “You’re good. Right?”

Her bottom lip wobbled. She couldn’t answer because she wasn’t.

River’s hands traveled up her arms to cradle her face. He lifted her eyes to meet his. Looking into those vibrant blues, so full of steadying compassion, so unlike her first impression ofhim, her throat tightened. Her mother had left. Jeff had left. Her whole world had left. If she fell for River and he…

“Blake.” His thumbs swiped wetness from her cheeks. “You’re not alone.”

“Everything I know is gone, River.”

His tiny smile wavered. “I can’t begin to understand how shitty that feels, but this—” He threaded their blue-marked fingers together. “This means we’re together until we die. I can no more leave you than I can my own body.”

His expression darkened briefly, something sad in his eyes.

A knot formed in Blake’s stomach. She’d heard promises before.Foreverandalwayshad fallen from Jeff’s lips, too, right before he’d abandoned her on that jetty. Words were empty. She glanced at their intertwined hands, the matching marks glowing softly against their skin. Was this really different? Or just another trap waiting to spring?

River’s jaw tightened, nostrils flared.

“Grave ash,” he growled. In one fluid motion, he unhookedPeacemakerfrom his belt. The chakram gleamed in the fading light as he spun on his heel and hurled it at the mutilated tree.

The weapon sliced through bark with a high-pitched whine, its edges glowing blue. A heartbeat passed. Then the tree exploded, sending splinters and wood chips flying in all directions. Blake ducked, shielding her face. The blast wave rippled through the clearing, rustling leaves and scattering debris.

When she lowered her arms, the once proud tree was nothing but a shattered stump.Peacemakerhovered in mid-air, still spinning. River flung his hand out and called the weapon back. It slapped into his palm, the glow fading as his fingers closed around its edge.

He returned it to his belt, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Dickface doesn’t deserve to exist in any form for how he treated you,” he declared, voice deceptively calm despite the devastation he’d just unleashed.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but words failed her.

His familiar lopsided grin returned. “We’d better move if we want dinner.”

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Wood fragments littered the clearing. Blake traced the blue marks on her arm as she watched River retrieve his daggers from within the smoldering debris, his movements precise despite the tension in his posture.

“Guess that’s one way to handle therapy.” She gestured at the destruction. “Though I doubt that tree deserved complete annihilation.”

His hands stilled over a half buried blade. “It stood in for someone who did.”

“River.” She stepped closer, close enough to see the muscle ticking in his jaw. “That wasn’t just about me ex, was it?”

His eyes met hers. Something raw and unguarded flickered there before iron shutters slammed down.

“We need to move.” He handed her the plant and strode ahead, voice clipped. “Rain’s coming.”

“There’s not a cloud in the sky,” she called after him.

He didn’t turn back. “Then we’re due.”

Her throat tightened. After pouring out her heart about Jeff, after that kiss melted her bones, after witnessing him obliterate a tree in her defense, he still refused to let her past those walls. She’d spent fifteen years with a man who’d slowly drained her with his emotional distance. She couldn’t do that again.

If this was to work between them, she needed more. Needed everything—every passion, every doubt, every wounded part of him.

All in, all the time, just like that kiss.