Page 31 of Snowbound

CHAPTER TEN

Emma

But then he’sgone with a growl, telling me to stay put.

Owen tried to reassure me, but he doesn’t trust that it was just an icicle.

I didn’t think it was possible—the snow was piled halfway up the door—but he shoved on a pair of boots, threw on a jacket, and forced his way through the snowbank like it was nothing.

The blanket’s still warm where his body was.

The sound is still in my ears—the howl, the smash—and now my heart is pounding even harder in the silence than it was when we were tangled together by the fire.

I sit up, still naked under the blanket, straining to listen. But all I can hear is the fire hissing low in the hearth.

The door creaks again.

What if I’m alone? What if someone did hurt him, and I’m stranded here—alone, in the fucking woods, with nothing to defend myself?

I get to my feet.

No. I’m not just going to sit here and wait. Iwon’tlet Owen get hurt. There’s been enough of that for both of us. And I didn’t survive everything I’ve gone through just to be left behind. Not now. Not after him.

I grab the hot poker by the fire and stick it deep into the coals until it’s glowing orange. Then, brandishing it like a weapon, I turn and face the door, my heart racing.

If someone walks in here, they’re not going to find some helpless girl. I’m fucking ready.

The door creaks again.

And then—it’s him.

Owen fills the doorway like something conjured from another time—a model, a soldier, a bearded fucking god, muscular and dangerous. The firelight flickers over the ridges of his neck and the edge of his chest, bare under the jacket he barely bothered to zip.

He looks completely unfazed.

“What the bloody hell are you doing holding that?” he says, his brows raised.

“I didn’t know if someone was going to get you,” I snap. “And I didn’t want to be alone. I was ready to kill someone.”

“With that?” he asks, eyeing the poker. Then his expression shifts into something thoughtful, impressed.

“That might actually work,” he mutters. Then, a little more serious, “You know where it hit?” He gestures toward the outside. “Ice came off the roof. Took out the sled, the big one. It’s dangerous.”

I blink. “Are you sure?”

He nods. “Aye. I’d know if someone was out there.”

“But I thought I heard an animal?”

“In the distance. Nothing nearby, like I suspected. Sounds carry in the cold out here, with nothing to block or insulate them.”

And then he steps in closer, his voice like gravel and thunder. “If someonewashere, Emma, I’d fight to the fucking death.”

My chest tightens. “I know,” I whisper. “I do know.”

The snow melting from his boots hits the fire. There’s a hiss… the scent of damp wool. And I’m back—seventeen, sobbing into my pillow.

Owen found me sobbing in my bedroom, heartbroken over a stupid boy who didn’t deserve an ounce of me. I didn’t see him standing in the doorway, but he saw me—watched me fall apart, silent and still.