POV: Evelyn

The first man who asked permission to touch me was the stranger cutting me out of the car my husband had used to kill me.

"Evelyn, may I touch you?"

The question did not belong here.

Not with rain spilling through the broken windshield. Not with my leg crushed beneath the dashboard and Grant shouting behind him that I was his wife. Not with a dozen motorcycles snarling above us and sirens growing louder on the mountain road.

The stranger waited anyway.

His name was Silas. I knew that only because another man had called it when he stepped into the police lights. Everything else about him looked built to inspire the kind of obedience Grant demanded: the size of him, the scar through one eyebrow, the black shirt stretched across his shoulders, the blood drying over one torn palm.

But he did not reach for me.

He waited.

"Yes," I whispered.

Something fierce shifted behind his eyes.

Then his hands became careful.

One braced the back of my neck. The other moved over my ribs without pressing, stopping each time my breath caught. His fingers were warm despite the rain.

"Can you feel your foot?"

I tried. Pain burned from my hip to my ankle, but my toes answered when I told them to move.

"Yes."

"Good. Don't pull against the dashboard."

Grant laughed from somewhere behind him. "She won't listen. She never does."

My body reacted before my mind did. Shoulders curling. Chin lowering. Breath disappearing.

Silas noticed.

He turned his head, and the temperature inside the wreck seemed to drop.

"Ronan."

"I've got him."

Grant's voice moved farther away. "Take your hands off me. I'm a police officer."

"Then stop making the uniform look cheap," the other man said.

Silas looked back at me.

"Sophie," I said.

"She is alive."

"I need to see her."

"You will."

"Now."

The word came out harder than I expected. Grant hated when I used that voice. He said it made me sound ungrateful.

Silas did not look offended.

He lifted his gaze toward the ridge. "Maeve. Bring her where Evelyn can see her. Keep her above the slope."

A woman appeared behind the guardrail carrying Sophie against her shoulder.

My daughter was wrapped in a black leather vest so large it reached her ankles. A silver skeleton riding a motorcycle covered the back. Her face was pressed into the woman's neck, but when Maeve turned, Sophie saw me through the trees.

"Mommy!"

She tried to climb down.

Maeve held her gently. "Your mommy can see you, sweetheart. Let them help her first."

Sophie began to cry.

The sound broke something open inside me. Not because she was crying. Because she still could.

"I'm here," I called. My voice cracked. "You did exactly right, baby. Stay with Maeve."

Sophie clutched the leather around her body and nodded.

Silas watched us without speaking.

"Thank you," I said.

His jaw tightened as if gratitude hurt him.

"Save it until you're safe."

A van door slammed above us. Two more bikers came down the slope carrying a compact rescue kit and a folded stretcher. They did not crowd me. One stabilized the crushed door while the other passed Silas a glass punch and cutting tool.

He explained every movement before he made it.

"This will be loud."

Metal snapped.

"I'm moving your seat back two inches."

Pain flared white.

"Look at me, Evelyn. Not the dashboard."

I looked.

His eyes were not black as I had first thought. A ring of gold burned close to the pupils, appearing and vanishing with each breath. He looked furious enough to tear the car apart with his hands.

Yet when I cried out, he stopped instantly.

Grant never stopped when I cried.

He said tears were manipulation.

"Again," I gasped.

"You need a moment."

"The police are coming."

The sirens were close now. Too close.

Silas studied my face. "Why does that frighten you more than the man with the gun?"

"They're his."

Understanding settled over him without disbelief, without the polite pause people used before asking what I had done to provoke Grant.

He glanced toward the road. "Then we finish before they reach us."

The second cut released the steering column.

I screamed.

Silas caught my body before I folded forward. For one dizzy second, my cheek rested against his chest. Beneath wet cotton and muscle, his heart struck hard and fast.

Something else answered it.

A vibration too deep to be a voice moved through him and into me. My pain-blurred mind shaped it into a growl.