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"Get in."
Sienna didn't move. The cabin squatted in the trees like something that had died there years ago. One story. Rotting porch. Windows so dark they looked painted.
"I said get in." Kael's hand closed around her wrist.
She yanked free. "You don't give me orders."
"Someone just tried to burn us alive. You want to stand out here and wait for round two?"
"I want to know whose safehouse this is."
"Mine."
"Yours." She laughed, sharp and bitter. "The guy who spent six years in a cell. You kept a safehouse."
"I kept three." He pushed past her and unlocked the door. "You coming or not?"
The bond tugged. Not the soul-deep pull, not yet. Just the low-grade ache that said too much distance and her wolf would start clawing through her ribs from the inside.
She followed him in.
The interior smelled like dust and old wood and something chemical she couldn't place. Kael flipped a switch. A single bulb flickered on overhead. The main room held a table, two chairs, a narrow couch shoved against one wall. Door on the left, door on the right. No windows in the back.
"Bathroom's there." He pointed left. "Bedroom's there. You take it. I'll stay out here."
"How generous."
"You want to share the bed, Judge, just say so."
Her wolf snarled. She shoved it down. "I want to know who else knows about this place."
"No one."
"Bullshit. You were in prison."
"I bought it before." He dropped the duffel bag he'd grabbed from his truck onto the table. "Paid cash. Fake name. No paper trail. It's clean."
"Nothing's clean. Not anymore."
He looked at her then, really looked, and for half a second she saw something flicker behind those cold eyes. Not pity. Worse. Understanding.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."
She turned away before he could see her face. Her hands were shaking. She'd been a judge for eight years. She'd sent seventy-three people to prison. She'd never shaken. Not once.
Not until today.
"We need a plan," she said.
"We need sleep."
"Sleep." She spun back. "You think I'm going to sleep after what we just—"
"You're going to crash in about an hour. Adrenaline drop. I've seen it before."
"I'm not one of your soldiers."
"No. You're my fated mate who's been fighting the bond for six hours straight. You want to keep pretending that's not ripping you apart, fine. But when you drop, I'd rather you do it on a mattress instead of the floor."
The bond flared at the word mate. Heat shot down her spine. She felt her wolf rise, hungry and furious and wanting.
"Don't," she bit out.
"Don't what?"
"Don't call me that."
"It's what you are."
"It's what the moon says. I don't have to listen."
Kael smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Yeah. You do. That's the fun part."
He moved past her toward the bedroom. She caught his scent as he passed—smoke and sweat and something darker, something that made her wolf whine.
"I'm taking first watch," she said.
"You don't need to."
"Someone just tried to kill us. Yes. I do."
He stopped in the doorway, his back to her. "You don't trust me."
"No."
"Good." He looked over his shoulder. "I don't trust you either."
He disappeared into the bedroom. She heard the creak of springs. Then nothing.
Sienna stood in the center of the cabin and listened to the silence. Outside, wind moved through the trees. Inside, her pulse hammered in her ears.
Don't trust Asher Lockwood.
The dead man's last words. Asher. The Council Speaker. The man who'd appointed her to the bench three years early. The man who'd sent her congratulations when she made chief justice.
The man who might have framed Kael Thorne.
She pulled out her phone. No signal. Of course not. She crossed to the window and held it up. Nothing. She tried the door. Same.
"It's a dead zone."
She turned. Kael stood in the bedroom doorway, one shoulder against the frame.
"How long were you watching me?" she asked.
"Long enough."
"I need to make a call."
"No calls. Not tonight."
"I need to reach Leah. She's my—"
"I know who she is. Your clerk. Your only friend. The one person you trust." He straightened. "If someone's cleaning up loose ends, she's next."
The words hit like a fist. Sienna's breath stopped.
"No," she said.
"You called her after the retrial. She knows you're digging into the case. Whoever set that fire knows it too."
"You don't know that."
"I know how this works. You cut the threads before they unravel."
She was moving before she realized it, crossing the room, grabbing his shirt. "If you're wrong—"
"I'm not."
"If you're lying—"
"Then what?" He didn't pull away. Didn't move. Just looked down at her with those too-calm eyes. "You'll send me back to prison? You'll have me executed? You already tried that, Judge. Didn't stick."
She shoved him. He rocked back half a step. The bond shrieked. Pain shot through her chest, white-hot and vicious.
She gasped.
Kael's hand caught her elbow. "Breathe."
"Don't—touch me—"
"Breathe."
She sucked in air. The pain didn't stop. It never stopped. It just ebbed and flowed like a tide she couldn't predict.
"How long?" she managed.
"How long what?"
"Until it kills us."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Three weeks. Maybe four. Depends how strong you are."
"And if we—" She couldn't say it.
"If we complete the bond, it stops."
"I won't."
"I know."
"I'd rather die."
His fingers tightened on her arm. Just for a second. Then he let go and stepped back.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I know that too."
He turned and walked back into the bedroom. This time he closed the door.
Sienna stood alone in the main room. Her arm still burned where he'd touched her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to rip the moon out of the sky and make it take this back.
Instead she sat down at the table and opened the duffel bag.
Inside: bottled water, protein bars, a first aid kit, two burner phones, and a handgun.
She pulled out the gun and checked the magazine. Full. She set it on the table in front of her and stared at the closed bedroom door.
Three weeks.
She could last three weeks.
She had to.
---
She woke to someone's hand on hers.
Not someone. Him.
Sienna jerked upright. She was on the couch. She didn't remember lying down. The cabin was dark except for a slice of moonlight through the window.
Kael sat on the floor beside the couch, his back against the cushions. His hand rested on top of hers. There was a blanket between them. Thin cotton. But it was there.
"What are you doing?" Her voice came out rough.
"You were making noise," he said. He didn't look at her. "The bond was hurting you. This helps."
"Let go."
"It'll get worse if I do."
"I don't care."
"Liar."
She tried to pull her hand back. The bond flared. She bit down on a gasp.
Kael's fingers tightened over the blanket. "Don't be stupid."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Then stop acting like a martyr. It's not noble. It's just slow suicide."
"Maybe that's easier."
"For who?" He finally looked at her. His eyes caught the moonlight and threw it back cold. "You think I want this? You think I'm enjoying watching you tear yourself apart because you'd rather die than be bound to me?"
"You're the one who came back."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice."
"Not when someone frames you for massacre. Not when the only way to clear your name is to drag the judge who buried you back into the pit."
"So that's what this is. Revenge."
"No." His voice went flat. "If I wanted revenge, you'd already be dead."
The words hung between them. True. She knew they were true. He could have killed her a dozen times since the retrial. In her chambers. In the parking garage. In the burning records room.
He hadn't.
"What do you want?" she asked quietly.
"My name back. My rank. My life."
"And me?"
He was silent for a long time. Then: "I don't know yet."
Honest. At least it was honest.
Sienna let her head fall back against the couch. The bond pulsed between their joined hands, muted by the blanket but still there. Still pulling.
"This doesn't mean I trust you," she said.
"I know."
"And it doesn't mean I forgive you."
"I didn't ask you to."
"I still think you're guilty."
His hand went rigid under hers. "Yeah. You made that clear."
"But." She swallowed. "Maybe I'm wrong."
Silence.
Then, so quiet she almost missed it: "Maybe."
He didn't move. Neither did she. They stayed like that—her on the couch, him on the floor, their hands pressed together through a thin cotton blanket that was the only thing keeping both of them sane.
Sienna closed her eyes.
She didn't mean to sleep.
But she did.
---
Three knocks woke her.
Hard. Slow. Deliberate.
Kael was on his feet before she opened her eyes, the gun already in his hand. Sienna sat up. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Another three knocks.
Then a voice from outside.
"Sia."
Sienna stopped breathing.
That voice.
She knew that voice.
"Sia, baby. Open up."
No.
No no no no.
Kael looked at her. "Who is that?"
Sienna couldn't answer. Couldn't move. Couldn't think.
Because the voice outside the door belonged to her mother.
And her mother had been dead for fifteen years.