Page 4 of Stolen

Chapter 3

Ariana had almost finished putting in her seedlings when Hawk came out of the house. Before she even saw him, his scent seemed to envelop her—earthy and musky like his wolf; wild and beautiful like the scent of the pine forest above the town, in the hills, where she longed to be able to let her wolf run in the chill of a starry night.

And she smelled an apple fritter, warm and buttery and covered in oozing sugar icing. This was an American thing she’d discovered since they moved here, and to which she’d immediately become addicted.

She turned and smiled up at him as he stood over her. Reaching down with his free hand, he helped her to her feet. For a moment they just stood, her hand in his, looking into each other’s eyes.

She looked at the plate in his other hand. One apple fritter. “Is that your breakfast?” she asked.

He smiled at her, the tough, hard lines of his face softening. “Only if you’re sharing.”

“That’s a big ask, Halcόn,” she said, using the Spanish word for ‘Hawk.’ “I don’t know if it is possible.”

“Then it’s all yours.”

He raised her hand briefly to his lips and let it go. She said, “Sit with me on the wall, and perhaps I can find it in my heart to be generous.”

They hitched themselves up on the waist-high stone wall that surrounded the garden. Ariana tore off a piece of apple fritter and ate it slowly, closing her eyes to savor the flavor. She opened them to find Hawk watching her.

She gestured to the plate. “It’s delicious. I can’t help but want to share such a pleasure.”

His smile lit up his face, and they sat eating companionably, taking turns tearing bits off the pastry. He left the last bite for her, as she knew he would. He had a generous heart.

But she worried about him. “Are you all right?” she asked. He looked exhausted, as if demons had chased him through his dreams. Perhaps they had. “You have shadows around your eyes.”

She traced around his eyes with her fingers. They were more than shadows, they were the hollows of a haunted soul. She touched his chest lightly with her fingertips, over his heart. “And shadows in here. I am sorry.”

He said, “Those aren’t because of you.”

“I’m not so sure about that. They’re because of my family, of people like us. A lifetime of immersing yourself in that darkness.”

“What about you? You spent a lifetime there too.”

She looked into the distance, up to the forest. “I was born to it,” she said. “And my father tried to protect us—my mother, my sisters, me. But we knew—the things he did, the things his men did. It was like a dark shadow over our lives. The fear of the people in the town. The isolation.”

She gestured out at the town nestled into its hollow below them. “This is so different. The people are kind, and not afraid. They bring us cheese and fresh milk.”

He grinned at her, his eyes crinkling. “That’s no food for a wolf.”

She smiled at him. “My wolf is soft, perhaps. But you, you are a—a predator, no?” She stumbled a bit over the English word. “But one that is loyal, with great affection for those who are important to you.”

“Yes.” He held her eyes with his.

She felt the connection between them, rising up like the ocean moving with the moon. It had been there from the very first moment they met—a kind of recognition. That they were the same. That they didn’t belong where they were, in the darkness.

But that they’d never completely be able to leave it, either. The shadows were inside them.

She hated to break the moment, but she had to. Because as much as they were connected, there was always something standing between them.

She said, “My brother is coming for me.”

The words dropped into Hawk’s consciousness like heavy stones into water. She felt it too.

He said with a kind of desperate hope, “I’ve been monitoring the chatter from all our sources. As far as anyone can tell, he’s still in Colombia, consolidating his position.”

Ariana shook her head. “He isn’t. He’s coming for me.”

“You don’t know that.”