There’s just darkness. It’s darkness, but it isn’t blackness. My eyes are closed, but there’s light beyond them. It’s just the bleeding of the last of daylight, and it’s fighting to remain in my consciousness.

Or maybe that’s me, searching it out. Fighting the darkness.

I’m laying on my back. That much I can feel. But I’m not cold. There’s cold snow and ice beneath me, but I’m not cold. It’s strange, because I can feel that it is cold, but I am not cold.

I feel nothing.

This might really be happening.

I see the man’s face appear in my vision as my eyelids flutter open.

“You need a man, don’t you?” he says. His voice is lewd. He licks his lips.

I close my eyes again.

And I don’t know how much time passes. But I feel the night enveloping us, the sun floating away in the sky, finally dipping over the edge of the earth, leaving behind the sharp line of the horizon.

And I wait.

Then I hear a gasp.

And I open my eyes.

There’s nothing in front of my eyes except for the white branches of the tall forest trees laced over the black sky.

“Fuck, man!”

The man speaks. But he isn’t talking to me. There’s someone else here.

A hear a whoosh of air. It’s like the air being let out of a hot air balloon as the flame keeping it afloat is extinguished quickly, as though all the propane has run out. Like someone didn’t pack enough for the balloon ride.

Like someone wasn’t prepared.

I scramble to my knees and my hand flies to the back of my neck. Now I can feel something. I can feel the imprint of his hand where he grabbed me.

But otherwise I seem okay. And my heart has slowed down. I didn’t realize it before, when I was on the ground, but I wasn’t breathing.

I suck in my first breath of clean, pure, cold air, filling my lungs completely.

The sounds behind me continue. The whooshing of air and a few desperate grunts. But I don’t know exactly what is happening. I can’t work it out from just the sounds.

I look over my shoulder.

And I see who the guy who grabbed me was talking to. I see why he was grunting in pain.

The guy who grabbed me is kneeling on the ground, his lip busted open, his fingers coming to his mouth and then down so he can see the bright red blood streaked against his hand. He keeps doing it like he doesn’t realize what’s happened. He doesn’t realize what’s happening.

And standing above him, a man is pointing a rifle right between his eyes.

“Go.”

The man with the rifle growls. He growls and my insides flip. The guy on the ground puts his hands up above his head like he’s a criminal who’s been caught by the police.

He is a criminal, but I don’t know who the man with the rifle is.

He came out of nowhere.

“I. Said. Go. You are trespassing on my property, and I have every fucking right to blow you away right now.”

My assaulter nearly whimpers. His body drops down and he puts his hands on the ground. He keeps them there, head hung, shameful.

The man with the rifle keeps his target. He keeps his rifle trained between my assaulter’s eyes.

“Now.”

I feel my eyebrows knit together and my mouth pull open slightly. My lips feel chapped and dry, but warmth somehow spreads inside me.

I feel his presence around me. I can feel his energy. He isn’t looking at me; he still has his eyes squared intently on the man on the ground with the busted lip.

But I can feel his eyes shift, as though he wants to look at me.

And god, do I want him to.

I want to see the eyes of the man who saved me.

Like a crushed bug, the man who attacked me scrambles backward on his hands and knees, then pops up, and starts off in the opposite direction. He runs away from us. He can’t get away fast enough. It’s as though a lightbulb has gone off in his head and he knows to get the hell out of here.

He clutches his fake rifle as he runs.

The man who saved me puts his very real looking rifle over his shoulder.

I gasp, needing air.

What the hell just happened?

My savior adjusts his gaze, his eyes trailing over the landscape between us, but only after my attacker is out of sight. Only after we can no longer hear the cracking of ice under his feet, only after the hint of his bright vest vanishes into the distance.

This man left in front of me is beautiful. And it’s not just his face or his body. It’s the way he walks, the way he moves.

The way he just appeared out of nowhere.

And then, out of the shadows of the trees and the subtle beginnings of glistening moonlight on the white snow, the woods that haven’t been touched, the paths that haven’t yet been walked on, his shifts and moves toward me, and I see his eyes.

I finally see his eyes.

And there is concern in them, and fear, yes...I can see fear in his eyes, from this man who doesn’t look like he’s been threatened in his life, who is big enough to flick anyone away from him with a finger, who can pick me up and make me feel light as a feather if he wanted to. There is fear in his eyes, but it’s more. It’s wanting and desire, and it’s…

It’s something else, too.

Why is he looking at me like that?

And I feel my heart clench and then heat sweep through my entire body. I swallow thickly.

His eyes burn into me.

I want him.

And I’m almost speechless.

“Aren’t...aren’t you cold?” I stutter.

It’s all I can think to say. It sounds so silly, I know that the moment I say it, but it’s the only thing that comes out.

Because now I can feel. I can feel again. And I can feel that I am very, very cold.

He steps closer to me and I expect him to put his hand out to help me up, but instead he wraps his arms under me and lifts me up the way I knew he could, the way I wanted him to, placing me back down on my feet softly, and when I land, I still feel lighter than air.

“You’re shivering,” he says, unwinding his scarf from his neck. I bow my head as he puts it around my neck, nestling it into the hood of my coat, under my chin. His fingers brush against my neck as he moves to keep me warm. And I can’t explain it, but a pulse of warm energy radiates through me.

It’s the same one I felt when I saw his eyes for the first time. When he looked at me.

When he saw me.

My head is swimming with something unknown, something I can’t name...I can’t even describe it.

“You know you’re trespassing on my property, don’t you?”

His voice comes out as almost a whisper, but I can hear him loud and clear. His voice is deep and domineering, and the idea that I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be - that I should never have gotten into this mess, should never have been rescued by this big, big man, makes me nearly quiver with apprehension.

But it’s delicious.

“I was playing this game,” I begin to explain. “It’s this thing they do every year. That we do, I mean. Well, not every year. This is my second year. I -”

“Stop talking,” he says taking a step toward me, pulling me into him quietly, with just his words. “Just. Stop.”

I nearly gasp as he puts his finger under my chin, his gaze piercing right through me, sending heat spearing between my legs. I feel my thighs clench up involuntarily as he slowly tips my chin up, his eyes scanning my face, from my eyes to my lips and back again.

I struggle to breathe, and I feel the muscles inside my neck tense up as I swallow thickly, struggling to find something to say.

But he did tell me to stop talking.

I guess I can’t help but obey him.

He scans my face again. But then he allows his eyes to go lower. He scans down to my chest, my belly, even my legs, and even though I’m bundled up in my warmest coat and boots, I feel like he is really seeing me, and like he wants me.

I feel my lip pull between my bottom teeth and I bite down gently to keep myself from whimpering right here.

My body turns warmer and warmer with each passing second, with each lazy, intense, hard, soft movement of his eyes over the features of my face, my curves that are hidden just under my winter clothes.

He slips one warm, strong hand behind my neck, the tenderness in his touch making me feel crazy.

“What is your name, sweetness?” he asking softly, in his intoxicating, sweet voice.

“It’s Valoria.”

“Val,” he says. “That’s a beautiful name, Valoria.”

Oh, the way he says my name makes it sound so different. It sounds like someone else’s name. The way he says it makes me feel like I’m a different person.

“It means brave,” he says, pushing the pads of his fingers into the back of my neck, so softly, but with an intensity that makes me wet.

“I know,” I say. My voice is small, meek. I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel like I have to stand up to adversity or that I have to push myself or sacrifice or struggle.

I feel like I have to give myself over to this man. I feel hopelessly drawn to him.

And it is not scary. It feels inevitable. Like the only thing in the world that makes sense. The only thing in the world that’s ever made sense.

Behind him, I see the start of a fresh snowfall dotting the sky, falling between the trees, and the snowflakes finally completing their journey, falling around us and drifting slowly to the ground.

“I think your little game is over,” he says. “It’s dark. Everyone’s gone. And I don’t know if you’ll be able to get back to the camp on time.”

My heart flutters into my chest.

What is he saying?

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back on time, either,” I say. “So what am I supposed to do?”

His chest rises and falls, his shirt pulled taught inside his coat, stretching against his broad chest.

“You are coming with me,” he growls. I feel a few snowflakes flutter against my eyelashes. “You’re coming with me.”

His fingers trail around from behind my neck and around to the front, under the scarf he’s pulled onto me.

“You’re coming with me.”