snowmobile with a furnace of a demon sitting behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. The view wasn’t a kick in the face, either. Whitecapped mountains thrust into the western sky. White stretched around them, framed by the trees climbing the valley walls.
Leslie often told him he ought to make an effort to study and enjoy the beauty around him. The land just east of Glacier National Park made it easy.
Beauty wasn’t his reason for being here, though. This time of year, the only access to the cabin took two hours by snowmobile—unless a man could fly. Considering that most Guardians and demons could, the isolation wasn’t Nicholas’s primary reason for choosing his granddad’s place, either. The old man’s paranoia had been.
The afternoon sun cast long shadows by the time they reached the log cabin. An A-frame situated in a tiny clearing at the edge of a valley floor, surrounded by a stand of tall firs, the place wasn’t an easy find unless a man already knew where it was. From high above, the snow piled on the steeply pitched roof would blend it into the surroundings. Inside, the main level housed two simple rooms: a living area, and a corner bedroom holding the toilet and a tub. A generator provided electricity if they wanted it. The cellar doubled as a nuclear fallout shelter, still stocked with weapons and supplies. Nicholas wouldn’t need them; he’d brought his own in the snowmobile’s sled. Still, he liked knowing they were there. A man couldn’t be overly prepared.
The snow was almost level with the top step when he pulled up to the front porch, cut the engine. The sudden silence seemed almost heavy, until the quiet sounds of the forest around them began filtering in.
He was almost sorry when Ash got off. God, she was warm. Even the best wet-and-cold weather gear money could buy didn’t compare to a demon at a man’s back.
And her boots were as sexy as hell, but they weren’t doing her any favors. One step, and she sank knee- deep in the snow. She didn’t seem to notice. She only studied the cabin, looking as if she were freezing in that thin jacket and hoodie. A human would have been, but a demon didn’t need to hunch into her clothes.
Why did she do that? She couldn’t be cold.
“What is this place?”
“My grandfather’s. This, and a hundred acres around it.”
“He’s not here?”
“Dead. Ten years. It’s mine now.”
She pushed her hands into her pockets. “Won’t the Guardians find us, then?”
“No.” Nicholas stripped off his thick outer gloves, began loosening the bungee cords holding the tarp over the sled. “There’s a record of the land, but not the house. He didn’t want the government touching him . . . and he was something of a survivalist. He didn’t leave much of a footprint in paper, and nothing electronically. Just a post office box in town.”
Ash looked doubtful. “What kind of survivalist?”
“He didn’t get to the point of mailing bombs, if that’s what you’re wondering. He lived through the stock market crash in the eighties. My grandmother took too many Valium and didn’t. He became convinced the world was out to fuck him over, so he gave it all up and came out here to live off the land.”
Of course, being a St. Croix, he’d brought a hell of a lot of cash with him.
“So no one knows it’s here?”
Madelyn did, though she’d never been here. When Nicholas had been a boy, his mother, father, and he had frequently visited the old man, but Madelyn never had. The summer she’d refused to go gave Nicholas his best, first clue of when his mother had disappeared. He and his father had gone without her that year. By the next, his father was dead, and Madelyn hadn’t wanted to hear one word about visiting America.
Granddad wouldn’t want a little boy underfoot who reminded him of his son.
So Madelyn knew about the cabin, but it’d take her a while to figure out where he’d gone. She wouldn’t expect this of him. For years, he’d been hunting her. Now, he’d sit back and wait—and prepare. Eventually, she’d come looking for Ash. He’d be ready for her.
“There’s one in town,” he said. “The son of the man who was Granddad’s only friend. He uses the cabin in the summer and fall for his fishing and hunting—and in exchange, he makes any necessary repairs.”
“So that’s why it’s not falling apart.”
That, and because his grandfather hadn’t skimped on the original construction. He’d had everything but the logs airlifted in by private contractors, and he’d built the place himself. For a man who’d spent most of his life on Wall Street, he’d ended up being damn good with his hands.
“The front door is unlocked if you want to go in,” Nicholas said. After she took a step and sank to her knee again, he added, “There should be a pair of snowshoes hanging on the wall.”
“I’ll manage.”
He followed her in, the bag of weapons slung over his shoulder. Cold, a bit musty, but not bad. The windows were shuttered, but provided enough light to see by when he opened them. No sofa, no comfortable seating—just the small handmade table with two chairs, and one cane-back rocking chair by the window. Rustic and simple. Nicholas had forgotten how much he liked it.
He hadn’t visited since the old man had died. Then, he’d come with the intention of selling it, but he’d made arrangements for its upkeep, instead. Before today, the place had never been useful to him, but he hadn’t been sorry for holding on to it—and he didn’t need Leslie to explain why. This cabin was a part of his childhood, one of the few parts Madelyn had never tainted.
Would he hold on to it after she came? He didn’t know. Finally having his revenge would be sweet, but this place, this land, wouldn’t be the same afterward. He knew he’d never come here again.
But if he did have to give it up afterward, it was a price he’d be willing to pay.
A wood-burning stove provided heat for the rooms. It had been a while since Nicholas had started one, but it came back quickly enough.
No, not quickly enough. With the dry kindling crackling, he turned to find that the sled had already been unloaded, the boxes and bags stacked on the floor and the table. No need to ask when she’d done it—with a demon’s speed and strength, she’d have had the task completed within seconds.
But he didn’t like that she’d done all the work. “I’ll unload it next time.”
And there’d have to be a next time within a few weeks. He didn’t mind roughing it, but he didn’t have time to trap or hunt, and he preferred not to test the longevity of the supplies in the fallout shelter.
“You still have to put them away,” Ash said. Her gaze fell on the stove behind him. “And I’m not cooking for you. Especially on that thing.”
Nicholas wasn’t looking forward to whatever he managed to produce on that stove, either. But as long as he could chew it, he didn’t care. “I’ll cook my own,” he agreed. “I can’t trust that you wouldn’t pile on the butter, anyway. You’d make it a slow death, demon.”
She smiled, an expression that came more often now. “Are you speaking from experience? Did Madelyn?”
Oh, hell. Nicholas hadn’t been thinking of that at all, but after his father died, there were always “comforting” foods in the house. Always. And Madelyn had encouraged him to comfort himself as often as possible.
“She did. And I became big-boned very quickly.”
Ash frowned. “You really think she was trying to kill you?”
“No. I think it was more about the short-term fun of seeing how other boys treated the fat kid.”
“Oh.” Her gaze slipped over his body. “I see.”
She probably did. Too much. And Nicholas probably shouldn’t have offered her such a clear view, but fuck it. She’d already gotten to him. He’d let his guard down, and giving her a little more ammunition at this point didn’t matter so much.
What mattered was that he still knew what she was, what she might do with the info he gave to her. She hadn’t done it yet, but he had to believe she would, eventually.
“I still want to see you naked,” she added.
God, and he wanted to be naked. With her. But that was a step he didn’t dare take. Now, he could remember what she was: a demon. The second he believed that she
