Page 224 of Kingdoms of Night

“But?” he pressed.

“But I’ve never asked,” I whispered. “I just…”

“Assumed?” he suggested, his expression softening a bit. “You’ve assumed a lot about me.”

He started moving, making my arms tighten around his neck, my instincts forcing me to hold him to me.

“Please don’t—”

He lifted me off the floor, cutting off my request. I was going to tell him not to leave me. However, this was okay with me. I immediately pressed my nose into his neck again, inhaling deeply and humming in satisfaction from his woodsy scent.

He purred in response, causing me to practically melt against him. “I love that sound,” I confided. “It makes me feel safe.”

“You are safe,” he promised. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Doctor.”

“Riley,” I corrected him. “Please call me Riley.”

“Riley,” he echoed softly, his lips near my ear. “I made you a bath. It’s from the well, but the cabin has a filter built in to help purify the water. That was one of the parts I had to fix outside.”

“A bath?” I repeated.

“To help with the hot flashes. The water isn’t cold, but it’s cool.” He carried me into the bathroom off the other room. I hadn’t explored in here much. I’d been focused on finding a safe place to hide and had become distracted by my cramps and oncoming hysteria.

But his presence had calmed me again.It’s his purr. It’shim.

Jonas started to lower me to my feet. “You can—”

“Don’t leave me,” I interjected, hugging him to me with all the strength I had left. “Please don’t leave me.” He was helping me feel sane. Grounding me. Making mehuman.

“You need to drink some water, Riley. I left the bottles downstairs.”

My throat screamed in agreement, but my arms clung to him. I’d never felt so needy in my life. And it had nothing to do with his knot and everything to do withhim.

Jonas studied my face for another long moment. “All right.” He readjusted his grip and held me to him as we left the bathroom to venture through the bed area toward the stairs. His purr reverberated around me as we descended. Then he bent to grab a bottle and handed it to me. “Drink this.”

That was an order I wasn’t going to reject.

I unscrewed the top and guzzled the contents, my insides sighing in instant relief.

When I finished, I found his lips curled a little in amusement.

“What?”

“It’s just nice to see you obey a command for once,” he said, taking the empty bottle from my hand and giving me another.

There were a lot of snarky things I could say to that, but I was too thirsty to comment. So I drank half the contents of the new bottle before focusing on words again. And all I could think to say was “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He bent to pick up another bottle of water. “Think you can hold a few more?”

I nodded.

He gave me four total, including the half-finished one, then started toward the stairs again.

“We have electricity now,” he informed me. “But I’m keeping the lights off so we don’t draw attention in the night. I also barricaded the doors and nailed some wood slats over the downstairs windows.”

I frowned. “When?”

“Within the last hour.”

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