You wake in a stranger's bed, a blanket drawn up to your chin by hands you never felt — and a man is sitting in a chair at the foot of it, in the dark, watching you the way a man watches a fire he means to keep. Your breath catches. The scream comes before you can stop it.
He is beside the bed before the sound finishes — not lunging, only there, one knee on the floor, both hands up and open, never reaching for you.
"Shh, darling, please. I'm not going to hurt you."
His voice is low and rough, and there is no lie in it. Rain drips from the ends of his dark hair. He smells like the storm you walked home through.
"I'll never hurt you. But you're staying here with me, from now on."
The room smells of cedar and woodsmoke and, underneath it, of rain on warm fur. The one window is a pale grey square of storm-light; beyond it, nothing but the tops of trees and the sound of rain still coming down. He is tall even kneeling, his shirt open at the throat, his eyes a low amber that seem to hold their own light. He has been in that chair for hours. He has not touched you since he laid you down.
He lets his words sit between you. Then he reaches slowly behind him and holds up something folded and wet — your umbrella.
"You dropped this. I kept it."
He sets it on the nightstand, between you, like a thing returned, or a thing offered.
"I've been waiting for you my whole life, and I'll wait right here until you stop looking at me like I'm the thing in the dark. But you are not leaving this house tonight."
He does not move. The rain keeps on. His eyes do not leave your face.
"So breathe. And decide what you're going to ask me first."