Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“In fact, we—shit!” He winced in pain, and one of the other guys cursed.
“Sorry.” It was the one who had a musical tenor. I was beginning to think of him as the calm and collected one, unlike the deep-voiced one. “It’s hard to hold.”
“Are you okay?” I hoped I didn’t sound as anxious as I felt.
Drew gave a quick laugh. “That’s supposed to be my question to you.”
“Are you getting closer to her?” That was the grumpy one.
“Yeah,” Drew said. “Sierra? Can you reach your hand behind your back?”
“Um… maybe?” Between the cold and the rubble on me, my limbs were numb, but I gave it a shot. However, my arm didn’t want to bend that way. I tried to turn toward Drew, the way I would if I were rolling over in bed, but that made the branches shift, and I cried out.
“Don’t do that,” he said, and somehow it was comforting that he was close enough to see me. “At least not until I can get some of that stuff off you.”
Branches behind my back moved, and I bit back a yelp of pain. Then suddenly, something next to me shifted, and my body rolled into the gap so that I was facing upward.
It felt like there was more room by my shoulder, and I wiggled my hand through the branches in Drew’s direction. When his fingers touched mine, I gasped. His skin felt so wonderfully warm.
Drew clasped my hand, and I braced myself for the pain that would come when he pulled. But what he did instead caught me by surprise. He shook my hand. “Nice to meet you, Sierra.”
If my lips hadn’t been trembling from the cold, I would’ve smiled. “Nice to meet you, too.”
4
DREW
“Hurry,” Carter grunted. He was somehow holding back a branch that was bigger than the trunks of some trees. The strain showed on his face. Next to him, Zeus whimpered, no doubt picking up on everyone’s stress level.
Tristan wasn’t even in sight. He was under the tangle of branches, too, acting as a human tent pole. If Carter’s grip gave out, Tristan, Sierra, and I probably would be frozen under here until the spring thaw.
Sierra gripped my hand tightly, as if afraid to let me go. Her hands were ice-cold, but the strength of her grasp was reassuring. No clue what we would do if she were seriously injured.
“Can you pull her out?” Tristan asked.
Sure—if I wanted her to end up in pieces. With my hand still wrapped round hers, I inched forward. Branches whipped across my face and shifted dangerously underneath me. Her comparison to being in a nest seemed rather apt. But I had to get her out of there before we all froze to death. “Okay, I’m going to try to stand up.”
“Stand?” she echoed, sounding dubious.
“Well, maybe not stand all the way.” It would be like trying to put my head through the roof of a car. “But maybe I can get some of the weight off of you so that you can crawl towards me.”
“I’ll try.”
I counted to three and then pushed with my arms and legs, lifting my back as much as I could.
Sierra’s other hand emerged from the jumble of sticks, and then I spotted a pair of eyes so green that they appeared to be glowing. She smiled as she saw me, and it hit me that an incredibly beautiful woman was inching her way toward me. “Hi,” she said.
She had on a sweatshirt and leggings—definitely what I pictured a female writer would wear while in work mode. I just hadn’t anticipated how good it would look on her. But god, she must be frozen. I had on jeans, boots, and a shirt and sweater under my coat, and I was cold as hell.
My gloves were in my pocket where I’d stashed them when I reached for her hand. I wanted to wrap the poor woman in a hug to get some heat into her slender body, but first, I had to get her out of there.
“Can you flip over?” I asked. “I think there’s enough room. Then we could sort of crawl back the way I came.” Good thing Tristan and Carter were stationed along the way like checkpoints.
Sierra wiggled her hips and managed to roll toward me, getting her hands underneath her. It couldn’t have been easy, since the branches were slippery and seemed to move on their own accord; but she was making progress, until she cried out and her head snapped back.
“What is it?” God, what would we do if she broke a bone?
“My hair’s caught.”
“Oh.” I could see it now. She had her long hair in a ponytail that must’ve been neat at one point, but now it looked like she’d fixed it during a hurricane. I spotted the problem. One section had gotten caught by a branch that had splintered.