~ TESS ~

My heart thunders as fear coils around my ribs like barbed wire. I don’t even know where to start. I can’t look Killan in the eye, so I lower my gaze and blurt, “Where does your family live?” Not the question I need to ask, but it slips out anyway.

“Not far,” Killan says, his tone soft and steady—like an anchor trying to keep me grounded. “Just a few hundred miles north.”

He turns his hand and cradles my face, the rough pad of ...