He sat with his elbows resting on his knees, Dakota's hand cradled between both of his, his gaze fixed on her face. The anger that had carried him through the confrontation in Ashbourne City—the cold, driving need to make the Winters family answer for what they had done—had drained out of him somewhere over the fields between the city and the estate. What remained was heavier and harder to name.
Fear. Not the sharp fear of the moment her voice had gone silent on the phone, but something slower and more persistent. The fear of a man who had spent years believing he had lost her, who had found her again, and who now understood how easily she could be taken from him.
He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, holding them there for a long moment. Her skin was cool against his mouth.
"You are not allowed to leave me," he murmured against her fingers. "Do you hear me? Not like this. Not over them."
She did not stir.
