“True, but look.” Michael nodded his head in the direction of what looked to be a small cave carved out into the side of a hill up ahead.

He walked over toward it just in time for us to have enough life left in the flashlight to check it out. It looked like an empty crevice that was just deep and wide enough to be about the same size as a tent.

“We can stay in here for tonight,” he said.

“What if it’s a bear den or something?” I asked.

“It’s not, it’s just a little hollow in the hill. We’ll be safe here.”

Michael set me down inside the small cavern, and although the ground was still frigid, at least it kept the wind at bay. It hadn’t snowed for a while, but it definitely felt cold enough for it to start back up again at any time. He came inside the cave with me and pulled me close to him.

“I know you’re in pain,” he said. “There’s not much I can do about your leg without there being light enough for me to see what I’m doing. Do you think you’ll be okay to make it through the night in here?”

“Yes,” I answered. “I’m okay now that you’re here.”

I heard him take in a deep breath and felt the sigh in his chest. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. I was dying to tell him that I loved him more than anything that tried to get between us. He laid back against the back of the crevice and pulled me gently on him so that I could lean against him while I tried to sleep. But sleep seemed kind of impossible at the moment. Even with Michael’s arms wrapped around me and our bodies pressed up against each other, I was so cold. The cold mixed with the pain congealed into a raging cocktail of a headache that swam around inside my head.

“We don’t have any food or supplies,” I said quietly just as the last light of the flashlight flickered out.

“No, we don’t,” he said. “But in the morning, I’ll take a look at your leg and then we’ll head back toward the cabin.”

“The cabin?” I said. “Why wouldn’t we just go back to the campsite?”

“Because there wasn’t enough food and supplies at the campsite to last another day either. Most likely Adam will be headed back to the cabin at first light. Maybe even Rob has been able to make it back there already. The cabin is the best chance of meeting up with anyone now. Plus, you need a first aid kit, and probably medical attention, and definitely food and a way to get warm. We’ll huddle it out here tonight, and then go to the cabin.”

“Do you even know how to find the way back to the cabin?” I asked. “Aren’t we at least two days away from it still?”

“I know how to get back,” he said. “And I think I may have even figured out a shorter way to take which would cut the trek down by nearly a day.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I’m pretty good at survivalism and navigation,” he said. “Guess you missed the class on those things at Goldshire, huh?”

“They had classes on survivalism and navigation at Lineage?” I asked in amazement.

I heard Michael chuckle and then realized that he was teasing me.

“Well, if you’re right about it then I’m at least glad that you know how to get us home,” I said as I cuddled into him more.

I felt like I was pushing up against him so hard that I wished our bodies would just interconnect. I felt Michael’s hands around me and even though it wasn’t the most ideal of situations, I was so happy to be in his arms again that it almost made the whole ordeal worth it.

“Why did you follow me?” I whispered to him in the dark after we sat in silence for a few minutes.

“I will always protect you, Lisette. You have to know that by now.”

“Yeah, but you were mad enough to leave, and you still think that our relationship might have changed. You still entertain the possibility that we might be—”

“Lisette, I told you that I would never leave you and I meant it. Just because I walked away for a while didn’t mean that I still wouldn’t be here when you needed me. I am always nearby you; always. And as far as our relationship…”

He stopped talking for a moment and I wondered if he was even going to finish what he had been saying.

“I should have come and talked to you about this more instead of trying to avoid it altogether. I just didn’t know how to talk about it. I don’t know what to do,” he said.

Even in the dark without being able to see him, I could still feel the contorted look of pain on his face. That kind of pain was worse than a broken leg, and I’d been feeling it too. But it hit Michael even deeper I think, because he was at war with himself again, trying to keep himself from feeling and acting on what he wanted in exchange for doing what he thought was the right thing to do. I thought about whether or not I should ask him to finish what he was saying, but I didn’t have to because he picked it back up on his own.

“I don’t know how to handle this, Lisette. I can’t stand not being with you, not having you. Every fiber of my being is longing for you and part of me just wants to say fuck it and take you in my arms, and kiss you, and make love to you as if none of the rest of it matters. Seeing Adam try to come on to you as if there was a chance now that you and I wouldn’t be together, made me lose my mind.”

I reached down and wrapped my fingers with his as his hand rested against my chest.

“I don’t believe that we have the same father,” I said. “I truly don’t. I know that you want hard proof of it, but I have this gut feeling that just tells me that it’s not true. You and I are meant to be together. We have a bond and a connection, and we were fated to be with each other. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I can feel it.”

“But what if that bond that you’re feeling is because we are brother and sister?” he asked.

“We aren’t,” I said. I turned my head and leaned up to kiss him.

I was all done with letting this baseless claim of familial ties keep us apart. It wasn’t true. We were meant to be together as lovers, not as siblings. For a moment, when our lips touched, I felt Michael’s chest stop moving and he held his breath. Our soft, cold lips pressed together, and we lingered right there as if we were tasting the nectar of gods. I felt him trying to hold back. I could feel the tension in his muscles and the trembling of his body. But when his tongue slipped inside my mouth, I forgot about everything other than how much I had missed kissing him. I reached up to put my hand on his jaw and twisted my body around to face him as much as I could. I pulled his mouth toward mine and wound my tongue inside of his mouth. The pain that was shooting through my leg was unnoticeable now. The only thing that I felt was his mouth on mine.

Michael’s kiss was frenzied. His swirling tongue and pressing mouth relayed an urgency as fierce as if he was gasping for his last breath of air. He was unrestrained and ruled by the pent-up desire that had been building within us both.

But then, he pulled away. As quickly as an electric shock, Michael pulled his mouth back and held his hand against mine, slowly pulling it down from his face and setting it back against my lap. His whole body was shaking, and I knew that it wasn’t from the cold.

“I can’t,” he said breathlessly. “You have no idea how much it tortures me, physically and mentally tortures me, to try and resist you. But we can’t, not until we clear up the issue between us.”

“But what if we never find out for sure?” I asked in a panic. “We can’t stay apart from each other forever. I would rather die.”

“Trust me,” he said. “So would I. But I think there’s got to be a way that we can find out for sure. Maybe a DNA test or something. As soon as we get back to the cabin, and your leg heals, we’ll go into town and get it sorted out.”

“Promise?” I asked.

I just couldn’t keep this up for much longer. I needed us to be back together; all the way together.

“Promise,” he said.

He wrapped me back up in his arms and I laid my head back down against his chest.

“At least we have this for right now,” I said quietly against him.

I could hear his heart beating as he tried to calm himself down.

“I love that we have this,” he said.

After that, the exhaustion finally settled in for both of us. I felt the pain start to creep back in and luckily it couldn’t catch up with my sleep and I drifted off within seconds. The two of us slept in each other’s arms and I didn’t even have any dreams that night.

In the morning, Michael looked at my leg again as soon as we woke up. He used the rest of my pantleg to make some makeshift bandages.

“It actually doesn’t look quite as bad as it did last night,” he said. “It’s much easier to see it clearly in the daylight. I don’t think it’s broken; I just think that you got pretty banged up.