Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  He moved closer until our bodies brushed but didn’t collide. My pulse galloped, racing toward some destination I’d never let myself even contemplate.

  “But they can only survive at altitude,” he said softly. “They can’t endure the heat of the lower elevations. They’re made for the mountains. They take the rugged terrain and the cold and the impossible, and they make it home. They survive everything nature says they shouldn’t and still stay so soft.” He ran his knuckles down the side of my cheek with the last word.

  My eyes fluttered shut at the contact. When he reached my jaw, I put my hand over his to hold it there.

  A second passed. Two. He didn’t move. Neither did I.

  I drew in a shaky breath and found the courage to open my eyes, knowing he could be wearing that half smirk, ready with a witty, biting little comment.

  Instead, his dark-brown eyes looked just as conflicted as I felt.

  “Willow,” he whispered, lowering his head inch by slow inch.

  “Cam,” I replied, refusing to look at those lips descending toward mine for fear I’d break whatever spell we were held in.

  “Say no,” he pleaded, his words hitting my lips in little huffs of peppermint.

  “Yes.” It slipped out, that word I’d let dance on the tip of my tongue since I turned sixteen. Maybe even younger, if I was being honest with myself. Maybe even since I understood what that kind of yes meant.

  He cursed as my free hand rested on his chest, feeling his heart meet the racing pace of mine.

  “Yes, Cam. Yes,” I repeated, in case he didn’t hear me the first time, knowing full well he did. I’d get him a freaking sign if he needed one.

  “Wrong answer,” he warned.

  A breath later, he kissed me with soft lips that caressed mine gently, almost reverently.

  It felt more like a first kiss than my actual first had been. It was the kiss we would have had as much younger, way less experienced teenagers.

  Then it happened again and again—light, sipping kisses that had me rising on my toes to get closer to him. He was so tense under my hand, I wondered if he’d snap or shatter.

  He pulled back just long enough to look at me, his brow knit together like he was in pain, searching my face for something he didn’t name.

  I saw the moment he decided. The strain disappeared from his face, and determination took its place.

  Then his mouth was on mine, hard and demanding. I parted my lips, and he sank inside to stroke my tongue with his as his hands gripped my hips and lifted.

  My fingers threaded into the silk strands of his hair as I kissed him back with everything I had. I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles like I could hold him prisoner, savoring his groan at the contact.

  His kiss held an edge of desperation, and it fueled me, seeking more, faster, deeper. If this was the only time I’d kiss Camden Daniels, then I was going to make damn sure he remembered it, because I would.

  We were a mile past electric. Past combustible. Past chemistry or anything that could be explained by science. We simply fit, like two halves of completely different shapes that somehow clicked and became whole and new.

  He explored the lines of my mouth, teasing with his tongue, biting gently on my lower lip with sharp teeth. Then, before I could take in a full breath to recover, he was kissing me again, robbing me of every thought besides the absolute wildness he stirred in my veins.

  I came alive in his kiss, arching into him, taking as much as he gave and then demanding more. He tasted like peppermint and snowy mornings all tangled together with an edge of fire I knew would burn me if I let him close enough.

  He growled my name, and heat answered in my belly as I turned liquid. Whatever he wanted, I’d give him. It was that simple. Because this was Cam.

  And he was finally kissing me.

  His hands shifted so one arm supported me and the other sent jolts of awareness through every nerve in my body as he trailed his fingers up my spine to cradle the base of my head. Those fingers tightened in a light grip, pulling slightly so my neck arched.

  “Cam,” I groaned as his lips left mine and sucked a path of kisses down my throat. I was going to die. Right here, right now. There was no way anything got better than this.

  His hands gripped me tighter, and—

  Ring.

  What was…?

  Ring.

  No cute ringtone for Cam, nope, just the straight-up, jarring blare of an old-school telephone.

  He stopped as the third ring sounded, his lips open against the base of my neck. He lifted his glazed eyes to mine on the fourth, then blinked, and just like that, the spell was broken. A flare of panic, of regret widened his eyes.

  No. No. No. It was over too soon.

  My heart lurched as he set me on the counter, and his arms slackened, letting me go. I fought every instinct to keep him close, to fight his withdrawal, but I uncrossed my ankles, and he literally slipped through my fingers as he retreated.

  My body still hummed at a frequency only Cam knew as he reached to adjust a hat he wasn’t wearing. As if realizing that, he stared at his empty hands and shook his head.

  “Cam,” I said, hopping down.

  “No.” He backed away. “What was I…?”

  That hum died a little.

  “I can’t touch you,” he muttered. “Not like that.”

  “Yes, you can,” I assured him. It probably sounded like a plea. Whatever. I didn’t care. If it brought him back to my arms, I’d say whatever he needed.

  “No,” he repeated, looking anywhere but at me. “I can’t.”

  “It was just a kiss.” But it wasn’t. It was deeper, and we both knew it.

  “And what happens when it’s more?” he challenged, his eyes clashing with mine for a heartbeat. “Did you feel that?”

  “Of course I did, and more is fine! Wonderful, in fact!”

  “You. Don’t. Mean. That.”

  “Don’t tell me what I mean. I know what I want.” I always had. I’d simply been too scared to say it. To reach for it. I’d always known the chances were I could have him like this once but never twice. Even if I let myself slip twice, he never would. And that’s what he would see this as. A slip. A mistake.

  “Then, you’re wrong. There’s no way in hell you could want this,” he snapped and gestured between us.

  “Because you don’t? I’m only allowed to want what you do?” I wrapped my arms around my torso, suddenly cold. It was like heat that had been coming off my very skin had simply vanished, leaving me chilled and empty.

  “I don’t? Are you kidding me right now? You think any of this has to do with what I want?” He shook his head.

  “It doesn’t?” I sagged against the counter, shriveling a little. It had been about what I wanted. I never gave him the opportunity to say no. Had he really only kissed me because he’d known I’d wanted him to?

  No, he wanted me. Any idiot could see that. Athletic pants weren’t exactly helpful in the camouflage department.

  “Hell no. Willow, I lost any say, any right to even…” His fingers gripped his hair for the longest breath I’d ever held. Then he dropped them to his sides, leaving his hair standing on end.

  I took a breath when he did.

  “I chose Sullivan’s squad,” he finally said, rasping the words. “There were two there, and I chose his.”

  “But you didn’t know it was his squad. Making a choice doesn’t change that.”

  That same determination I’d seen earlier flashed in his eyes, but this time it was a warning. “I brought him home in a box. I was with him when he bled out.”

  “Don’t,” I whispered. The chill was changing, becoming voracious and numbing. The sensation started at my toes and rose up in waves that fed on my joy, my want, even my stupid longing, then froze them out to nothingness
.

  “You should know.” Pain laced every word, raw and bitter. “It’s one thing to think you forgive me, but you should know what he looked like in my arms. How I tried to get the bleeding to stop, but he’d been shot in the neck. Clipped his jugular just enough to make it slower. I couldn’t even see where the rest of the blood was going. And the medic was coming, just not fucking fast enough.”

  Thoughtless. I was empty of everything, even thoughts, as he spewed the story I’d never been told. Never deemed strong enough for the details.

  “I ripped off his helmet, and Vasquez—one of my guys—tried to plug the hole in his neck. But Sully’s hair…it didn’t look as blond as before. It was darker, closer to mine, and I remember thinking that was wrong. That he was supposed to be good, like Xander. He couldn’t turn into me. Stupid, right? Because he was turning into nothing right before my eyes, and I could only sit there with his head in my lap.”

  My lip started to tremble.

  “I knew he was going. There was so much blood. They’d never medevac him out fast enough, not while the outpost was still under attack. I took over holding the pressure on the wound and told Vasquez to fire from Sullivan’s position. And I told Sully, ‘You have to live. You have to. Willow’s waiting. Dad’s waiting. You gotta hold on.’ I knew what it would do to Dad. To Xander…to you.”

  I swallowed the whimper that came without permission, tears pricking my eyes.

  “And…” He looked away, his face contorting into lines of rage and grief and restraint.

  “Tell me,” I begged in a whisper.

  “That’s enough. You don’t want…” He shook his head.

  “Tell me!” I shouted. “Don’t you dare hold anything back or hide it from me. I deserve to know!”

  His eyes slammed shut for a breath. Two. Three. Then they opened and locked on mine.

  “It was hard for him to talk. His airway… It was hard. And when he did, it was between these horrid, gasping breaths. He said, ‘Cam. It’s really you. Take me home.’ He begged me to take him home! And we were sitting there in a filthy combat outpost I didn’t even know was his, in the middle of a fucking firefight I’d sent him into, and I couldn’t do shit to save my little brother. And when…” Cam sucked in a breath and gripped the back of the kitchen chair like it would anchor him. “When he slipped away, it was Mom’s name he called, like he could see her or something. His pulse stopped thrumming against my fingers, and his blue eyes…the pupils… He was just gone. It was two minutes at most. I sat there holding him just like I did that one time he skidded down that last switchback at the ravine and tore his back up when we were kids. Remember?”

  “I remember,” I whispered. We’d been nine. Sullivan hadn’t listened and had run ahead. Cam had been eleven and was blamed. Cursed out by his dad when we got Sullivan back to the house.

  “I was covered in his blood, holding onto this husk that used to be Sullivan, so angry, and empty, and even envious. I wanted it to be me.”

  “Cam, no.” I made my legs obey and took a step, but he backed even farther away.

  “I begged God to let me trade places. To take me instead of Sullivan, but you know He didn’t want anything to do with me. Sully was good and kindhearted and stubborn and didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He deserved to live.” A tear tracked down Cam’s face, disappearing into his beard, and I doubted he even felt it.

  “He did.” I nodded. “He deserved to live, and he was all those things and more. But, Cam, you deserved to live, too.”

  “No!” he shouted, throwing his hands out like he’d shake his own head if he could. “Not like he did. Not when he had everyone to come home to.”

  “So did you!”

  “You honestly think anyone would have looked at Sullivan on the day of my funeral and told him that it should have been him in that box?” His eyes narrowed.

  “Your dad had no right to say that.” I shook my head. My fingertips ached with the need to pull Cam close. To go back to that day and stand beside him instead of across from him. To have said the things I wanted to instead of the things I was supposed to.

  “He had every right. Sullivan was dead. I should have saved him. I should have sent the other squad to hold the perimeter. Should have taken his place myself. Realized what combat outpost we’d been called in for. I should have held his wound tighter. Had them transfuse me immediately. I should have shot him in the fucking foot the minute he decided to enlist. There are a million things I could have done and a million things I did do that more than earned me that pine box we buried him in.”

  “Camden, stop.”

  “Still think I did everything I could have, Willow? I sat there and let the love of your life bleed out all over me.”

  “You didn’t.” The words were as weak as I felt, and the icy hand of fear wrapped around my throat, waiting for Camden to make me clarify that statement.

  “I did. And you think you want these hands”—he held them palms out—“on you? The same hands that reached inside Sullivan and felt the life drain out of him?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “News flash. None of this is fair. None of what’s happened to you is fair, and you deserve someone better.”

  My head snapped like I’d been struck. “Better? How can you possibly say that?”

  “Jesus, you need more? When he died, I was jealous as hell that he got to see our mom first. She was the only person who loved me just as much as Sully or Xander. I was jealous of my dying brother! And angry. So angry!”

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Ring.

  “Oh yeah? I was angry at the world. Angry at that asshole with the gun on the other side of the wall. Angry that Dad let him enlist. Angry that Xander sat in a cushy office while I held Sullivan. Angry that you hadn’t talked him into staying with you.”

  I blanched. “I know.”

  Ring.

  “No, you don’t. I was most angry at Sullivan, because he had the right I would have died for and never even used it. Because when he passed, it was Mom’s name on his lips, when I knew mine would have been yours.”

  I sucked in air on reflex, but every other muscle in my body stilled. Someone pressed the pause button, and we stood suspended in a moment when not even my heart dared to beat.

  Ring.

  “What?” Camden shouted into the phone.

  My heart pounded. My head felt light, almost detached from my body. I stumbled backward until I felt the counter and then shamelessly used it to keep me upright when my knees threatened to give out.

  “When?” His gaze darted to the clock on the wall. “Shit. I’ll be there in seven minutes.” He hung up and left the kitchen without another word, making a beeline for the garage.

  I opened the door that had just slammed in my face and ignored the assault of cold air on my bare knees.

  “Cam, what’s going on?”

  He moved quickly, gearing up to ride.

  “Cam!”

  He flinched but didn’t stop dressing. “My dad’s had an accident. Xander found him in the garage. He must have been trying to leave, because the car was on but the door was shut.” Cam shoved his feet into a set of wool socks from the locker and then into his riding boots.

  “Oh God. What do you need?”

  His eyes jerked up to mine. “What?”

  “What do you need me to do? Do you want me to go? Should I call the hospital to send an air ambulance? What?”

  He blinked twice. “Medevac is on the way. If I leave now, I should make it to Dad’s in time.” He stood and zipped up his coat, then reached for his helmet as I grabbed his gloves. “Just stay here. Where I know you’re not freezing to death out there.” His face disappeared beneath the helmet, and he snapped it on.

  I handed him the gloves and grabbed his arm as he turned to leave.

 
“Be careful,” I said clearly, looking at my own eyes reflecting back in the visor. “Camden, I care if you get hurt. So be careful.”

  He nodded once and left me standing in his socks, his…everything as he took the snowmobile out and headed to his dad’s.

  I glanced around the garage, my eyes landing on the Bobcat with a very lovely plow attached to the front. At least I wasn’t helpless.

  Walking into the living room, I saw Cam’s wallet on the coffee table and groaned.

  Guess it was time to dig myself out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Camden

  The mountain flew by in a whir of white snow and blue sky, dotted by pine trees and the skeletons of winterized aspens as I raced down the mountain. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, a familiar and welcome friend. The snow had already crusted, the result of the overnight freeze.

  Why didn’t I pick up the phone the first time? I could have been there by now, not trying like hell to beat the air ambulance team.

  I knew exactly why. Because I’d had my hands full of Willow. The phone had ripped me out of whatever ridiculous daydream I’d been in and dropped me on my ass in the real world.

  The world where I would never be able to touch Willow like that again.

  The world where Dad left the car running in the garage.

  I took the final turn a little too fast and skidded almost to the edge of the drive, just shy of the switchback drop-off. Pay attention.

  A half minute later, I killed the engine in front of the garage, where Xander hovered over Dad, compressing his chest in rhythmic beats, pausing only to deliver rescue breaths.

  I ripped off my helmet and let it fall, already running into the garage. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” Xander asked, up on his knees with his hands locked over Dad’s chest.

  “Why is he still in here?” God, I could still smell the exhaust even though the truck was clearly off.

  “I can’t get leverage in that much snow.” Xander nodded toward the driveway.

  “He can’t stay in here.” I quickly assessed the garage and moved, spotting a full length of plywood. It came free of the wood stack easily, and I silently thanked my dad for being a type A…whatever he was. It scraped the floor as I slid it toward Dad, then dropped it to cover a section of the concrete.