Battered Not Broken

Battered Not Broken

Celia Kyle

Published: April 2012

Published by Summerhouse Publishing.
Copyright, Celia Kyle. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains
material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws
and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is
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author.

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Cover Artist

Mina Carter

This is a work of fiction. The characters,
incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to
actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely
coincidental.

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Sleet whipped through the trees, stinging her
face and burrowing through her clothes to chill her skin. Gillian
tightened her hold on the jacket as the wind threatened to yank it
from her shoulders. Her fingers tunneled into her skimpy pockets,
searching for warmth that wasn’t there. Feet crunching and sinking
into the dangerous snow brought her closer and closer to her goal.
Warmth was only footsteps away…many, many footsteps.

From the road, where she’d left her
broken-down car, the smoke rising in the trees hadn’t seemed too
far off. Now, hours later, it seemed like she’d been walking for an
eternity. Gillian was tempted to check her watch again, to see how
long she’d been walking down the slushy, rutted road, but couldn’t
force her hands to leave the haven in her pockets.

One foot in front of the other, she kept
trekking, stumbling over unseen rocks and tripping in hidden holes.
Exhaustion began to overtake her. Each breath puffed from her
mouth, turning the air bright white before she sucked back in
frigid air, which seemed to freeze Gillian from the inside out. But
she couldn’t stop, could never stop.

The worn road she followed twisted and turned
through the trees. Every time she came to a bend, she made a wish
that her destination would be around the next corner. But it
wasn’t, so she kept pushing, begging her feet to move.

Mind over matter, girl, just a few more
steps.

She’d lost the feeling in her feet hours
before. The wind picked up again and pummeled the sleet into her
skin like a thousand tiny knives. Hunching her shoulders to shield
her face, she continued.

Can’t stop. He’ll catch me.

She couldn’t afford to get caught. She
wouldn’t go back, not ever again. The last time…the last time she’d
nearly died. Not again, not ever again.

Gillian licked her lips, tasting blood as her
tongue wet her cracked skin. Hours. It had only taken hours for the
cold and wind to do its damage.

Tears pricked her eyes and more than once she
thought about returning to her car to wait for someone to pass by,
to help her. But on these deserted mountain roads, hardly anyone
ever drove by, especially with a blizzard churning and threatening
the area. Now she would die in the cold, alone.

At least it would happen her way and not at
another’s hands.

More time passed and each breath became more
labored—the only sound the harsh inhalation and exhalation as she
tried to fill her lungs. The landscape was bare of animals, not
even the squawk of a bird could be heard to distract her from the
struggle to keep going. They were probably snuggled in their own
homes for the winter.

Smart bastards.

Shadows crossed the road now, the sun having
dipped behind the trees for its own slumber. The smoke had looked
so close when she started out; she should have known. Gillian
wasn’t an outdoorsy woman—close to her, ended up being miles and
miles away in reality. But still she continued. She’d walk until
she collapsed or found warmth for the night; whichever came
first.

Head down, she lumbered on. It wasn’t until
she ran into the gate that she realized she’d reached her
destination. The end of the road had come and now she stood before
what she’d been dreaming of all day.

A cottage. No, a cabin. A large log cabin
with wisps of smoke wafting from the chimney proved she hadn’t been
walking toward a dream. With weathered logs forming the walls and a
wood shingle roof, it looked like a solid structure, built to spite
the elements.

She tugged her hand free of her coat pocket
and lifted the latch on the gate, calling out a greeting as she
stepped through the wooden portal.

“Hello?”

Her voice was lost with the wind and pain
sliced through her throat. The damaged tissues still hadn’t
healed.

Closing the gate behind her and dropping the
latch in place to make sure it was locked, she stepped across the
snow-covered lawn. Careful of any hidden dangers, she tested the
ground with each step just as she’d done all day. She didn’t want
to stumble and fall when so close to her goal. Sheer determination
kept her on her feet now, denying the toll the weather had taken on
her body.

One puffing breath and straining step at a
time she climbed the steps, shuffling across the worn plank porch
to the front door. She’d burrowed her hand back in the meager
warmth in her pocket, but she reluctantly withdrew it again.
Raising the knocker, she let it fall against the tarnished brass
plate on the door, its booming echo mixing with the wind as it
whipped around the cabin.
All that, for nothing.

Gillian waited, but no sound from within the
cabin could be heard. She forced her muscles into action again,
raising and releasing the knocker to fall against the brass plate
for a second time. The sound echoed, louder this time, yet still
there was no answer.

Tears burned her eyes, and she didn’t hold
them back. A fire burned in their hearth and they were either not
home or choosing to ignore the bundled, bruised, and beaten woman
at their door.

Gillian rest her head against the carved
wooden door and she let her tears flow, the warm liquid stinging
her near frozen skin as it slid across her cheeks. In a last effort
for survival and with the remaining strength she possessed, Gillian
wrapped her hand around the doorknob and twisted, stumbling when
the door pushed open with her weight.

She caught herself on the door then stepped
into the cabin. Warmth like she never thought to feel again
enveloped her, seeped through her jeans and poor excuse for a
jacket. As the heat surrounded her body, pinpricks of pain replaced
the numbness she had grown accustomed to. Her waking skin burned as
blood returned to her extremities.

She leaned against the door, pushing it
closed to stop any more of the luxurious heat from leaving the
cabin. Her breath still came in soft pants and Gillian swallowed,
wincing at the pain the action caused.

Damn him!

She wet her lips, then called out to the
cabin’s inhabitants again, hoping now they would hear her.

“Hello?” she croaked. Her voice didn’t
resemble the soft timber she normally had. Damn Kyle to the
farthest reaches of hell.

Seconds ticked by as she waited, frozen to
the spot, her clothes dripping water and mud on the mat in front of
the door. No one answered. A clock chimed from within the cabin.
Seven o’clock. She’d been trudging through the woods for thirteen
hours and been awake for thirty-five. Acknowledging the amount of
time she’d been awake only managed to make her fatigue
intensify.

Gillian moved a few steps into the cabin and
spotted the source of all the glorious heat—a fire roaring away
behind the hearth screen.

She croaked out another greeting.
“Hello?”

She tried raising her voice, but it only
cracked and pain knifed down her throat. Gillian swallowed hard in
a vain effort to relieve the pain and shuffled forward a few more
steps, knocking on the worn plank wall to rouse the cabin’s
inhabitants.

Still no one replied. Could the house be
empty?

She shuffled further into the cabin, her eyes
drinking in the home’s interior. Large, wood-framed couches lined
the living room’s walls, and an enormous rug covered the floor with
a tree stump coffee table in the center. It emitted a sense of
warmth and welcome, with throw blankets covering the couch and
handmade end tables capping each couch. Cozy.

Gillian continued through the cabin, praying
the owners wouldn’t throw her out or be angry for entering without
an invitation. She passed by a tidy, but small kitchen; a carved
table occupied the center of the space. She kept moving through the
cabin until she came upon five doors.

The first opened into a spacious bathroom
with four sinks, a massive tub and a walk-in shower. The door
closed with a soft click, and Gillian moved on to the door directly
across the hall.

Gillian peered inside to find clothes strewn
all over the room, soda cans sitting on the dresser, and shoes
littering the floor. This was, without a doubt, a man’s room. A
messy man, but a man nonetheless. Slob or not, at least
someone
lived in the house; there was no way she would have
dreamed up that mess.

The heat and movement wakened her limbs as
she moved on to the next room, and her cold aches were swiftly
becoming definite pain. The wide open door revealed a tidy yet
lived-in room. Pictures lined the walls and the bed appeared to
have been made with care, the top blanket pulled taut along the
mattress.

Fatigue wore on her and Gillian hoped she
either came upon a guest room or one of the cabin’s occupants soon.
She felt as if she’d drop to the ground if she didn’t get off of
her feet.

The last door—Gillian peered inside to find a
sparsely furnished room. A full-sized bed covered with a plain
comforter in one corner, the small bedside table right beside it
holding a single lamp. There were no pictures on the walls; nothing
at all to show the room belonged to someone.
Must be the guest
room.

Her shoes clopped against the wooden floor as
she trod across the room, before settling on the bed. She toed her
shoes off and pain shot into her legs at the movement. There was
nothing she could do about that now; the damage had been done.
Gillian swung her legs onto the bed and laid her head on the
pillow, pulling the blanket across the bed and over her body.
Tucked into the warmth of the comforter, Gillian allowed the quiet
ticking of the house’s clock lull her to sleep. She’d explain her
presence to the cabin’s owners, but right now, she just needed to
rest her eyes. Just…for…a…minute.

* * *

Ronan stomped through the snow toward his
brothers, not quite ready to head back toward home. They didn’t
seem to be too worried about heading back to the cabin either.
Conner took strikes at Max, swiping and clawing at his brother
while Max jumped and jogged out of Conner’s way.

Ronan lumbered through the melting snow
shaking off the growing layer of frosty ice and leaned against a
nearby tree, rubbing his back against the bark. He stretched tall,
then pressed against the tree with his front legs above his head,
gouging the tree and marking his territory. An Alpha bear had to
make his space known and being the biggest, strongest and oldest
bears in the region, Ronan didn’t want anyone but he and his
brothers in the area.