Reborn: Wooing My Cold Outcast Savior

The heavy, suffocating heat of the timber woods pressed down on Gisele's chest.

She forced her heavy eyelids open. The harsh midday sun sliced through the canopy of the pine trees, stabbing directly into her pupils. A violent, throbbing pain exploded at the base of her skull. Her stomach heaved, twisting into a tight, sick knot.

She tried to push herself up. The moment her palms pressed into the damp earth, a sharp, agonizing sting shot up her right wrist. Her arm gave out. She collapsed back into the wet dirt, her breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps.

Memories that did not belong to her crashed into her brain. Images of a 1970s American small town collided violently with her modern mind. She saw a farmhouse. She saw a distribution center. She saw herself acting like a completely different person. The sheer force of the mental collision made her vision blur. She clutched her head, her fingers digging into her scalp, trying to understand why she was lying in the middle of nowhere, bleeding and broken.

A dry rustling sound stopped her breath.

It came from the dead leaves to her right. Less than three feet away.

Gisele stiffened. She turned her head, the muscles in her neck screaming in protest. Her eyes slowly focused on the source of the noise.

A black adder.

The snake was thick, its dark scales blending with the shadows of the roots. It was already coiling its body, rising from the dirt. Its forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air. A low, bone-chilling hiss vibrated in the quiet woods. Its cold, vertical slits locked dead onto her face.

Gisele's heart slammed against her ribs. Adrenaline flooded her veins, making her fingertips go numb with ice. She tried to scramble backward, but her twisted ankle sent a blinding flash of pain up her leg. She couldn't stand. She couldn't run.

She dragged her body backward using only her elbows. The rough bark of a fallen log scraped the skin off her palms, mixing blood with the mud.

The adder's neck pulled back. It was the universal, terrifying posture of a strike.

Gisele squeezed her eyes shut. She threw her arms over her face, her lungs frozen, waiting for the piercing agony of the fangs.

A heavy, sickening thud split the air.

It was followed immediately by the sound of something heavy hitting the dirt.

The pain never came. Gisele's chest hitched. She cracked one eye open, her whole body trembling violently.

A rusted, heavy machete was buried deep in the mud, pinning the severed head of the adder to the ground. The headless, thick body of the snake thrashed wildly in the dirt, spraying dark drops of blood across the dead leaves.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps crunched over the dry branches. The sound carried a massive, suffocating weight.

Gisele lowered her arms. She looked up into the glaring sunlight.

A man was walking toward her. He was tall, his shoulders impossibly broad. He wore a faded, rough canvas jacket that looked like it had survived a war. His jawline was set like carved granite. His deep-set eyes looked down at her without a single trace of warmth.

He didn't say a word.

Ernest Jenkins stopped right in front of her. He bent down, his massive hand wrapping around the wooden handle of the machete. With one brutal, effortless yank, he pulled the blade free from the earth.

He casually wiped the bloody edge against the trunk of a nearby pine tree. The motion was so smooth, so indifferent, it looked like he was just brushing dust off his sleeve.

Gisele stared at the raw, wild power radiating from him. A name slowly surfaced from the fragmented, chaotic memories swirling in her mind... Ernest. The name felt entirely foreign, yet it carried a sharp, stinging familiarity. The poor boy. The outcast of the town. The man everyone avoided.

Ernest looked down at her. His cold gaze swept over the fresh blood on her forehead and the unnatural angle of her right ankle. A faint, hard crease formed between his brows.

Still, he didn't speak. He crouched down. His large, calloused hand shot out and clamped around her upper arm.

Gisele gasped at the sudden, hard contact. His grip was entirely unforgiving. He hauled her up from the dirt in one fluid motion.

Her injured ankle gave out the second her weight shifted. She pitched forward, crashing hard into a solid chest that smelled intensely of pine needles, old tobacco, and sweat.

Ernest's body went completely rigid for a fraction of a second. But he didn't push her away. Instead, he shifted his stance. His thick arm swept under the back of her knees.

He lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing at all. With a rough, unceremonious heave, he tossed her over his broad shoulder.

Gisele's chest slammed against his hard back. She could feel the steady, powerful thud of his heart right through the coarse canvas of his jacket.

He started walking. Every heavy step he took sent a violent jolt through Gisele's injured head. The world began to spin in sickening circles. Nausea clawed at her throat.

She weakly grabbed the frayed collar of his jacket. Her knuckles turned white. She opened her mouth, trying to force out a simple "thank you," but her vocal cords refused to work. Only a pathetic, broken whimper escaped her lips.

The spinning trees blurred into a dark, suffocating gray. Gisele's grip on his collar went slack. Her body went entirely limp against his back as the darkness swallowed her whole.