I can feel the heat building, see the glow intensifying from both directions. We’re trapped, sandwiched between walls of flame, with nowhere left to run.
The heat is becoming unbearable. Sweat beads on our skin despite the fear, and each breath burns our lungs. Through the gap, I can see flames licking at the rock face not twenty feet away from below, while the fire above spreads closer with each passing second.
“We’re going to burn,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice rough. “I should have gotten you out of here. Should have?—”
“No.” She grabs my face, forcing me to look at her. “Don’t you dare apologize.”
Her pale eyes reflect the orange glow, wide with terror and acceptance. My chest tightens watching her—this fierce,beautiful woman who’s become everything to me in a matter of days. If we’re going to die, if this is our last moment?—
I crush her back against the rock, my mouth crashing to hers with a hunger that’s been building since the second I saw her—hell, maybe since before that. She meets me with the same wild, reckless need, a moan vibrating from her throat as she fists her hands in my shirt, pulling me closer like she’s trying to crawl inside me.
I pour three years of isolation, days of unspoken tension, the terror of impending death into a kiss that tastes of smoke and salvation.
I’m unprepared for the taste of her. The feel of her. Her mouth is soft and warm and perfect. I relish the sweet slide of her tongue against mine, the way she gasps when I bite her bottom lip, the shift of her hips under my hands.
I growl low in my chest, crowding her harder into the stone, fingers sliding into her hair, tugging just enough to hear the sharp intake of breath she gives me. Her nails drag down my back, a sting that shoots straight to my blood, and I swear the fire behind us is nothing compared to the heat sparking under my skin.
She arches against me, mouth parting wider, hungry, desperate, devouring. The smell of smoke wraps around us, sweat-slick skin, pounding hearts, adrenaline and the electric crackle of something too big to name. I slide a hand down, gripping her thigh, hiking it around my hip, needing her closer, needing hermore.
We’re going to die. We both know it.
So I kiss her like a man starved, like a man drowning, like a man who wants to leave his mark on her soul before the fire takes us both.
The fire roars closer, but I don’t care. Nothing exists except the heat of her mouth, the way she rocks against me, the small sounds she makes against my lips.
I press harder against her, trying to shield her from theapproaching flames. Desperate to make these final seconds of life perfect. My hands tangle in her hair as I deepen the kiss, pouring everything I can’t say into our desperate fucking kiss?—
The rock behind her gives way.
Chapter
Sixteen
We tumble into darkness, stone scraping my arms, my back—Kier’s arms wrapping tight around me as we crash into something cold and hard.
Cold explodes over us—icy, rushing water that punches the air from my lungs. I gasp, hands flailing, water roaring past my ears.
Kier is already there, pulling me up, gripping my arms. “Are you hurt?”
I choke on a laugh, half hysterical. “We’re alive.”
We’re alive.
Above us, the cracked wall glows—orange, flickering, alive with fire. The heat must’ve split the stone, dropped us into an underground water system.
I glance at him—soaked, bleeding, his wild dark hair clinging to his face, his golden eyes burning in the dim light.
“Fuck,” Kier mutters, looking around. “We’re actually alive.”
My chest tightens, emotion catching hard in my throat.
I shouldn’t. This isn’t the time. We’re injured. We’re hunted. I should be focused on survival, on escape, on anythingbutthe sharp pull in my chest when I look at him.
But gods help me, I can’t stop.
I step into him, sliding my hands into his hair to pull his mouth to mine.
