“Yes, you can.” His voice cuts through the panic, hard as steel as he climbs down to me, muscles taut. “Look at me. Only me.”
I force my eyes up, away from the dark hollow yawning below, and fix my attention on him. He’s closeenough that I can see the moonlight tracing the paths sweat has carved through the dust on his skin.
“Do you trust me?” he demands, taking a wide stance and digging his feet into shallow pockets in the wall.
“I—” My fingers burn. My nails rip against the wall. “Declan, I’m slipping—”
“Do you trust me?!”
“Yes!” The word explodes out of me, broken and terrified and true.
“Then let go.”
The world lurches. My vision tunnels. “What?”
“Let go,” he grunts as he anchors his hips and chest to the wall. “I’ll catch you.”
The command slams into me. Impossible. Unhinged. Every instinct screams against it. But the truth blazes like fire in my bones. I do trust him. More than I realized. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.
I suck in a strangled breath and let go.
Weightlessness claws at my stomach as gravity reclaims me and drags me back to earth. My purse slips from my shoulder, falling into the dark until it hits the stone below with a hollow thud that echoes up the void. I’m falling, shrieking—
Declan’s hand seizes my wrist, iron-strong, jerking me out of the void. My shoulder wrenches, sending spots of pain bursting across my vision, but his grip is unbreakable.
“You’re safe. I promise,” he forces out. “Now eyes on me. Breathe. I’ve got you.” His voice is ragged, every sinew in his body straining as he braces himself against the wall. His arm knots with corded muscle as he pins his body against the stone and hauls me up.
“Here.” His voice is rough, urgent. “See the footholds between mine?” He jerks his chin down, sweat dripping from his temple. “When I move, put your feet there.”
He shifts, bracing with one arm and a single foothold, his body straining as he frees the other leg. As soon as he moves, I scramble to dig my toes into the sand where he showed me. Knees shaking, teeth rattling, I wedge myself between him and the wall, willing it to take most of my weight to give him even a moment of relief.
With a grunt, Declan regains his hold. We’re pressed so close I feel the heat radiating off him, burning through every layer of fabric between us. His breath comes in harsh bursts against my hair, and the solid pound of his heart rattles through my back.
“Good,” he breathes. “Press in. Hips to the wall. Use your legs. Where my hands are—grab the holds.”
My hands, slick with sweat and sand, tremble as I reach up and lock my fingers around the same ridge. His knuckles are white, fingers straining where they hold on next to mine.
“Now push,” he orders, shifting his weight just enough to give me a boost.
I shove off, muscles screaming, hooking my foot on a jagged tooth of sandy stone. Declan guides me higher, talking through each move, grab by grab, so close behind me that the heat of him rises with me. My trust in him, more than myself, is what keeps me climbing, what holds me together.
Finally, with one last desperate heave, the wall gives way to open air. I spill over the edge in a tangle of limbs, rolling onto a hill of soft sand. With a groan, I drag up the last scraps of strength in my body to twist and lookdown the dune. The guards’ torches wink against the dark like a scatter of fireflies—fragile, distant, far smaller than their shouts had made them seem. Their voices sounded so close. They must have veered off, driven in another direction before they ever reached the rim of the Tower.
Declan hauls himself up and over the edge and rolls onto his back beside me. “The guards?”
“Ten minutes,” I breathe. “At least.”
We take a second to lie there. The cool night air sears my lungs, each gasp cutting deep, but I’m alive. We’re alive. Thanks to him. Something hot and wild floods my chest, more than adrenaline, bigger than terror. It’s him. It’s always been him.
Declan props himself on one elbow, his chest rising and falling in rough, ragged pulls. His hair sticks to his forehead, a streak of blood smears down his forearm. He looks wrecked—and devastatingly handsome.
The dam inside me breaks. The fear, the trust, the passion—it all floods out. Tears blur the stars above us, and I laugh through them, shaky and wild.
“I love you.” The words tumble out, uncontrolled, unstoppable. “Holy shit, Declan Thorne,I fucking love you.”
Not just because he literally saved my life, but because he’s seen every awkward, shameful, messy part of me and stayed. Because he wants us to grow into something bettertogether. I finally found him. The one person who won’t shatter my heart, who won’t turn away once he sees me completely. The one I can trust more than I even trust myself. For the first time, it feels like I did something right.
He closes his hand over mine and cups my face with the other, thumb swiping a tear off my cheek.
