Black Bird of the Gallows(67)
“I’m sorry.” His voice is slurred and rough. “But you see, I should have been dead for nearly two hundred years. Instead, by chance, I was found by a curse and was turned into this. Not human, not immortal, but some cruel melding of the two. I endured two centuries of horrors, and maybe it was all so I could be here with you. If my unnatural existence means nothing else, it means this. I get to be here, now, with you.”
My heart pounds so hard, I can feel it beat in my toes. “I don’t understand your life. I’m only just beginning to understand my own, but I do understand having to pretend to be normal, even though the events of your past have made you into something that will always be different.”
My hand slides down his neck, over his collarbone. He holds his breath until my palm stops on his chest, where his heart beats as hard and fast as my own. The moment hangs, an unanswered question, until I pull him forward and press my mouth to his.
Reece makes a small sound in his throat, and his arms crush me against him. Desperate, fierce, as if he’d been starving for the contact. As if he’s been waiting for me to accept him, all his flaws and impossibilities included. I draw in a breath as his skin infuses mine with searing heat. It’s almost too much.
Almost. A trill of fear and nervous anticipation moves through me. Suddenly, I don’t know what to do. Or what not to do. Kissing him like this is like teasing a starving, wild thing, shot full with strange power. His hand finds my thigh under the blanket and slides toward my hip. He’s barely human right now, but rather something wild and dangerous and uncertain in a way that should terrify me, but doesn’t.
I slip my arms around his neck and tangle my fingers in his hair.
His tongue slides against mine as his mouth slants deeper. The heat of his skin turns mine feverish. The taste of him—bright and effervescent—turns my thoughts soft and tangled. The aches of my body are a distant echo. We press together so close, the combined pounding of our hearts beat like riotous drums.
When I pull back, my hands tremble on my throbbing lips—lips swollen and foreign-feeling. His gruesome red eyes are hot and intense and a little afraid.
“The world reeks of death and pain, and you smell like life and joy and everything I can never have.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I hate this. I hate what I am, that I can’t stay with you, Angie.”
I gulp back a wave of sadness. I know he can’t stay, and hearing it again sends an ache through me worse than all my injuries. “We’re together right now.”
He runs a hand down my arm. “Promise me, what little time we have left together, you won’t push me away again.” He sighs against my neck. “I’m not your enemy. I can’t bear to be treated like one.”
A promise I can make. His hair sifts through my fingers. “Okay.”
His lips replace breath against my skin. I let my fingers slide down his back. The hot cage of his arms tightens, and I stop thinking in sentences. I want—oh, how I want…
Reece’s head snaps up. He cocks his head in a sharp, lightning-fast way, just like a bird.
My reeling head struggles to compose itself. “What is it?”
His own breathing is harsh, labored, but he eases back, a finger pressed to my lips. Silently, he slips away and edges to the door. He stands there and listens, then returns to me with a pinched expression on his face. He shifts to the wall and peeks out the open window.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is Rafette here?”
“No, another one. He’s curious, maybe.” He crosses the room, tosses my clothes to me. “Get dressed, just in case. I have to go.”
I clench my still damp jeans. “Go where?”
Without a word, he scoops me into his arms—covers and all—and holds me close. His pulse pounds in perfect rhythm with mine. “I want you to stay right here,” he says. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’s important that you stay as high up as possible.”
I rear back, goose bumps erupting over my arms. “Why?”
He sets me back. “I’ll lead him away from here, even though he’s probably going to leave soon, anyway. To catch the rest of it.”
“The rest of what?”
He pins me with those red-black eyes. “The landslide damaged that hydro dam. Lake Serenity isn’t stable. We could see it from the air—it’s likely to go, and it’s going to do so magnificently. The landslide was part one. Part two is going to happen at any moment, and you must keep to high ground before it does.”
“High ground? That would mean…” No, no, no. My blood turns to ice. “But my friends are down there, in the valley.”
“Hopefully, most of it will be diverted to the highway, and the lowest lying areas, but…” He glances at the window, conflict flexing in the muscle of his jaw. “I’m sorry, Angie, people are going to be in the way of this.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
The worst thing about Reece’s eyes like this, is I can’t tell exactly where he’s looking. With no whites, his eyes appear sightless. Right now, however, I know he’s looking right at me, trying to decide something. He glances out the window and makes an impatient sound. “I’m sorry about this,” he says. “I don’t want you to see this, after Hank, but…”