The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(88)

“. . . no one inside will have ever survived that . . .”

The world whirred back to the present. He gave his head a hard shake. She is in there. Adair took several lurching steps toward the burning buildings. He’d not lose her as he’d lost his family.

Two pairs of strong arms immediately dragged him back.

“Let me go, ya rotted bastards,” he thundered, wrestling against their hold.

“Ya cannot go in there,” Ryker’s graveled voice shouted into his ear.

His brothers had arrived.

“If she’s in there, she didn’t—”

Adair wrenched free and, whipping around, punched his brother in the chin; the force of that blow sent his brother’s head whipping back.

“Don’t you say it,” he rasped. “She is not dead.” He’d know it. For if she’d been killed by those flames, his heart would have died along with her. He shoved his way through the throng of builders and onlookers, past the fire brigade—

When a shout went up.

Several strangers pointed.

Adair followed the frantic gesturing to the small figure at the top of the burning hell.

“Cleopatra,” he breathed.

Flames licked at the corners of the building, slowly eating away the edges of the roof. Adair tossed his jacket off and, breaking through the crowd, raced to the bakery, as of yet untouched by the conflagration. Blood roared through his veins, fueling him. She’d not perish as his parents had. Not even God himself could take her from him.

She is alive. She is alive. It was a litany inside his mind that drove his every step, until he’d reached the top of bakery. Dragging himself out the window, the thick heat dampened his skin. He cursed, wishing for the first time in the whole of his life that he wore gloves. Swiftly dusting his palms along the sides of his pants, he pulled himself up and onto the rooftop. As soon as his feet found purchase, he went racing. Adair leapt the three feet and came down hard on the next roof. He was up again and running, his heart knocking around his rib cage and his breath coming hard and fast.

Adair skidded to a stop. “Cleopatra,” he thundered over the din of the blaze.

Searching the grounds below, she pitched forward slightly.

His heart jumped into his throat.

Cleopatra shot her arms out, steadying herself, and then searched about—ultimately finding him. At the sight of her—cheeks covered in ash, her garments singed, and her brown hair hanging haphazardly about her small shoulders—relief coursed through him.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Come to me.” Holding his arms open, Adair urged her on.

Cleopatra limped around the perimeter of the building, stopping only when she was directly across from him. “The f-fire has weakened the roof,” she cried, her voice cracking and rough from the smoke.

As if the blaze sought to demonstrate her point, the far-left corner crumpled, and crimson flames jumped high to consume the remnants.

Cleopatra closed her eyes.

“Don’t you dare go weak on me now, Cleopatra Killoran,” he thundered. Her ghosts were his. He’d not allow either of them to be defeated by fire.

Her throat moved. “I can’t,” she shouted into the noise.

“You can do—”

Cleopatra angled her body, displaying her leg.

His muscles knotted. No.

The large angry-red burn at the juncture where her ankle met her foot would make any movements difficult. Christ.

A tear slid down her cheek, and that single expression of her grief and regret ravaged him worse than the fire raging below.

Cursing, Adair charged forward and jumped over the three-foot space dividing them, to Cleopatra’s protestations. He caught himself, landing on his haunches, and then straightened. Cleopatra stumbled forward and launched herself into his arms. “You foolish, foolish, man. Why would you do that?” she cried, grabbing his face between her hands. “Why?”

He gathered her soot-stained digits, raising her knuckles to his mouth one at a time. “Do you trust me?” Not awaiting an answer, he scooped her into his arms and, sucking in a fortifying breath, raced forward.

He gasped as his heels collided with the satisfying feel of purchase. The weight of her in his arms sent him pitching forward, and he came down hard on his knees. Adair swiftly rolled onto his back, so Cleopatra lay sprawled over him.

He tightened his hold on Cleopatra, absorbing the slight, reassuring feel of her against him. Alive. She is alive.

“You c-came,” she whispered, her voice ragged against his ear.

Had she truly believed he wouldn’t? That he wouldn’t scale whatever building, regardless of height, to have her in his arms?

“Adair!” The frantic shouting from below brought him to.

“Come.” He stood, sweeping her into his arms. “This is truly the last roof either of us will ever climb,” he vowed.

At his back, the roof of the Hell and Sin dissolved, swallowing the building in a fiery conflagration, and with the only dream he’d allowed himself from the earliest years of his life gone, and the only hope he had for the future in his arms, he made for the edge and the path to safety.





Chapter 22

“You were saved by one of Black’s men.”

Sprawled in her bed, with her burned leg now treated, bandaged, and propped up, Cleopatra stared at the trio of young women at her bedside.