Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(4)

His grip bit into me, each finger a burning imprint. He wasn’t going to surrender. It wouldn’t be like before. He wasn’t going to dive in headfirst. There would be no embracing of death.

But we couldn’t escape them. They met us in every direction, the stench of them thick, their moist breaths ragged as they began filling the space around us. Fowler uttered a stinging curse as more dwellers dropped from above, landing with fat plops all around us. Clawed fingers scored the ground as they shoved to their feet.

He swung around, yanking me with him. I felt dizzy for a moment as he pulled me one way, then another, moving us forward in a wild zigzag pattern.

I grabbed his shoulder, but he kept going, dodging their ice-cold bodies. “Fowler! Stop!” I dug harder into his arm. “Stop!”

He finally froze, pulling me into a pocket in the wall of a tunnel, shielding me with his body, his breath falling hard against the side of my face. I faced him, savoring the sensation of his eyes on me. His breath continued to fall in savage pants. It was hopeless.

“Fowler,” I pleaded, fighting to tune out the sounds of dwellers closing in—the rasp of their sensors, the shuffle of heavy feet. We didn’t have long before they would be on us, ripping flesh and sinew from our bones. I could almost imagine the weight of them on me, crushing, killing. “I don’t want to spend my last moments running.”

“Luna,” he choked out, his hand flexing around mine. “Why did you have to come . . .”

“Shh.” I cupped his face with both hands. “You’re not the only one who gets to play knight in shining armor, you know.” My thumbs brushed the planes of his cheeks, letting go of my anger. In this moment, what was the point? “I want in on some of the fun, too.” This was easier than being angry, easier than accusing him of betrayal.

He dropped his head until our foreheads rested together. “You’re supposed to live.”

I swallowed back the impulse to tell him the truth. Me living was never going to happen. It was only a matter of time. He’d told me as much when Sivo first insisted that I leave the tower with him. This world, full of darkness and monsters and tyranny, wasn’t for the living. Fowler had tried to tell me that so many times.

Since the moment I discovered that innocent girls were dying in Cullan’s quest to destroy me, my fate was sealed. My only regret was that I wasn’t able to stop him. That he would continue killing girls because of me.

“No more running,” I whispered, trying to block out the sounds of dwellers, focusing all my senses on the boy in front of me. The heavy steps and rotting, loamy aroma of dwellers closing in. The horrible gurgling breaths. All of it vanished. “That’s not how I want my last moments to be.”

“Very well.” His head nodded in the clasp of my fingers. “No more running.” His breath fanned my lips and I lifted up on my tiptoes.

His mouth closed on mine, stealing my breath. Blood rushed to my head, precisely what I wanted—a rush of white noise in my ears to block out the army of dwellers coming at us.

His arm wrapped around my waist and hauled me closer. Everything else melted away. Fowler’s chest mashed into mine, and I even forgot the miserable sensation of my wet clothes sticking to me like a second skin.

I felt his heart pounding into my ribs. His fingers delved through my mud-tangled hair as he kissed me, lips devouring me in precisely the way I wanted, in the way I needed, in a way that made me forget his lies and my shattered heart and the monsters bearing down on us.





FOUR


Fowler


I KISSED HER harder than I ever had before. It was no gentle meeting of lips over hushed endearments. Nothing slow or leisurely. I claimed her mouth, determined that it be everything. Everything a last kiss should be.

The kiss burned and left its mark, burrowing past flesh and tissue to the very marrow of us—to all that would be left. It imprinted on our souls. When the dwellers tore us apart this kiss would still remain.

I slanted my lips over hers, going deeper, my hands gripping her, ignoring the pain that throbbed in my one arm . . . ignoring the dwellers moving in, so close. I kept my eyes closed, losing myself in her taste and texture. One of her hands curved around my head, molding to the shape of my scalp, and I felt her pulse in the press of her palm on me. Luna’s life merged into mine.

My mind reeled, thinking of the first time I saw her, shooting an arrow at a dweller, saving my life—a bold girl who moved as though she belonged to the woods. As though she belonged to this world, as natural as the darkness itself. I’d resisted her, fought the attraction, but now I knew. She was not something I could resist. It was what she asked for, even if not in so many words. No more running.

I inhaled cold air through my nose and dove deep into the taste of her, pushing my fingers into her mud-caked hair.

A sudden scream blasted over the air, long and eerie as nails scraping glass. It jarred us apart. The sound resembled a horn or trumpet, except no instrument had ever created this. It was animal-like and loud enough to make ears bleed, blaring long and deep, tinged with impatience.

With a cry, Luna staggered, colliding into the earthen wall. I held on to her arm as she flung her hands over her ears. The dwellers stopped cold. The nest of sensors in the center of their blocky faces writhed, the only movement made. Dozens of them hovered on every side of us, locked in some kind of frozen spell. One was so close, it only needed to lift an arm and stretch its taloned fingers to reach me. This close, I could make out the dark stain of blood on the tips of those thick talons, bits of human flesh and gore stuck there like meat on a bone.