Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(65)

The heavy metal door thudded shut behind him, sealing himself in and us out.

Once again we were together on the Outside.





THIRTY-TWO


Luna


IT TOOK A day to get down the mountain. We rode hard, Fowler pushing the horses down precarious slopes that had us arching sharply in our saddles. I didn’t complain, biting back any fears or concerns, knowing we had to cover as much ground as possible as fast as possible. Mammoth bats flew overhead, their great leathery wings slapping the air as they hunted for prey in the great maw of night.

We stopped only briefly, when necessary, to rest and water the horses. On the second day we were still moving over rocky terrain. Fortunately, we hadn’t come across any dwellers. It stood to reason our luck couldn’t hold forever. Not in this world.

Still, at that first, inevitable sound of a dweller, I froze. Its tinny and shrill call bounced off the rocks of the canyon we were passing through. The eerie sound reverberated across the air, carried far by bat-stirred winds. Even though a part of me had missed the Outside, I hadn’t missed that.

“The ground is getting softer,” Fowler murmured beside me.

I nodded in acknowledgment and swallowed, all my senses squeezing and stretching as far as they could go. I listened. I knew firsthand how one dweller could turn to two to twenty in a blink.

“Luna?” Fowler queried, and I knew he was asking if I detected anything else with my more sensitive hearing.

After a moment, I shook my head. The dweller must have moved on, for we didn’t hear it again.

We kept moving.

We didn’t speak much in those first couple of days, too intent in our flight from Ainswind, too trapped in our own thoughts.

“You have to eat, Luna,” Fowler said as he pushed a piece of dried meat into my hand.

Nodding, I brought it up to my teeth and tore off a chunk. It tasted like leather but I forced myself to chew.

“Do you think Chasan is all right?”

“I think he’ll always land on his feet.” He sounded testy.

“Are you angry?”

“I think we’re out here and Prince Chasan is snug inside his castle. He’s fine.”

We fell to silence again. I felt chastened. “Do you think he’s coming?”

“Tebald?” I felt the motion of his shrug. “It’s risky. He doesn’t like risks.”

“He’ll come,” I stated hollowly even though I had posed the question. I wanted him to persuade me otherwise, but I knew. I had thought of little else except Tebald’s voice in my ear, his determination to have me that went deeper than his desire to unite our countries. “With an army, if need be,” I added.

“We can travel faster than any army. It’s just the two of us. He will make the mistake of bringing too many men with him. Too many men will attract dwellers. They’ll be swarmed. They’ll have to fight.”

I nodded again, heartened by these words.

Fowler rose from where he was sitting and settled down beside me, his arm aligned with mine. “You’re worrying too much. It’s not good for you.” He bumped me slightly. We’d been alone for the last couple of days, but we’d hardly touched.

“Easier said than done, isn’t it?”

He lifted his arm and draped it over me, a comforting weight. “Nothing is easy,” he murmured, and I sighed as his fingers brushed the hair back from my temple. “Except this. Us. That’s easy.”

I smiled a little. “Except when it wasn’t. I remember when we first met and you would hardly talk to me.”

“That’s because I liked you, and I didn’t want to.”

“You were so . . . hard. And unfeeling.”

“I thought I had to be. I thought not caring was the way to protect myself from this world. From losing and hurting again. I actually told myself we could just be travel companions. That I could spend months with you and not love you.”

I turned my face, dropping my forehead against the side of his face. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry about?” Bewilderment rang in his voice.

“If Sivo hadn’t forced me on you, then you would have kept going. You’d be halfway to Allu by now. I was exactly what you didn’t want. Entanglement. Someone to drag you down—”

He kissed me, crushing my words. His hands held my face, pulling me toward him so that I crawled in his lap and straddled him. This kiss was ruthless, desperate. A release from the fear of almost losing each other. From days of running without time for breath.

“Don’t you ever say that,” he growled against my lips.

His hands burned a trail everywhere, roaming my back, callused fingertips stroking my nape and burrowing into my hair. I trembled as he tugged my head back, his lips gliding over my throat before coming back to my mouth. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere except here with you.”

My fingers delved inside his doublet, smoothing over taut shoulders. I clutched him through the layers of his shirt, hungry for the sensation of him. He winced and I remembered his injuries. Gasping, I pulled back. “Oh, I’m sorry!”

He seized my hands and positioned them back on him. “I want your touch.”

I nodded, a happy breath shuddering out from me because it was what I wanted, too. More than anything. Gently, I slid my hands over the curve of his shoulders. “I’ll be more careful.”