Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Outside, the chill is bracing, yet not enough to slap some sense into me. The balcony overlooks a private courtyard, empty except for manicured hedges and a fountain that’s been turned off for the season. Beyond it, Manhattan glitters as always.
Vanguard—Nate—leads me to the railing then turns to face me. The wind ruffles his dark hair, and in the moonlight, he looks less like a superhero or a movie star and more like a man. Just a man. One who’s looking at me like I’m the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life.
“Try not to scream,” he says.
“What—”
His arms wrap around me, one at my waist, one at my shoulders, and suddenly, the ground isn’t there anymore.
My stomach drops. The balcony falls away beneath us—ten feet, twenty, fifty—and I’m clutching him like my life depends on it, because oh my fucking God, it does. The city shrinks below us, the Met becoming a dollhouse, Central Park a dark rectangle studded with lamplights, and we’re rising, rising, the wind whipping my hair free from its careful knot and tearing pins away into the void.
I do scream. Just a little.
“I’ve got you,” he says against my ear, and his arms tighten, pulling me flush against him. “I’ve always got you.”
We’re flying. Flying. Not in a hover car, not in a plane, but actually bloody flying, with nothing beneath my feet but a thousand feet of empty air and nothing keeping me alive except the man holding me against his chest.
It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.
The city spreads out below us like a reverse night sky, avenues stretching in constellations, buildings dotted like stars, the Hudson and East Rivers dark galaxies hemming it all in. I can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, tiny and green, her torch a pinprick of gold. The wind is cold and sharp and smells like nothing at all, just clean air and the utter freedom of the skies.
And I’m crying. I don’t know when I started, but tears are streaming down my cheeks, stolen by the wind before they can fall, which is a blessing. My tears might be lethal to the one carrying me thousands of feet in the air. It’s just too much—the height, the speed, the feel of his body against mine, the impossible reality of what’s happening. I’ve spent so long keeping everyone at arm’s length, ever since my first kiss ended in death, and now, I’m a thousand feet above Manhattan, in the arms of a man I’m supposed to be investigating, the man who has so much power, he could destroy anything he wanted.
I’ve never felt more alive.
Or more terrified.
“Breathe,” Nate says, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. “Look at me. Just look at me.”
I tear my gaze from the dizzying drop and find his eyes—steady, calm, anchoring me in the chaos. He’s not scared at all. Of course he isn’t. This is what he was literally made for.
“I’m going to land,” he says. “Okay?”
I nod because I don’t trust my voice.
We descend slowly, the city rising to meet us, and I watch as a rooftop materializes beneath my dangling feet, some kind of observation deck, empty and silent, with a glass barrier around the edges and a view that must cost a fortune.
My heels touch concrete, and my legs buckle immediately.
Nate catches me before I can fall, his hands warm on my waist. “Easy. Take a second.”
“A second?” I squeak. “Right. Just need a second after being kidnapped into the sky without warning—”
“You loved it.”
“I did not—” I break off because he’s grinning at me, that genuine smile that transforms his whole face, and I realize I’m grinning too. Laughing, actually—breathless, hysterical laughter that sounds unhinged even to my own ears.
“Okay,” I admit. “Maybe a little.”
His hands linger on my waist, fingers pressing in firmly, and the laughter dies in my throat. The way he’s looking at me…something has changed. The polished superhero from the gala is gone, and in his place is something rawer.
Hungrier.
Messier.
And therefore, more dangerous.
I step back, breaking contact, and I immediately regret it as the vertigo hits. The rooftop tilts beneath my feet, and I have to grab the glass barrier to steady myself. We’re so high, so impossibly, terrifyingly high. The cars on the streets below look like toys, the people like ants, and my stomach lurches as my brain tries to reconcile what my eyes are seeing.
“Breathe,” Nate says from behind me. Close. Too close.
I move along the barrier, putting distance between us, focusing on the view instead of the man. The Empire State Building rises to my left, its spire lit up in red and gold. Beyond it, the city sprawls in every direction—Midtown’s forest of glass towers, the dark rectangle of Central Park, the water a glittering border. It’s both beautiful and overwhelming, the kind of view that makes you feel small and infinite at the same time. I try and focus on that feeling, focus on anything but him.