Page 45 of Claimed By the Mothman (Greymarket Towers #1)

N ell couldn’t feel her hands. All sensation had narrowed to a single point of heat—the opal ring on her finger, burning into her like a brand. The bond between her and Sig wailed, a mournful howl vibrating in her blood.

Her breath hitched. She didn’t know if she was shaking or if the world was.

“No,” Sig rasped. “No. This will not happen. No.”

He grabbed her wrist and began to run. Nell stumbled after him, legs scrambling to keep up.

Sig was sprinting in long strides, his feet barely seeming to touch the floor as he raced, and her shoulder wrenched with every pull of his grip.

Terror pounded in her ribs, the pure, physical panic of being dragged by something faster than her, stronger than her, not remotely human.

The stairwell blurred around them and the walls twisted. Air shrieked past her ears, a wind that shouldn’t have existed inside.

They emerged into the lobby and before she could catch her breath, Sig surged to the main doors, his hand flung out. He slammed into them with a crack that echoed like a gunshot.

Wood groaned. The frame shuddered. But the doors didn’t open.

The walls around them trembled, a ripple moving through the plaster like muscle under skin. The chandelier overhead jerked once, then sputtered.

Sig struck again, harder, his whole body a combination of motion and fury. The door remained sealed.

Nell drew in a hissing breath, panicked. She could feel it now. Not just her fear, but his. Sig’s desperation surged through the bond like a current, wild and rising, drowning her rational thought. “Sig—”

Eyes blazing, he grabbed her arm and pulled her with him toward the atrium. The side doors loomed before them, washed in sickly green emergency light. With a throaty clacking, Sig slammed into them. They didn’t budge.

Slammed again. Nothing.

The skylight overhead rippled, color warping around them like oil on water.

Nell staggered back. The building shuddered violently. No, not the building—something beneath it. Something older.

An animal sound ripped from Sig’s throat—half-roar, half-trill, all grief. His claws scraped down the door as if he could force it to obey through sheer desperation and violence.

Nell pressed her palm against the nearest wall, and the wallpaper pulsed beneath. The bond thrashed in her chest like it was trying to crawl out. Sig's panic was a second heartbeat inside her chest, louder than her own.

He whirled, and for a moment, she didn’t recognize him. His pupils had gone narrow and vertical. His wings rose in sharp, twitching angles, casting shadows that didn’t match his shape. His claws were longer. His shoulders broader.

Before she could protest, he was moving again. He scooped her into his arms and launched them into the nearest stairwell. Each step was a lunge—three at a time, then four. The air warped around them.

Nell buried her face in his throat. “Sig—stop—”

He hissed something, clicks and vowels and a tremor of sound that wasn’t language anymore.

They hit the fourth floor in a blur of motion and noise. Sig let out a sound not meant for human ears, and tore the apartment door open. The frame shrieked. Wood and enchantment splintered beneath the fury of something not built to be stopped.

He pushed past the wreckage, through the space, straight to the living room balcony. He didn’t stop, didn’t slow, as he gave a clicking thrum, the balcony doors opening beneath the sound. He leapt—and slammed into a wall of nothing.

Nell screamed, a sharp whiplash of jarring, brutal pain cracking through her body as they bounced back, jarring and brutal.

Sig reeled wings flaring wide to catch their momentum. He twisted, shielding her body, and slammed his shoulder into the barrier. Again. And again.

But the barrier didn’t yield.

Sig roared—a true Harbinger roar, low and terrible . Dropping her from his arms, he lunged again, clawing at the nothing-space.

Nell staggered upright. “Sig—”

He turned toward her and her breath caught. His chest heaved with something beyond exhaustion, beyond rage. His eyes were searing slits of molten red, and his horrifying mouth twisted into a snarl that wasn’t meant for her, but terrified her anyway.

There’s no way out. The single thought landed with the heavy weight of finality. There’s no running. There’s nothing we can do.

She reached up with shaking hands and caught his face. “Sig,” she whispered, voice quivering. “Come back to me. Right now.”

Her thumbs brushed the sharp edges of his cheekbones.

“Please,” she breathed, and felt tears begin to well in her eyes. “Come back .”

The tension in Sig’s shoulders faltered. His wings drooped. The glow in his eyes dimmed from wildfire to ember. His body folded in on itself.

“Nell—” Her name pulled from his throat. “We have to get you out. I cannot —I will not lose you—”

She pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him, anchored him with bare hands and steady breath, even as her bones felt like kindling. He was shaking. So was she. His skin burned beneath her fingers and his breath stuttered at her neck.

“Maybe it will let me go this time,” Nell said. The lie nearly caught in her throat. She didn’t believe it. But she said it anyway, because if he believed, maybe he wouldn’t tear the building apart trying to fight the impossible. “Maybe…maybe there’s a chance.”

The words came from somewhere deeper than her lungs, from the part of her that still wanted hope , even as everything else in her screamed it was already too late.

Sig shook his head with violent finality. “No.” He doubled over her with a sob, clawed hands digging into her back, and made a sound that didn’t belong to any known creature. He held her like a drowning man clutching driftwood.

“I would burn the world to keep you,” he choked, voice shuddering like a fault line. “But I cannot burn the Lustrum. I cannot burn the Lustrum. ”

She buried her face in his chest. Because he was right.

And because, deep down, she had always known it would end like this.

There was no way she would have been allowed to keep this, to be this happy, to find peace in a place like Greymarket.

To find him . Not without a cost. Not without the universe clawing it back with compounded interest.

But… for the moment, she was here. He was real. And the bond still burned between them like a line of fire, taut and trembling.

Nell inhaled, slow and steady, pulling in the scent of her Harbinger like it might be the last clean breath she’d ever take.

“If this is all the time we have left…” she whispered into the space between his ribs, the space where his heart stammered. “…then let’s make the most of it.”