Page 47

AUTUMN

I slam my palms into Jace’s chest, but it’s not enough.

I shove him hard, knocking him back into the faded exterior wall of an abandoned arcade.

My chest heaves and my heart races. The smell of burnt metal and gasoline from the car fire a hundred feet away lingers in the air, mixing with the musty scent of decaying electronics and the stale air wafting from the open door of the arcade.

Mars, Caspian, and Luna had taken off after the retreating dregs, following their trail to find wherever they came from.

Mars promised to get answers while Jace and I stayed behind and licked our wounds.

Now it’s Jace and me, alone, mere feet from where our car had exploded, among the forgotten relics of a world that no longer exists.

Old arcade machines sit abandoned outside the building with colorful panels faded and peeling.

It looks like more game machines were being brought in when the dead rose, a reminder of how quickly everything can be ripped away with carelessness.

Rage, fear, and relief all tangle together inside me.

“What the hell was that, Jace?” My voice cracks with desperation .

He doesn’t flinch. He only stands there with his eyes dark and his jaw clenched, like he’s waiting for me to hit him again. His shirt is charred and torn in places, showing off parts of his body like a canvas for his injuries.

The burns on his arms through the tears in his shirt are angry and red against his skin, evidence of what he did to save me.

How he almost lost himself in the process.

Tiny cuts pepper his elbow from where he broke the car window, and his palm is crosshatched with lacerations from clearing the glass before pulling me through.

Small burn marks speckle the back of his hands where he touched the scorching metal.

“You were going to do nothing but lie there,” I spit out. My voice cracks with each word. “You were going to let them shoot you. You were going to?—”

“Protect you.”

I shove him again, harder this time. “That wasn’t protection.” My eyes burn with unshed tears. “That was giving up. That was throwing yourself away, and for what? I’m not worth your life.”

His hands snap out to catch my wrists and pull me closer.

Close enough that I can feel the heat still radiating off his skin from the earlier fire.

His dark brown eyes lock on mine with an intensity that steals my breath.

“I can’t lose you,” he bites out, each word more ferocious than the rest as he tells his truth.

My breath catches, and my words come out as a rasp. “I just lost my sister. I can’t lose you, too.”

The fight still burns within me. Anger and fear knot together so tight I don’t know where one ends, and the other begins. I yank my wrists free, but instead of pulling away, I grab his shirt, fisting it tight, and slam my mouth against his.

The kiss is rough. It’s messy, with teeth clashing and tongues battling. His hands reach up to tangle in my hair and pull me closer. I bite his lip hard enough to make him growl and he slams me back against the wall before his mouth trails along my jaw, his breath hot against my skin.

“You said we shouldn’t do this,” I struggle to say against the intensity of the kiss.

“Well, I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.” His palms press against the sides of my head, holding me in place while he devours my mouth.

I moan, clawing at his shirt, ripping another tear in it when I yank it over his head.

I pause to trace my fingertips along the burn scar through his eyebrows, and for the first time, he lets me.

The scar is rough beneath my fingers, a physical reminder of the pain he’s survived.

To me, it shows how strong and undeniably loyal he is, even when he’s a stubborn pain in the ass.

My gaze shifts to Jace’s elbow with the constellation of cuts marring his skin, and I brush my fingers over them. “Your eyebrow is like an exclamation point,” I say.

He pauses to look at me, with his thumb gliding along my cheekbone and his brow furrowing, proving my statement correct.

“Now your elbow’s going to be what…an elipses, always leaving me waiting for more?” I try to smile, but it falters. “Your hands might end up matching your eyebrow if we don’t clean those burns, and I’m not sure how I feel about a field of exclamation points.”

His lips crack into a smile at my ridiculousness and he shakes his head as if his injuries are nothing. “Worth it.”

He grabs his shirt from me and tosses it to the ground, pulling me out of my trance.

My hands explore the planes of his chest, his shoulders, his biceps, feeling the strength that pulled me from the flames.

My fingers trace the fresh burns on his arms and the cuts on his hands, and I press my lips to them gently, as if I could heal them with nothing but touch and pure will .

“You could have died,” I whisper against his skin. A rotter moans in the distance, and I pull my knife out, ready, but there isn’t one in sight yet.

“So could you.” He tilts my chin up to look at him. “I wouldn’t have survived that. Not again.”

Something breaks open in me at his words.

The vulnerability in his eyes, the raw honesty.

It unravels the final thread, and I come undone.

My fingers dip into the waistband of his jeans and I pull him to me again.

Our kiss deepens while his hands slide down my back, tracing every curve before sliding my shorts down my legs in a smooth motion.

I kick them to the side and he grips my thighs, then lifts me against an old pinball machine.

The faded logo peels at the edges, and the machine rocks under us.

I set my knife behind me on the machine so I can explore Jace’s body more properly.

I wrap my legs around his waist, gasping when I feel him hard against me, straining against his jeans.

He thrusts forward and groans, then drops his head down.

His mouth trails fire down my neck, teeth grazing my pulse point in a way that makes my back arch into him.

My head falls back to give him better access.

“Jace,” I breathe out, my voice thick with need and lingering anger at how I almost lost him. My body hums beneath his searing touch, and he presses his hips forward.

His hands slip under my torn tank top, palms scorching against my skin as they move upward.

I tug at the hem that rests just below my bra line, desperate to feel his skin against mine, and he helps me pull it over my head, taking my bra with it.

The cool air hits my bare skin and I shiver despite the heat building between us.

His eyes darken when they rake over my naked body with desire and something deeper. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “Fucking perfect.” The raw honesty in his voice makes me tremble .

I reach for his belt, then fumble with the buckle when he captures my mouth against like he can’t bear to stop kissing me.

Our tongues tangle and the kiss turns hungrier, more desperate.

I finally free his cock. He moans into my mouth when my fingers brush against him.

The sound sends a jolt of electricity straight through me.

He lines up with my opening and thrusts inside in one smooth motion. My head rolls back and I let out a moan of pleasure.

A rotter snarls nearby.

Jace curses, breaking away from my mouth long enough to pull his blade free from his pants that had fallen around his thighs.

His other arm remains banded around my back to support me against the pinball machine, his fingertips digging into my hip.

A rotter emerges from the arcade with broken glasses askew on its face and a wired console controller wrapped around its wrist. Jace continues to move in and out of me at a slow, agonizing rhythm, waiting for the rotter to get closer before swinging wide to drop the walking corpse mid-thrust.

I let out a breathless laugh that transforms into a moan when he pushes all the way in and rolls his hips against me; the friction making my nerve endings sing.

The impact causes something inside the pinball machine to shift, and tiny metal balls clatter around inside when they roll against each other.

“Nice multitasking,” I manage to breathe out, which ends with a moan of pleasure when he sets the knife down to tweak my nipple.

Another rotter moans from inside the arcade. Jace drops his face against the crook of my neck, his breath hot on my skin. “Fucking hell.”

“Sorry,” I pant. My fingers reach up to tangle in his hair. “You should cover my mouth like before so I won’t bring any extra attention. ”

He lifts his head to kiss me hard before pulling back to look me in the eye. The look I see in his makes my heart skip a beat. “I never want to silence you again. I’ll deal with the rotters. You just focus on feeling good.”

The air between us electrifies with something neither of us is ready to name.

I wrap my fingers around the thick strands of his hair, forcing him to keep our gazes locked for what I have to say.

“You’re not allowed to die for me.” I lean forward and bite his lower lip hard enough to make him groan. “You’re not fucking allowed.”

His lip falls from the grip of my teeth.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you alive.

” He pulls back and slams into me so hard I bury my face against his throat to muffle my scream.

I don’t want any more danger to find him because of me, if I can help it.

His hand fists in my hair and he pulls my head back to look into his hungry eyes.

“Do that again, and I’ll make you scream loud enough to draw in every single rotter on the planet.

I want you to cry out with the pleasure I give you, because I’m no longer hiding, and I’ll never dim your light again. ”