Page 18 of Love Is A Draw (Check Mates #2)

T he mist peeled away, leaving the balloon exposed to the dazzling brightness of open air.

Gail blinked against the sudden sunlight and gripped the edge of the basket, her fingers curling tighter on the woven ropes.

The damp coolness no longer clung to her skin.

Yet, she quivered deep in her belly. She glanced at Victor, who stood close beside her.

His reassuring warmth didn’t stop the trembling in her hands.

Her unsteady breath wasn’t just from the kiss they’d shared, that flicker of happiness already remote, as though it had been borrowed from a life that wasn’t hers to keep.

She searched Victor’s face, needing something sure to hold on to.

When their eyes met, his held a steady kind of confidence, as if he could will her fear away with just a glance.

For a fleeting moment, it worked. Her heart leapt for an entirely different reason, and she clung to that sensation.

The thought turned to ash an instant later when the basket jerked downward as though the earth itself had reached up to tug them back. Gail gasped and stumbled, her stomach twisting. Her hand shot out, gripping Victor’s arm so hard she felt his muscles shift beneath the fabric of his coat.

“What’s happening?” Victor asked, unable to hide that his calm was laced with a sharp edge, as if his restraint was a rope being pulled too taut.

The pilot cursed low, a weighty, final curse. He wrestled with one of the lines, his hands moving quickly. “We’re droppin’. Not right, this height. Not safe.”

Victor turned sharply toward him. “What do you mean, ‘not safe’?”

The man didn’t lift his eyes. “Gas is escaping faster than it should.” He jerked hard on a rope, jaw tight. His movements were precise, but compared to the measured rise and fall of the ride so far, the urgency in his actions struck something cold in Gail’s chest.

She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t trust herself to speak.

Her pulse thudded so loudly she half-expected it to echo against the sky.

Something had gone wrong, horribly wrong.

She didn’t need the pilot to tell her; she could feel it in the way the basket quivered beneath her feet, in the hitching sound of the air, in the jarring tilt forward that angled the horizon at an unnatural slant.

Victor’s arm pressed against her back, steadying her. “Hold on, Gail.” He wasn’t offering reassurance, but instruction.

She didn’t need to be told twice.

Then she saw it. Above, where the balloon envelope arced high into the sky, something was wrong. Smoke curled upward, dark and sinuous. She stared, trying to convince herself she’d made a mistake. But it was painfully real. The faint flicker of orange and gold wasn’t sunlight.

“The balloon envelope is on fire.” The words trembled from Gail’s lips, barely audible before the wind swept them away. Her own words sounded foreign to her ears, brittle and insubstantial, as though the horror of the realization had bled the strength from it.

The pilot snapped his head up, gaze locking on the rising smoke. “Damn it. Knew those seams were weakening. We patched the envelope last season.” He yanked hard on a rope. “And these ethanol burners—always temperamental in damp air.”

Heat prickled up the back of her neck, not from the flames, but from the wave of panic coursing through her.

She couldn’t pull her gaze away from the smoke.

The dark tendrils swirled upward, twisting and expanding with terrible purpose.

The sky itself seemed to be closing in, heavy and suffocating, the faint snap and crackle of the fire a mocking reminder of its steady climb.

“Torches off now,” the pilot barked. He yanked hard on a rope. “Less flame, less chance it’ll spread faster.”

The words grated against her ears, cold comfort for the terror clawing at Gail’s insides.

Her throat tightened, making her breath come in shallow gasps, scraping painfully against her ribs.

Her eyes fixed on the edges of the burning silk, flickering orange at first, then bursting brighter.

The smoke thickened, rolling out in spirals against the bright sky, staining it with its menace.

Each new puff of smoke was like a lash brushing over her skin, pushing fresh waves of dread over her.

“We’ll hit ground shortly.” The pilot’s words jarred.

Hit.

Ground.

Shortly.

Her mouth turned dry, as though her body had drained of even the moisture needed to form words.

She tried to swallow, but the effort only made the rising knot in her throat more unbearable.

The braided wicker felt rough beneath her fingertips, offering no comfort.

Her knuckles, already pale, as though they would burst from the tension.

She didn’t dare loosen her grip—not when the air seemed to tremble with an unrelenting, fiery threat above her.

Victor shifted, stepping behind her, movements smooth but deliberate.

He drew his arms around her and pulled her into a crouching position in the basket, encircling her waist with a protective strength that left no room for argument.

The coarse weave of his coat pressed against her back as he pulled her close, his broad chest anchoring her against the quaking basket’s edge.

“Sit,” he murmured, a command softened only by the urgency woven through it.

When she didn’t respond quickly enough, barely able to make sense of the chaos storming through her head, his hands guided her down, pressing her gently but firmly onto the basket’s uneven floor. He wasn’t rough, but he left no room for hesitation.

His touch made her breath falter, though relief and tension tangled so tightly within her that she couldn’t separate which was which. Roaring wind around them made the wicker creak.

Her knees buckled, her body yielding to his quiet insistence.

Gail found herself hunched low, knees tucked, hands still gripping the edge for dear life.

Victor lowered himself behind her, bracing his legs to cage her within his frame.

The weight of his arms tightened across her middle, solid and unyielding, the heat of him cutting through her cold terror.

Where minutes earlier, they had floated freely and carelessly in the basket, it had now turned into a cage of terror.

His chin brushed the top of her head, and a moment later, she felt its weight resting there, the press both grounding and intimate.

Too much, too fast, but oh so needed. She didn’t pull away, could not even consider it.

Safety might have been nothing more than an illusion, but here, in his arms, she clung to it fiercely.

The basket lurched again, a sharp jolt that made the ropes groan, and Gail gasped, the sound barely audible under the roaring of flames above. Her body locked up as if she could make herself smaller, as though shrinking into Victor’s hold could shield them both.

His arms strengthened their grip in response, and he leaned closer, his breath steady against her ear. “Hold me,” he said, low and sure, the words carrying weight she hadn’t realized she needed. “I’m here.”

His offer of comfort should have soothed her, but it sparked conflict inside her, only deepening the ache.

She wanted desperately to believe him, to accept the solidity of his frame, but the thought of him being too close to danger made her chest tighten with a different kind of fear.

The fire above could snap its greedy fingers and take him first. The basket could pitch one way too far, and she would lose him forever.

Her breath hitched at the thought, something sharp and panicked breaking from her throat before she could stop it.

Victor’s arms shifted, his hand brushing over hers where they clung uselessly to the edge.

“Gail.” He invited her to focus entirely on him, away from the smoke above and the searing heat so close.

“Breathe.” He threw the single word as an anchor thrown into a storm, and she tried, though her breath caught halfway, shaky and strained.

“I don’t…” she tried to answer, but words failed her, carried off by the roaring wind and the suffocating smoke.

“Yes, you do.” His hand steadied hers, firm against trembling fingers. “Our position is stronger than we think.” Something in his certainty flared warmth through the ice in her veins. She could borrow steadiness, even if it wasn’t her own.

The smell of him surrounded her now, a familiar blend of leather and something faintly spiced, but the acrid tang of burning silk clawed at her senses, refusing to release its grip.

Above them, the fire hissed and popped, flames licking unseen edges of the fabric.

The basket swayed again, a precarious tilt sucking air from her lungs.

He shifted, as if preparing to shield her from anything, even the unraveling sky above.

“Victor,” she whispered, her panic bleeding into his name. Her throat burned as bile threatened to rise, but she swallowed it back, forcing her body to stay still within the cocoon of his arms.

Tears stung her eyes now, only partly from the smoke, and she pressed herself deeper against him. The basket jolted so violently that Gail’s breath left her in a panicked gasp. Above, the flames crackled louder, hungrier, the smoke curling downward like a living thing.

The pilot’s boots scraped against the floorboards as he fought with the ropes. His clipped shout cut through the windy, smoky, and noisy. “Ready! Hold on!”

His command came like the crack of a whip, sparking something wild and desperate in Gail’s chest. She didn’t have time to think, to wonder what would come next.

The basket dipped again, the sky pitching at an angle that made her stomach churn.

Her grip on Victor’s arm tightened, her nails digging into the fabric of his sleeve as though holding him might somehow keep them tethered to the earth they were about to meet.

Victor didn’t flinch. “Gail,” he said sharply, his voice taut with purpose.

She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze—not when her world had shrunk to the heat of his arms locked firmly around her.

One of his hands curled around her head, steadying it against his chest as he wrapped the other around her waist. His grip was unyielding, holding her tighter than she thought possible without crushing her.

The basket heaved again and tipped hard to the right, so sharply that even crouched at the bottom she could see over the wicker rim.

Her shoulder slammed into the side as if the basket meant to spill them out into the open sky, the swell of its motion knocking her knees against the wicker.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

The acrid sting of smoke clung to her senses, filling her nose and making her eyes water as her heart pounded with a frantic, almost deafening rhythm.

Victor ducked his head low, his breath brushing hot against her temple.

The closeness made every sensation sharper, every nerve brittle and raw.

She could sense the faint tremor in his chest as he exhaled, though his hold on her never wavered.

Gail’s nails bit deeper into his coat. Her body shook uncontrollably, but her focus narrowed to the heat of his hand splayed protectively across her back. The impact they both dreaded seemed to stretch time, measuring each labored second more cruelly than the last.

Above them, the ropes groaned perilously, a creak that sent a shock of cold dread slicing through her.

The pilot’s curses under his breath rose to her ears again, barking unintelligible orders into the wind. She couldn’t focus on him. She couldn’t focus on anything except the crushing fear clawing at her stomach and Victor’s frame surrounding hers like armor.

The basket tilted sharply, and Gail whimpered, her face pressing harder into his chest. She tried to force her breaths into some kind of rhythm, but couldn’t control the hopeless flutter of terror in her ribs.

Victor’s voice broke through the noise, steady but growling with tension. “Soon.” His lips brushed her hair as he spoke. “Head down.”

She nodded against him, small and frantic, unable to speak.

Her fingers clenched the heavy fabric of his coat into trembling fists as she pressed herself deeper into his embrace.

If the impact came now, if they fell from the sky like the burning wreckage she feared they’d soon become, she didn’t want her final moments to be spent searching for something to hold onto.

She had Victor, and no one else would do.

The ropes whined, and the deafening sound of the flames roared like a beast intent on devouring its prey.

Each second lingered unbearably, the weight of dread bearing down on her chest until it felt as though she might choke on it.

Victor shifted slightly, his grip unrelenting, his legs bracing them even harder against the relentless sway of their dying vessel.

The wind screamed around them, the slap of the ropes echoed like a harbinger of doom, and Gail held her breath, bracing for the jarring, inevitable moment when the earth would meet them with all its unyielding force.

Whatever words Victor might have said were lost to the wind, but his lips barely left her hair, his presence a silent defiance against the fear threatening to consume her.

And though panic gripped every wasted corner of her mind, she held to one singular thought, if only to keep from unraveling completely. If this were the end, she would not be alone.