Page 36

“I’m gonna owe someone a goat,” she cursed and dove after them. Ace’s car went wide, hoping to circle the village. Bili flanked them on the other side. The flier trailed flags and another rotor crapped out—but only Lottie saw the drop from above.

—River!— she screamed into the comms. —There’s a gorge and a five metre drop—

—Well, there has to be a bridge— Bili yelled back. —Where’s the bridge? There’s a road!—

Lottie couldn’t see it. —There’s no bridge! I can’t see the bridge!—

Her panic kicked up. The Qasira—the woman she was now wholly certain that she loved—was in a car being driven by psychopaths to the edge of a gorge. They were showing no signs of slowing.

She suddenly realised it didn’t always snow in this little village.

The flat roofs, the flags still flying, the road totally covered in snow and indistinguishable from the land around it.

From her birdseye position she could just make out a causeway at the bottom of the gorge, and a narrow track leading down to it.

Ace had corralled the convoy off course. They couldn’t see it either.

Everyone was running blind.

The roar of a helicopter thundered up the narrow gorge.

—Pull back!— Sami ordered. —Everyone pull back now! The risk to the Qasira is too great—

But it was too late. The SUV at the front—the one carrying Zynara—reached the edge of the gorge, skidding and sliding sideways in an attempt to stop at its edge.

And it nearly did—except that the second vehicle ploughed into its side—and they both rolled and bounced over the lip of the canyon.

They spent too many agonising seconds suspended in the air—then they crashed in horrifying slow motion to the bottom of the gorge.

“Niz!” Lottie screamed.

She didn’t even think about it. She hurled the flier into the canyon.

There was nowhere to land. The snow had given way to rock and a fast moving river that hissed over boulders. The two SUVs were a heartstopping tangle of metal wedged between the rocks. She set the flier into a hover just at the river’s edge, a foot above the water.

The flier totally refused to open the door while still airborne.

“Open!” she shrieked. She didn’t even recognise her own voice. She tugged at the handle and kicked at the door, breaking one of her stupid heels and feeling the unforgiving impact of precision engineering in her bones. “Open the door! Open the mother fucking —”

The flier beeped politely.

Lottie took her handgun and emptied three more shots into the plexiglass.

It tore at her skirt as she clambered through, it scratched a gash up her thigh, but she didn’t feel a thing.

The water, when she landed in it, was shockingly cold.

She lost both shoes with her first steps, but she didn’t care about that either.

There was movement from Zynara’s car—and an awful, awful moaning noise.

“Niz? Zynara? Darling?” Lottie clambered over rocks and made her way up to the wreckage. There was broken glass, the reek of petrol and the stench of burnt rubber. “Oh, fuck no, please, pleaseplease please —”

One of the kidnappers stumbled from the car. He moved like he was drunk, but he still had his gun in his hand. He pointed it at Lottie.

She shot him—she didn’t even think about it—just unloaded her last bullet right into his heart.

Upside down in the car behind him was Zynara.

She was moving. She was alive, held up by her seatbelt. She watched Lottie with liquid eyes and didn’t even flinch as the man fell, dead, to the ground. Lottie scrambled to her side, on her hands and knees in the ice and the rocks and mud.

Zynara’s eyes locked onto hers.

“You’re okay!” Lottie breathed, reverently. “Oh, thank god. I thought— I thought I’d lost you— Oh darling, darling Niz.”

She was dimly aware of the helicopter hovering low nearby and Sami at her side. Bili was there too, helping Petrov out of the other vehicle. Two shots rang out way, way in the back of her consciousness. Ace was dealing with the kidnappers. But all Lottie could see was Zynara.

She was alive. Her eyes were open, dazed but bright, and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

And Lottie— Lottie was done. Finished. The whole rest of the world and every game she’d ever played in her life could go to hell. All Lottie wanted was Zynara.

She loved her. She knew that now.

And not just in the giddy, high-stakes, shag-and-run kind of way she’d always fooled herself with in the past. This was bone-deep.

Blood, heart and sin. Her shame bleeding on its knees at her woman’s side.

She’d crash a flier into a canyon to be with her— She’d kill whoever stood between them.

She’d never loved like this before. She’d never even known she could. Not once. Not ever.

Not until she met Zynara.

Zynara reached up, still dangling from her harness. She brushed Lottie’s cheek with shaky fingers.

“You’re bleeding,” she said softly.

Lottie didn’t even know. A scratch of plexiglass. “So are you,” she whispered. “But you’re safe. I’ve got you. I— I love you.”

Zynara smirked. “Thought so,” she croaked. “How could you not?”

Lottie had said the exact same thing the other night. She poked her tongue out.

They stayed like that for a beat. Just staring. Just breathing. Somewhere, a million miles away, Sami was calling in medical teams. Ace and Bili were assessing how to get the princess out of the wreck.

“Are you just going to leave me hanging here?”

Lottie cradled her face, her hands featherlight on her cheeks. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re too precious to risk.” She kissed her, though, as gently and carefully as she could.

Zynara’s eyes landed on something behind her. She frowned.

“What have you done to my flier?”

Lottie looked at it. It was still hovering, but at a distinct angle. The string of flags had strangled three rotors. Two others had been blown off completely. The windows were smashed.

“Um. Strategic manoeuvres?” Lottie protested.

“I built that flier. I designed it. Created it. I loved that flier.” Zynara was trying very hard to be lofty, but it came over a bit silly given she was dangling upside down in an actual car wreck and her nose was turning red. Lottie knew her line, though.

“Oi, princess! Who just rescued you? Who single handedly chased your kidnappers down a mountain? Who followed you over a cliff into a fucking canyon? I was amazing! I was lethal! Fuck your flier, princess—I was brilliant! You love me .”

Zynara laughed, weak, breathy and beautiful, and Lottie was lovesick and bleeding from it in the snow all over again.

“I do,” Zynara agreed.

Lottie grinned stupidly back.

Sami was suddenly at her side with Ace and Bili just behind her.

“Let’s get the Qasira to safety,” he said. “Let her go, Lottie.”

“I don’t think I can,” Lottie whispered.