Page 132 of Unveil

“Luna! Duck!”

She instantly goes limp, becoming dead weight in his arms and exposing him as she drops. I let the bolt fly. In the next blink, the bolt’s buried in his throat. He chokes and claws at it, trying to get a grip on the white feathers. But my little bird takes flight, spinning up on her good ankle to plunge the Fury knife into his chest with a dancer’s grace.

“I’m notyours.” She rips the knife free before he falls to his knees.

I hop up onto the dais and smirk. “She’smine.”

His shocked eyes beg for mercy, but I kick the stab wound in his chest, sending him flying off the dais and into the fire on the other side.

I hold out my hand.

“Come with me, wife.”

She grins brilliantly and reaches for me. If I were an optimistic man, I’d say the smile she returns might even mean she loves?—

A groan cracks from the ceiling. Luna’s eyes widen in terror as a beam teeters over her head… and falls.

Iscoop Luna up, one arm around her waist, the other hand shielding her head, and sprint just as a tree-sized rafter crashes down behind us. Fire, ash, cinders, and smoke explode in a cloud, singeing the air while more wood splinters and groans, the chapel collapsing piece by piece.

“Oh my God, we’re trapped!”

I curse.

She’s right.

Two beams pen us in on the stage. We could maybe climb between them, but the larger beam wobbles, on fire and still suspended from the ceiling, ready to fall with the next gust of wind. One of us may be able to slip through in time. But not both of us.

I search the gaps beyond the burning beams, but there’s no help in sight. Only fire.

Nightmares rush in with the heat, choking me worse than the smoke and making my hands ache. Blinding orange and red, the cloying stench of charred flesh… screaming flames.

“What do we do?” Luna cries, snapping me out of it.

Fuck.Luna.

I couldn’t hold back the fire then, but I have to get her out now.

“Orion?”

“Shh, it’s okay,” I murmur into her hair, rounding over her, protecting her from the heat already whipping my back as I analyze the best way through.

“Luna! Orion!” Nox’s voice breaks through the wood’s crackling groans.

Relief floods in my veins. I peer through the small opening between the flames from him to her, then lie through my teeth.

“We can make it. I’m going to lift the beam, you’re going to jump through, and I’ll be right behind you.”

She searches my face warily, eyes rimmed red from smoke and weeping. I wanted to wake up to that clearwater blue every day for the rest of my life.

I guess I did.

Something slams across the church, making Luna yelp. We’re running out of time.

My heart pounds as I look at my promised—but never to be—bride.

“You have to go first.”

She shakes her head, panic swimming in her glassy eyes. Tears wash streaks through the ash on her cheeks, drying as fast as they fall to the ground.