Page 100 of Stealing Embers

Stalling, I let my eyes sweep the poor dude.

This guy might be an angel-born. He definitely has the build. Clad in only dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he isn’t wearing a coat. Who would wander the Rockies in the winter without proper gear?

My gaze drifts to his feet. The furthest point from his buried head, and my pulse starts to drum triple-time.

Oh, no.

Shooting forward, I clear the whiteness away from the person’s head. The icicle-encrusted head of black hair is exactly what I don’t want to find.

Grabbing his large shoulders, I heave the body over and look down onto Steel’s frozen face.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Steel’s face is a sickly shade of bluish-white. His eyelids are closed, his lashes frozen into spikes.

I press one of my icy hands to my mouth and the other against my middle to hold myself together and the screams in. A bead of moisture slips from my eye and slides halfway down my face before freezing on my cheek.

I have to check to make sure he’s actually dead . . . but I don’t want to.

The stupid glitter bug is back and this time it actually pulls my hair, jerking me forward and over onto Steel’s cold body.

It’s like laying across a giant ice cube. The chill from his glacial flesh seeps into mine.

Squeezing my hands between us, I push off him. My weight forces the air from his chest, which escapes his nostrils and mouth as white mist and is accompanied by a low moan before he falls silent again.

That was because I pressed on him, right? Fresh corpses still make noises, don’t they?

I’m not sure. Everything I know about death is limited to the fewC.S.I.episodes I’ve watched.

I know dead bodies can fart, so maybe they can fake breathe too?

Bending forward, I place my hands back on Steel’s chest and heave. His body rocks from the chest compression and another breath of foggy air seeps out of his mouth.

Leaning over him, I place two fingers on his throat and search for a pulse. Not feeling anything, I tilt my head and press my ear to his chest.

I think I hear a sluggish thump.

Snapping up, I search the area.

If Steel is still alive, he isn’t going to be for much longer. It will be a miracle if his heart is still pumping. Maybe somehow the hypothermia has kept him alive?

I can’t see all the way to the back corner of the precipice, but at the very least, back there we’ll be protected from the wind.

Snatching Steel’s arms, I drag him away from the cliff’s edge and toward the area where the moonlight doesn’t penetrate.

Blinking, I will my Neph-sight to kick-in and adjust to the low light.

It’s so dark.

And so cold.

A shudder wracks my frame.

Rubbing my shoulder against the wall for direction, I haul Steel’s body back into the cradle of the mountain.

Stumbling when the wall falls away, I drop Steel’s heavy weight, but remain standing.

“What the . . .”