Page 54 of The Steel Rogue

Near to full darkness and she trusted him enough to follow him out a window without a peep. Pride mixed with an odd twist of anger at her for trusting him so much cut across his chest.

He had to get her out of here. To safety, no matter what.

Roe waited until she had settled fully in front of him, the back of her body long against his torso, and her grip on the ladder secure, before he started downward.

One, two, three, four rungs they went down.

He paused on the fifth rung as Torrie had slowed, searching with her toe for her next step down.

The second the arch of her foot took her weight, he heard it.

Crack.

Her body fell to the side, breaking through his hold on the ladder.

She was falling away from him.

Without thought, he let loose of the ladder, both of his hands stretching out, reaching her, yanking her toward him, pulling her into his chest.

Falling. The night swallowing them whole.

{ Chapter 13 }

She heard the splintering wood below her, but it didn’t even occur to her what the sound meant. Not until she was flailing in the air. The open air that offered her nothing—no chance—only falling.

Before the scream in her throat could escape, a mass surrounded her, shrouding her from the open air.

A grunt expelled from her chest as she crashed.

She hit the ground hard, but something broke her fall. Something softer than the hard dirt.

Stunned, her brain rattling around in her head, it took her a moment to crack her eyes open and push herself upright.

An arm under her left palm. A chest under her right fingers.

Roe.

Hell. He was the one that broke her fall.

He’d managed to wrap her into his body on the way down and take the brunt of the blow from the ground.

Her neck could have broken. Her head smashed in. And he’d saved her from all of that.

She rolled off him, staring at the outline of his face in the dark shadows.

His instinct had been to grab her. Shield her. Save her.

He could have easily held his place on the ladder and let her drop. But he didn’t.

He abandoned all sanity to wrap her and break her fall.

All rationality.

It struck her—lightning out of a dark sky—that she somehow meant far more to him than she’d let herself believe.

His hand scrambled about her body in the dark until he found her arm and a spot to grab her. “Air—I just have to catch—air—it knocked it—”

Her hand went through the blackness around them to find his mouth and her fingers pressed against his lips, her whisper furious. “I understand. Can you stand? I hear them in the street—both Des and Weston. You said we need to move, so let’s move.”