RISING (#2, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 121

I swallowed back the moan. I was instantly hard all over again.

Tabitha exited the elevator first and I followed, quickening my steps to catch up and walk beside her as we crossed the short distance to the foyer's glass doors. When they slid open and crisp night air rushed inward, a faint smokey smell of burning wood curling around me, I stepped outside but Tabitha froze.

Instantly worried, I whirled around.

Tabitha had paled, the pulse point in her throat fluttering erratically. The color of her eyes contrasted starkly against her ashen complexion. I was beside her in a blink, my hand closing around her trembling one. Her voice quavered and was pitched high as she raised a shaky hand to point behind me. "I didn't realize that the edge would be right there." She couldn't tear her unblinking gaze from the dark landscape twinkling with late lights from the city's nocturnal residents.

I dragged my free hand through my hair roughly, mentally kicking myself. I'd forgotten that this foyer opened right up at the edge of the Monarch Tower. There was a waist-high concrete wall covered in ivy as if it was a hedge corralling us in, but we were only six yards away from a dizzying sheer drop.

Slowly, she tore her wide-eyed gaze from the ledge to meet mine, and the terror haunting the depth of her eyes had a cold sensation pooling in my gut.

Gods, what the hells had happened to her?

"Close your eyes," I urged, brushing my thumb in a reassuring stroke along the back of her trembling hand.

"Okay," she breathed, her voice wispy thin. She screwed her eyes shut and it rounded her freckled cheeks and creased stress lines around her mouth. I released her hand only so I could shift to her side and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her close to guide her outside and across the patio.

This side of the Monarch Tower's rooftop was sectioned off for guests staying at its hotel, and the other side was for the daytime tourists who came here in great floods for the spectacular views of the silvery lake and the mountains beyond.

"Is anyone we know up here?" she whispered.

"Negative." My senses hadn't detected anyone we knew. A chilly wind slithered across my exposed skin, ruffling my hair and prickling my flesh. I walked her carefully across the path that cut through an urban jungle of potted Japanese maples, their leaves turning cherry red. Tall lanterns splayed light over boxwood and ivy spilling from urns. The starless sky was an ombre smear of washed-out gray darkening to charcoal. The city skyline and its sparkling lights made it seem as if the night sky was reversed with the milky way lying low on the horizon.

A breeze fluttered white linen curtains hanging from the bamboo cabanas. A low chatter hummed across the space from a few guests sitting at the raised bar on a teak platform, sipping drinks, and those lounging in outdoor armchairs and loveseats gathered around braziers. The small fires crackled and murmured, spilling a woodsy smoke in plumes as I headed with Tabitha toward a cabana well away from the edge of the highrise.

I guided Tabitha up onto the platform and around the glass-topped coffee table to ease her into a wicker couch with plush cushions. A few people like us were paired off romantically in their own private oasis, their soft laughter and whispering following me as I made my way around the four-poster cabana. The metal hooks clattered as I drew the linen curtains around to enclose us and give us further privacy from the other guests.

The sand-hued cane creaked beneath me when I sank down on the couch next to Tabitha who sat ramrod straight, her knuckles pale with how tightly she gripped the clutch on her lap. She opened her eyes slowly, puffing out a taut breath and glancing about warily. Long waves of hair swung forward as she canted her upper body to peer through the slivered gaps in the curtains to sneak a peek at the bar and other guests. "It's so pretty up here," she murmured. Reclining back into the couch, she shivered, her teeth chattering as she rubbed her bare arms briskly. I suspected it wasn't so much the cold, but fear and adrenaline jackhammering through her veins.