Bethany climbed off him. It was time to get this show on the road, because if he didn’t, his best intentions were going to fly right out the window. He grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge, and they headed to his car.
They drove about a mile down the road, turning onto a little-known access road to the Seneca Rocks. Park Rangers steered clear of this part. Mainly because it led to the colony deep within the forests surrounded the Rocks. And tourists were forbidden. Signs warning against trespassing were everywhere.
Parking about two miles from the entrance, they hoofed it for about forty minutes. Bethany laughed and chattered the whole way. Several times they stopped so she could take pictures of the scenery she wanted to paint later.
When they reached the base of the mountains, Bethany swallowed hard. The slope running up the side to the little outcropping that gave a decent view was for beginners, no gear necessary, so Dawson wasn’t worried.
“Are you sure I can climb this without killing myself?” she asked, shielding her eyes with her hand.
“You’ll do fine.” He bent down, kissing her cheek. “It really isn’t that hard, and I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
She smiled at that and spent the next ten minutes snapping pictures of the glittering rocks. Then they started up the rocky hill bathed in sunlight, moving slowly so that Bethany could get a feel for the terrain. Pebbles and loose dirt streamed down behind them as they made their way up.
“This really isn’t bad,” she said, stopping and glancing behind her. “Whoa. Okay. Remind me not to look back.”
He turned around. Beth’s spine was ramrod straight. “You okay?”
She nodded.
Backtracking to her, he slid a little as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Face pale, she gripped his arm. “Are you sure?” he asked, worried.
“Yeah, I just don’t think I’ve ever been this high up before.”
Dawson smiled. “We aren’t that high up, Bethany.”
Her throat worked. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
Was she afraid of heights? Oh crap, if that were the case, this was a bad idea. “You want to head back down? We can.”
“No.” She shook her head, giving him a wobbly smile as she pried her fingers off his arm. “I want to do this with you. Just…just go slowly, okay?”
Part of him wanted to pick her up and zip her back down to the meadow below, but she insisted and he trusted her to tell him when she’d had enough.
Twenty minutes later, he scrambled up the flat rock and reached down to her. “Give me your hand. I’ll pull you up.”
Eyes narrowed with determination, she placed her hand in his. Warmth cascaded through his chest in response to her trust. Tugging her up, he held her until she was ready to stand. And when she did, he noticed that her legs shook a little as she turned around.
Bethany clutched the camera hanging around her neck. “It’s beautiful.”
He rose to his feet, placing his hands on his hips as he took it all in. The sky was that rare, perfect kind of blue. Clouds were fluffy, looking like they were painted in. Tips of ancient elms rose up, concealing the ground below.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “It’s amazing. A different world up here.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It would be so cool to be able to sit up here and paint.”
“We could do that.”
Bethany laughed. “I don’t think I’d be able to get my stuff up here.”
“Ye of little faith,” he teased. “I can zip your stuff up here and have it ready in three seconds.”
She grinned. “It’s so strange. Sometimes I just forget…what you are.”
Most people wouldn’t know how to take that, but he recognized it for what it was. And that was why he…why he loved her.
Looking away, he clamped his mouth shut. The words had been in his chest for weeks, maybe months, demanding to be spoken, but any time he tried to force them out of his mouth, he locked up. Bethany hadn’t said those words, either, and if she didn’t feel the same, he was afraid he’d scare her off.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her inch cautiously toward the edge. “Be careful,” he said.
“I’m always careful.”
Dawson pivoted around and crossed to the other side of the rock. From where he stood, he was almost in perfect alignment with where the colony existed. He sighed, closing his eyes. Neither him nor Daemon had heard from them since the beginning of this year. Soon, he realized, soon he would have to face them, and they’d want to talk about mating. What would he say? There was no way he could even entertain the idea of being with someone else. But he couldn’t tell them about Bethany. He wouldn’t be able to tell them anything. And that would go over like a—
A wicked sense of dread shot through him, forcing his eyes open. He glanced down at the sandstone rocks below his feet. The crystals embedded deep into the sediment winked. The surface was shiny, still damp from the recent rain. Slick—
A gasp shattered his core, barely audible but as loud as thunder. The scream that came next chilled his entire body.
There hadn’t even been a second — time seemed to have stopped, though. His heart pounded in his chest as he whipped around, catching the blurred outline of Beth’s flailing arms.
Lead settled in his stomach, but he shot forward, slipping out of his form without thinking about it. He was fast, but all it took was a second — a second for gravity to do its thing. To reach up and suck Bethany down into nothing but space.
But it was worse than just empty air, because then he would’ve had time to catch her.
He went over the edge blindly, knowing that the side she’d slipped off of had several jagged outcroppings that were bone breaking.
And one, a spike about ten fight long and six feet wide, had stopped her fall about thirty feet down.
Chapter 17
Dawson wasn’t thinking.
Two seconds had passed. Two fucking seconds for him to shed his human form and reach her body, which lay at an odd angle — one leg under the other, an arm hanging limply over the side.
Bethany wasn’t moving.
Something red pooled under the left side of her head. Not blood — it couldn’t be blood. Whatever it was — because it couldn’t be what it was — leaked from her ears. The camera was gone, having fallen even farther.
He couldn’t think.
A part of his brain, the human side, clicked off. Reaching for Beth, he cradled her against his chest, swallowing her in the whitish-blue light.
Bethany. Bethany. Bethany. Her name was on repeat. He rocked back against the smooth wall, and he screamed and screamed. His entire world shattered. Open your eyes. Please open your eyes.
She didn’t move.
She wouldn’t move. Some part of him recognized that a human couldn’t have survived that fall depending on how they landed, but Beth…not his Bethany.
This…this couldn’t be happening.
His light flared around them, until he could no longer see her pale face but only an outline.
He’d promised he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. A second — a goddamn second — he had turned away from her. This was his fault. He shouldn’t have brought her up here after so much rain had soaked the ground, coating the bottom of her sneakers. He shouldn’t have kept going up the hill when he’d seen how nervous she was, how shaky her legs were.
He should’ve been able to stop this — to save her. What the hell kind of power did he have if he couldn’t have savedher?
Dawson screamed again, the sound in his ears that of sorrow and rage. But Bethany couldn’t hear it. No one could hear it. Something wet was on his cheeks. Tears, maybe. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see past the pulsating light.