Page 17 of Rowan: His Exception

Choking.

But I’m alive.

“Rowan!”

Claire is screaming my name. I can hear loud and clear now, cutting through the roar of the flood.

I drag myself up, stumbling forward. The water's only knee-deep here, but it still fights me, still tries to pull my feet out from under me. I reach her, and my hands find her face, cupping her jaw, my thumbs pressing into her cheeks hard enough to sting. Her eyes are glassy, unfocused. She’s in shock.

"Claire." My voice is wrecked. She's staring past me, through me, her eyes fixed on something I can't see. "Claire." I grip her jaw tighter, forcing her to look at me, blocking everything else. "Hey, baby, look at me. Where's Dave?"

"I… I don't know. He said he wasn't waiting. He took off that way." She points up the ridge, but her arm immediately falls, as if the effort costs her.

Dave is gone. Washed away or climbed up, I don't know, don't care. I should feel back. I don’t. Only she matters.

"Rowan…" Her voice breaks. She's soaked, shaking with cold, her lips a blue tint.

"Claire, listen. I need you to hold on to me." I grab her waist, lift her, forcing her arms around my neck. "Don't let go. No matter what happens, don't let go."

She clings to me, all soft and trembling fear, and I turn back toward the flood.

The water's higher now. The crossing that nearly killed me is worse, pretty much impassable, and I know with certainty that we can't go back the way I came. We're officially trapped, cut off from the rest of the group, with the storm still raging and the water rising higher.

I look up. The rock face behind us offers nothing. No handholds, no ledges, no shelter from the elements or the flood. We're in the worst possible position, and I put us here.

My fault. My mistake. My price to pay.

"Rowan." Claire's voice is small against my ear, her breath warm despite everything. "What do we do?"

I look at the canyon walls, the rising water, the impossible situation. Then I look at her and see the trust in her eyes. She really believes I'll save her. That I have a plan, a way out, some military trick that will make this okay.

Truth is, I don't.

I have nothing but the need to keep her alive and the willingness to do whatever it takes.

"We climb. Now," I say, and point to a section of wall twenty yards upstream where the rock might offer purchase. "Or we die."

She doesn't hesitate. "Let’s go."

I carry her through the flood, one arm around her waist, the other finding handholds in the slick stone. The water fights us every inch, being relentless, but I don't stop. I can't stop. Not with her depending on me or the admission I made still burning between us, turning this from a rescue into something else. Feeling like destiny or doom, I can't tell which.

We reach the rock face. I boost her up, guide her hands to the holds I found, following right behind. The water is still rising below us as we climb.

Higher. Faster. Until we're twenty feet up, thirty, perched on a narrow ledge barely wide enough for both of us. I press her against the rock, shielding her from the wind and rain with my body. I can feel her heart race against my chest, her breath coming in gasps that have nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the fact that we almost died.

"Rowan." Her voice is barely audible over the storm.

"Don't." I tighten my grip, bury my face in her wet hair. "Don't talk. Don't think. Just breathe."

She does. We both do. Two people clinging to each other and the side of a mountain while the world tries to wash us away.

And at that moment, with death so close I can taste it, I realize the truth I couldn't admit before. That I'm terrified of wanting her. Of what it means, what it could cost me, or what I could become if I let myself have something good.

Too late, asshole. Way too fucking late.

Chapter Seven

CLAIRE