Page 90 of New Storm Rising
All right, maybe he should keep running.
And that he did. Fast. Faster than any of his men. Faster than bloody Karim, whose legs were probably longer than his and mine put together! And that look on his face…
He looked ready to kill.
And yet, his arms around me were so incredibly gentle, as if carrying a precious, fragile treasure. What was going on?
I didn’t get a chance to try and study his facial expression more closely, though. It didn’t take long before the rumbling subsided behind us, and the only light was that of a single storm lantern swinging in Karim’s grip. There we stood, in almost utter darkness.
“Are…are we safe?” I asked.
“Presumably.”
“Good. Then…put. Me. Down.”
He did. But what he didn’t do was let go of me. His arms still wrapped protectively around me as he shielded me from the bits and pieces of rubble falling from the ceiling. And I…let him.
What the heck?
Normally, I would be giving him a good kick in the balls for treating me like some porcelain doll. Now, though…now I just felt comfortable in his arms.
What is going on with me? This is weirder than the pickled toenails!
I didn’t receive an answer. When the earth had finally settled down, he stood there for a long moment—then turned towards me, gazing straight into my eyes.
“Woah,” I said. “That was…something.”
“Indeed.”
I took a deep breath—or at least tried to. Breathing in the dirt and dust that still hovered in the air wasn’t exactly the smartest idea I’d ever had. Grabbing hold of the solid stone pillar that was Mr Ambrose, I tried to stop myself from keeling over from the convulsive coughing fit.
An arm came around my shoulder. A handkerchief appeared over my mouth, shielding me from the worst of the dirt.
“Relax. Breathe.”
It wasn’t a request. Instinctively, I wanted to protest—that is, until he pulled me into his chest, holding me close. It took a minute for the coughing to finally subside. When it did, I looked around. There was only one word to describe the space around us: destruction. Complete and utter destruction. Rocks and rubble were strewn across the ground, wooden supports had been splintered under the weight of the collapsing tunnel.
“Holy Moly!”
“That is one way of putting it, Mrs Ambrose.”
“What the heck just happened? Better question, why did youletit happen?” I jabbed a finger into his chest. “Why didn’t you try to fight them off?”
“Why would I?”
I blinked. “Why? They’re trampling everything! The house, the mine entrance—”
He raised one eyebrow about half a millimetre.
I thought about what I had just said.
They had destroyed the mine entrance.
Thefakemine entrance.
A grin spread across my face.
“You devious son of a bachelor!”
