Chapter 14 · Break Into Sky Prison

"Don't blink. The cameras count that as panic." Rowan's hand clamped around my wrist before I could reach for the stolen access card.

His fingers were warm. Too warm against the cold metal cuff locked around my arm. The seal between us pulsed once, hard enough to make my teeth click.

"Then stop standing behind me like a threat," I whispered.

"I am a threat. That's why you're still alive."

A red lens rotated above the security gate. It clicked into place and fixed on us.

Rowan dragged me against his chest, one arm across my ribs. His coat scraped my cheek. His mouth brushed the shell of my ear, close enough that his breath warmed my skin.

"Smile," he murmured.

"You first."

"Tessa."

The warning in my name tightened his arm.

I pulled my lips into something that probably looked like a death sentence. "Happy?"

"Not even close."

The camera flashed blue.

A thin line of light scanned from my boots to my face. My stolen uniform felt too tight across my shoulders, and the badge clipped to my collar belonged to a prison engineer I had never met.