Chapter Nine
I TRIED TO FOCUS ON A million things at once.
Whisper was losing his goddamn mind, Rook was borderline catatonic, and Marcus? He was unbearably smug.
But the only thing my heart focused on was agony.
The Cryolyt pill hadn’t worked nearly as well as I’d hoped. I could still feel pain, even if it wasn’t all-consuming. Could still tell my body was dying, even as it clung to life. Every injury and agony screamed behind a numbing wall of ice, buying me time but not enough.
I was losing control, mentally, physically, emotionally.
Why else had I kissed her?
Why else had I used such valuable time by doing something so stupid?
“Lucien, Lucien, Lucien.” Marcus smiled thinly as if this was some sick reunion. “You really have made a mess.”
Death came closer, ticking down the minutes I’d borrowed from the Grim Reaper. I had no idea how long I had left, but it wasn’t nearly long enough.
The temptation to throw back every pill had me reaching for the silk bag in my pocket and pulling out another two.
“You made it farther than I expected,” Marcus said pleasantly, never taking his eyes off me as I placed both pills on my tongue and swallowed them.
“Been saving those for a rainy day, I see.” He chuckled and stuck his hand out from under his umbrella, letting droplets splatter against his fingers. “In more ways than one.”
Ignoring him, I twisted on the ground and planted my hands into the gravel.
I pushed upright.
And groaned as pain cut through my control.
Blood dripped from my chest as I fell back down again.
Marcus’s smirk faltered as I bled—a flicker of fear behind his polished veneer. “Look, you’ve had your fun. You’ve made your point. Let’s go back and—”
“The only way you’ll ever get me back in that place is over my dead body.” I threw him a grin. “And wouldn’t that destroy all your plans.”
Marcus bared his teeth. “Don’t test me, Lucien. You won’t win.”
“Are you so sure about that?” I pushed upright.
Agony flared bright and savage—my vision tunnelling as my leg screamed in protest. I made it halfway before my arms buckled and the world pitched sideways.
Fuck.
Rook dashed to my side. “Let me—”
“Don’t touch me.” I shoved her hand aside, sharper than I meant to.
I glanced at Marcus to make sure he saw it.
I needed him to believe I hated her. To protect her.
To make him believe that the kiss he saw was just lust and nothing more.
If he knew I would willingly slit my own throat to stop them from throwing her back into Cinderkeep, Rook would spend the rest of her life as my leash.
..being tortured just to make me behave.
Baring my teeth, I hissed, “You’ve done enough.”
Rook froze, hurt flashing across her face before her quick intelligence caught up. With a barely noticeable nod, she backed up and kept her distance.
Whisper wasn’t so subtle about his feelings, nudging my shoulder as if he could push me upright, whimpering under his breath as if his feline heart was breaking.
“It’s okay,” I murmured as the panther bashed his head against mine, knocking me off balance as I gathered non-existent strength to stand. “This isn’t over yet.” Using the bike for leverage, I hauled myself upright for the third time.
Death weighed on me like wet concrete, every instinct begging me to collapse and give in. I just gave it the finger and told it to wait because I had far too many lives to take before I lost mine.
Straightening, I drew my shoulders back and kept my face carefully blank. The bitter, fizzy taste of the Cryolyt pills tainted my mouth, and I couldn’t stop myself from stepping in front of Rook, shielding her from Marcus.
“You know.” I locked eyes with the man who’d destroyed my family. “For years, I used to picture this moment. I imagined what I’d say when I finally saw you face to face again.”
Marcus’s smile widened, crow’s feet appearing by his eyes. He looked wiser than when I last saw him but whatever little experiments he was up to with my blood kept him almost ageless. “Oh?” He chuckled. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“Nah.” I shrugged. “I’ll keep it as a surprise. It’ll be more fun that way.”
Marcus just laughed again. “You always did have a dry sense of humour.”
Whisper paced around me, shoulders low and muscles coiled, his claws tearing holes in the wet lawn as he glowered at our unwanted company.
Eight guards and two men dressed in white smocks had appeared from the G-wagons.
I smirked. “I see you’ve brought medical help as well as your guard dogs. How thoughtful.”
Marcus nodded and glanced at the two doctors who looked as if they’d been kidnapped and dragged here. Their eyes wide, hair messy, and both clutching a black case that no doubt held everything they’d need to fix me instead of ever taking me to a hospital.
“Of course I did. You’re like family to me, Lucien. Seeing you hurt so badly makes me ache with sorrow.”
I rolled my eyes, making myself a little dizzy. “Cut the bullshit.”
His face froze into a mask of politeness, sticking to his script of caring guardian. “Would you prefer they operate out here on the driveway, or will you be a good boy and get into the car so I can take you home?”
“There’s that word again.” I balled my hands and fought to stay standing, even as every muscle slipped deeper into rigor mortis. “Cinderkeep isn’t my home.”
“It’s as much as your home as Ashfall Cliff.”
“Fuck you.”
“I didn’t come here to squabble.” Raising his glossy black shoe, he shook his leg a little, scattering raindrops from his laces.
“I’m wet and I’m bored. We can talk when we’re back inside and you’re no longer bleeding.
” His eyes narrowed with impatience. “Get in the car, Lucien. You too, Rook. Can’t have you catching a chill now you’re pregnant, can we? ”
Rook sucked in a breath behind me.
Another layer of pain crippled me, cutting through the foggy numbness of the pills. The mere reminder she was alive and vulnerable—that I held her life in my hands...
It made me furious.
She was right to call me a fool.
I’d only ever meant to use her to open the lock on my cage, yet...I’d somehow caught the same feelings she had.
That kiss had done something to me.
Every part of me reached for her, wanted her, felt her...
“Come here!” Marcus suddenly shouted, his debonair act cracking.
“Stop being a little brat and let’s go home.
” He visibly clawed for control again, his smile returning and voice turning sickly sweet as if I was still that helpless child they’d thrown in here two decades ago.
“I’m very worried about you, Lucien. You’re bleeding—”
“I am.” I grinned, running a finger through the blood soaking my shirt. “I’ve bled quite a lot, actually. I don’t think I have much left if I’m honest.”
His eyes tightened. “Is that a threat?”
“Just a fact. Pretty sure I won’t live much longer.”
Rook made a soft noise behind me.
I couldn’t see her, but I heard her. Heard her fear at losing me. Her heart beating frantically for mine...
I shuddered at the strange awareness.
Was this how Whisper viewed the world? Able to hear someone’s heartbeat and taste their true intentions?
Why could I suddenly sense Rook on such an unnatural level?
Marcus stepped forward. “I’m swiftly running out of patience, Lucien.
If you don’t get in the car immediately, there are other ways to make you behave.
” Tucking one hand into his trouser pocket, he pulled out a tiny remote.
A remote linked to the machine twining its wires around my heart. “What’s it going to be?”
I gave him the finger, my arm so fucking heavy.
“Don’t pick a fight with me,” he hissed. “You won’t win. You know you won’t win. Why bother putting yourself through more misery when I only want what’s best for you?”
“What’s best for me?” Gathering every shred of strength I had left, I snatched two out of the three guns from my waistband. Swinging both weapons up, I locked them dead centre on Marcus’s chest. “I’m really tired of you thinking you own me. Get out of my way and I won’t kill you today.”
The guards all drew their guns, pointing them directly at my forehead.
Whisper snarled and slashed the air with his claws. Rook stepped closer as if afraid I’d die faster than I already was. And the two doctors shifted in place, looking at each other as if they hadn’t signed up for any of this.
“Don’t shoot!” Marcus ordered, waving at the guards to hold fire. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Suddenly feeling sentimental?” I squeezed the triggers a little harder. It would be so easy to fire. So quick to kill him.
But...I’d be robbed of everything that he owed me.
I wanted him to suffer. For years.
I wanted him to scream. For decades.
Killing him like this wasn’t enough—
“Lucien...” Marcus clutched his umbrella. “Think about what you’re doing.”
“I am thinking.” My fingers slowly turned numb around the triggers, my arms switching from heavy to strangely light.
My lungs forgot air was important and my muscles no longer obeyed me.
Everything was turning greyer, colder—mutating into a walking corpse.
“I’m thinking that I owe you so much more than just a bullet. ”
“Careful,” Marcus warned softly. “If you shoot and miss, I’ll ensure you never see the light of day again.”
“Got another cage ready for me, huh?” I coughed up a sudden mouthful of blood. Spitting it out, I grinned. “You’re assuming I’ll live long enough to care.”
“You’ve left me no choice,” he sighed, stabbing his thumb on that awful remote.
Pain tore through my heart, white-hot and absolute.
I doubled over as the vitalsync core fed poison directly into my drying bloodstream.
My fingers seized, dropping the guns. I bit my tongue as my knees buckled, slamming against the ground.
“Lucien!” Rook skidded to my side, catching me as I folded.
“I told you not to push me,” Marcus said quietly, adding yet another dose of despair. The vitalsync burned me alive, making every bone turn molten.
“Guards, pick him up and put him into the car. Doctors, prepare to operate the moment we arrive. If he dies, you will too.”
“How could you?!” Rook snarled. “He’s already hurt so badly and you’re torturing him!”
“He’s well enough to threaten my life and try to escape,” Marcus snapped. “He’ll survive.”
“You’re a bastard!” she yelled, her arms tightening around me as I choked on endless agony. The Cryolyt pills completely abandoned me, leaving me to feel every flame.
“This is just business.” Marcus stepped toward us, his umbrella pinging with droplets.
“Just like it was business when I threw you in with him. Just like it was business when I noticed your blood mirrored his in ways I’ve never seen before.
” His mouth curved into a mocking smile.
“I should thank you, Rook. After two decades of trying to get him to propagate—of forced semen taken when he was unconscious and multiple attempts at test-tube pregnancies, you’re the first to actually succeed. ”
I choked.
What?
They’d done what to me while I’d been knocked out?
Marcus came closer, making every part of me crawl. “Thanks to you, he’s finally lost his virginity and done something worthwhile. Turns out, you were the one he was waiting for all along, but I do have to wonder if it’s you or something to do with the fact that your blood is eerily similar to his.”
My ears rang as unconsciousness came for me.
Wait...
Her blood was like mine?
Was that why I was drawn to her?
Could sense her?
Sucking in a breath, I focused on the fire burning around my heart.
I tried to push past it. To snuff it out.
The flames crackled hotter, licking around my ribs and scalding me alive.
Stop.
Just...give me time.
In the pain-delirious part of my mind, I swore, just for a second, the fire paused and listened. Fresh heat stirred around my bones, but...it didn’t hurt. It felt soothing, powerful—responding to my hatred like a living thing, reaching for me as I reached for it.
It transformed from my enemy into something else.
Fresh flames suddenly surged through me, smashing against the imprisoning metal around my heart, turning inward instead of outward.
I groaned, seizing on the ground as heat incinerated me.
Rook’s arm tightened around me and her strange coolness trickled through my veins—cooling the fires in my bones and easing the fevered mess in my blood.
I sagged against her as my pain faded.
But I didn’t get up.
Didn’t alert Marcus to the fact that the woman they’d given me had turned out to be everything I didn’t know I needed.
Whisper snarled as Marcus stopped close enough to shield us with his umbrella. The panther churned up dirt and whipped his tail, but he didn’t attack—knowing as well as I did that Marcus would put him down.
Rook tensed, trying to protect me the best she could.
Marcus sniffed. “Let’s stop squabbling, okay?
We need to get you two out of the rain.” He held his hand out to Rook.
“Come on. You’ve done what you needed to do and gotten pregnant with an Ashfall.
You don’t have to return with him.” Bending over as if to grab her, he added, “Of course, Lucien does have a tendency of lying, so you’ll forgive me if I insist on testing you. ”
Rook jerked away from his hand, tilting her chin in defiance. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Marcus exhaled heavily. “I suggest you don’t pick up bad habits from him. Come. I’m releasing you. If you turn out to be truly pregnant, you have my word you’ll receive everything your heart desires.”
“And if I’m not?” she asked frigidly.
“Then...” He shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t have you running around out there. Not when I’ve found another like him.”
Another like me?
Images slammed through me in a sickening rush—Marcus tormenting her, trapping her. Strapping her down and cutting her open. Inserting a vitalsync to control and cripple her—
The fire around my heart roared.
The grave I’d stepped into shattered as my hand shot toward my pocket. My fingers curled tight around the same blade Rook had driven into my chest. The blade I’d kept...just in case.
With strength that threatened to kill me, I pushed Rook away, swayed to my knees, and pressed the dagger against my throat.
“Wait.” Marcus froze. “What are you doing?”
“Touch her,” I said quietly. “And I die.”
Marcus blinked before a slow smile stretched his lips. “You won’t do it.”
Angling my chin, I cut.
Not deep enough to sever my jugular but definitely enough to make more blood spring free.
“If you lay a single finger on her. If you take her from me. If you even think about torturing her like you’ve tortured me—” I swallowed and kept drawing the knife “—you’ll be collecting what’s left of my blood off the driveway. ”