Chapter Twenty-One
I HAD TO THANK MARCUS FOR something.
At least with him using the latest technology to monitor me in Cinderkeep, I had a decent enough understanding of how this very new, very noisy, very different existence operated.
Of course, I also had childhood memories.
Memories of playing with my father’s huge brick-of-a-phone as he parked me in his office while dealing with his underlings. I even recalled stealing his phone a few times as I ran around Ashfall Cliff and hid in the Burning Phoenix caves where no one could ever find me.
So I wasn’t completely inept—or at least not as hopeless as Rook seemed to think I was.
“You actually know how to use one of those things?” she asked from where she sat cross-legged on the bed, disobeying my order to nap.
I made the mistake of looking at her.
At the way her inky black hair needed a brush thanks to my hungry fingers; how her black dress gathered between her lotus-crossed legs. How stunningly perfect she was as she smiled at Whisper—the panther leaping onto the bed and folding himself around her like a fanged shadow.
She leaned against his bulk with a contented sigh. “Least you’re not keeping things from me, hey, tiny tabby.”
My breath faltered.
I didn’t like how much I had to rely on her to keep me from burning. I didn’t like how easily my temper cooled or how quickly my thoughts turned feral at the thought of her leaving.
For the first time in my life, I felt anxious.
Fearful of the moment she would abandon me.
Because why wouldn’t she?
Why would she stay when she had other people who wanted her? Especially after everything that I’d done?
My gaze strayed to the blackened wall again.
If I kept losing control, it was only a matter of time before she’d had enough, and now that we were out of Cinderkeep, there were no walls or guns keeping her by my side.
“Go to sleep,” I snapped. “You might not get another chance any time soon.”
“Sleep?” Her eyebrows arched. “How on earth can I sleep? We need to run. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.
” Her gaze flicked to the door. “At least Dillon is coming. Wait.” She shot upright.
“I need my phone back. I need to tell him to bring reinforcements. He can’t take on all those guards on his own. ”
“He won’t be on his own.”
“What?” Her nose wrinkled.
“Go. To. Sleep.” I made another mistake of catching her stare and drowning. “Use the cat as a pillow and do what you do best.”
“Are you calling me lazy?”
“I’m telling you I need you strong for the next part because if you aren’t, I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself. And this thing...” I pressed my fingers to the dead vitalsync core. “This thing might’ve actually been helping me instead of hurting me so...do what I say and rest.”
Silence fell as I fiddled with her phone, trying to figure out how to bring up the keypad. She didn’t speak until I finally got it and hovered my fingers over the numbers.
“You’re in worse pain than you were with the pacemaker...aren’t you?” she murmured hesitantly as if afraid of my answer. “You’re burning more than you were before.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Do you regret destroying it?” Yawning, she slid onto her side and used Whisper as a cosy bolster. The panther puffed up with pride, turning to lick her like she was his very own kitten.
Tucking her hands beneath her cheek on his pelt, she never took her eyes off me. “If you could fix it...would you?”
I blew out a slow, uneven breath.
Twenty years of agony burned behind my eyes—two fucking decades where the vitalsync core had crippled me, crushed me, and knocked me out far too many times to count.
I hated it.
I would slaughter all the men responsible for putting it inside me, yet.
..what if it hadn’t been punishing me but preventing me from punishing them?
What if I’d always been able to burn like this?
How quickly could I have learned to master the flames and razed everything to the ground, including them?
“No, I wouldn’t fix it.” The words were sharp in my throat.
“Nothing in this world would make me accept that level of control again. I’d rather burn alive.
Besides...” I looked up, heat smouldering in my bones as I looked at my two favourite things, cuddled together as if they were trying to break me.
“I’m not in pain when I’m around you. I’m just.. .hot.”
She sucked in a breath.
The air went electric.
I fisted her phone so hard the casing creaked as I fought the urge to replace Whisper with myself. To finish what we started. To slip between her legs again, only this time with no clothes between us.
Fuck—
“But how?” she whispered, interrupting my quick descent into debauchery. “How do I help—”
“No idea.” I cut her off, wrenching my eyes away. “Stop being so noisy and rest. Don’t talk to me again.”
She sighed heavily before mumbling around a yawn. “Hear that, huge sleeping tablet? I’ve been told to nap, so do your worst.”
I looked up again as Whisper nuzzled her then rested his head on his paws. Rook closed her eyes and snuggled closer, making jealousy pinch.
My fingers shimmered with warmth, making the phone screen waver.
Gritting my teeth, I yanked the heat back and input the number my father had forced me to remember ever since I was five years old.
Bringing the phone to my ear, I waited for the number to connect. It rang for so long, I panicked that I’d remembered it wrong or it was no longer valid—
“Welcome to Sovereign Retrieval. This is an automated message. Unless you are a client and have your thirteen-digit key, you will not be connected. Please enter your number or hang up.”
My pulse increased as I typed in the numbers that had lurked in every nightmarish day since that day.
And nothing happened.
I glowered at the device. Was it broken? Had I inputted it wrong—?
“Hello, Lucien Ashfall. Also known as Yunhui Luxin. Son of Jin and Meilin Ashfall. Last surviving member of the Yunhui Dynasty. Please state your request along with your current physical condition.”
A shudder shot down my spine hearing my given name after so long.
“Are you there?” the man on the other end pressed. “If you cannot talk due to your life being in jeopardy, please press any button and we will arrange extraction at your current location.”
“I’m here.” I cleared my throat, keeping my voice down just in case Rook had managed to fall asleep. “I’m Lucien Ashfall and request immediate assistance.”
“Please state what you require.”
“I have no passport, documents, or money, but I need to return to Ashfall Cliff in the Gaoligong Mountains immediately.”
“No problem. Extraction just for you?”
“No.” My eyes locked onto the girl cuddling my beast. My heart seared so hot, it threatened to turn to ash. “For three. One being an adult male panther.”
I tensed to be told Whisper couldn’t come. For this stranger to say such a thing would be impossible, which would mean I’d have to come up with another way because no fucking way would I leave him—
“As long as he’s non-violent toward the Sovereign Retrieval team, that’s fine.”
I let out a breath.
What the hell was this company and how had my father saved my life, all while rotting in his grave?
“He won’t hurt them.” I glanced at Whisper snoring quietly under Rook. “You have my word.”
“Good. I’ve activated your retrieval. The team is mobilising now.”
I couldn’t catch a breath.
It couldn’t be that easy, could it?
This had to be another trick—a sick and twisted game where nothing was how it seemed. Because if it wasn’t...no wonder Marcus never allowed me to access a phone.
If he knew I had this sort of help at my fingertips?
Fuck.
“Help will be there in precisely one hour. I apologise it’s slightly longer than our usual timeframe but you’re in a rural part of England.”
My eyes widened at the efficiency. “You’re tracking the phone I’m calling on?”
“I am. I’ve also arranged a private jet at the closest airstrip. You won’t require passports or documentation. As for money, the funds that have been held on your behalf have been automatically released the moment you input your keycode. They’re accessible anytime through your private account.”
My heart picked up its pace. “My father put aside a rainy-day fund?”
“I’d call it more of a flood fund,” the man chuckled. “There is currently an excess of one billion United States dollars ready for your use.”
I almost dropped the phone.
Marcus had always lorded my lack of stolen wealth over me—using it as yet another leash that even if I did manage to escape, I’d have nothing. No way of fighting him or extracting my revenge.
Turned out...he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought he did.
“I’ve taken the liberty of depositing ten million into the account linked to the phone you’re calling from. However, the current balance is over four hundred million, so you might not require it.”
Wait. What?!
I shot to my feet.
My gaze locked onto Rook and all those feelings she’d caused ignited.
My walls came up.
My doubt returned.
Who the hell was this woman?
First she had a bodyguard and now she was loaded?!
“A team of twenty men are on their way to fetch you; they’ll escort you to the airport from there.”
I heard what he said but I couldn’t stop looking at Rook.
I turned molten; the fire in my bones threatening to lose control.
My rage came from a lifetime of living like a caged animal, so used to biting first instead of suffering later. I wanted to shake her awake and demand she tell me everything. I needed her to prove I was safe to fall, all while she kept proving otherwise.
“Your current location shows you’re staying in the Misty Meadows Bed and Breakfast. Don’t move. Thank you for using Sovereign Retrieval. You have a lifetime package with us so if you require our services again, please don’t hesitate to call. Goodbye.”
He hung up.
A blast of heat ricocheted out of me, singeing the carpet beneath my bare feet with the acrid stench of burning polyester.
Rook shifted in her sleep, smelling smoke.
And Whisper opened his golden-orb eyes, glowering at me as if he knew.
He knew our lives were about to drastically change and things were about to get very interesting.