Chapter Twenty-Five
THE PLANE PLUMMETED.
My stomach lurched into my throat as gravity vanished and my hips jerked downward thanks to my seatbelt. My eyes flew wide as dreams dumped me into yet another nightmare—
We’re going to die.
For all my frequent flying, I’d never lost the fear that one day I’d end up splattered across some mountain range like a bug on a windscreen.
“Relax,” Lucien muttered quietly. “I can feel your fear and it’s making it really hard to concentrate.”
“You can feel my fear?” My head whipped to him, finding him awake and fuming. “Eh, I’m going to need more information on that because...how?”
His eyebrows knitted together as if he hadn’t meant to say that.
A chill worked down my spine and I had to know...had to understand what the hell was going on with him but...the cabin bounced, hitting another pocket of turbulence.
I tensed but it stopped as quickly as it started.
Okay, that wasn’t so bad.
I’d been in worse...
Whisper didn’t seem to agree with me. Slinking down the aisle, the giant panther planted two front paws on my knee. I groaned at his weight then flinched as he prepared to leap onto my lap—
“Don’t even think about it.” Lucien turned to look at him, arching an eyebrow as if daring him to try.
The poor beast hung his head and flopped down beside me.
Yawning, I reached to give him a scratch. “It’s okay, scaredy cat.”
“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?” Lucien quipped under his breath. “You’re both as bad as each other and I’m the one who’s meant to have issues.”
“You do have issues.” I rubbed at the crick in my neck. “More and more by the hour, apparently.”
“Careful,” he purred. “Just because I’ve decided to bring you along, doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
“Believe me, I’m highly aware of this fact.” I crossed my arms and sat primly. “I have a lot of questions actually and if you’re finally ready to acknowledge that you did, in fact, bring me along on this little adventure, then I’d like to start by asking where the hell are you—”
“Quiet.” He rubbed his temples. “I’m really not doing well and if you start needling me—”
“Needling you?” I undid my seatbelt so I could twist to face him. “How am I needling you? I’m just asking you not to ignore me, that’s all. What’s—”
“I’m ignoring you, so I don’t kill us all, alright?” A few misty wisps appeared over his shoulders. “It’s taking everything I have not to burn the hell up and believe me...I would really fucking appreciate it if my body stopped condemning me every time you decided to breathe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re loud.” He shot me a glare. “Every breath you take, every move you make, every twitch, every stupid little frown—I’m aware of everything.”
Was this what he’d been silently enduring since we’d taken off?
Glowering at me as if all of this was my fault, he said coldly, “I feel you sitting next to me. I feel the space you occupy. I feel it when you look at me with a thousand questions, wondering if I’m a monster or a mistake.
” He shifted closer, his breath coming quick and short. “It’s messing with my mind.”
His eyes shimmered an incandescent red. “Whatever is happening to me is making it really, really hard to sit here, but I can’t leave as I need you.
” He chuckled blackly. “I need you to keep me calm because I can’t contain it on my own.
Yet the longer I’m free from the vitalsync core and its nasty trick of knocking me out, the more my system intensifies.
I hate it. I’m pissed that I’ve traded one leash for another, and you seem to be worse because each time you move.
..each time you flinch or feel or think, everything inside me threatens to incinerate if I don’t stay close and listen. ”
I couldn’t breathe as if every word he’d said—the most words he’d ever said to me in one sitting—wrapped around my throat and squeezed.
What had they done to him?
Where would it end?
In the few short hours since he’d killed that nasty pacemaker, his inhumanness had escalated to a terrifying degree.
How was he changing so fast?
And what would happen when his system couldn’t take it anymore?
Panic gushed through me, bringing vertigo and blind spots. “We need to go to Iceland. Right now.”
“Iceland?” He scowled. “You think shoving me into a snowdrift is going to stop this?”
“No...but my company is there. They might be able to help.”
“Ah, yes.” He went fatally still. “The company you’ve told me nothing about and somehow provides you with millions of dollars and a bad-tempered bodyguard.”
“H-How do you know how much money I—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Twisting to face the window, he muttered under his breath, “If I start thinking about all the things you’re keeping from me, I can’t promise this plane won’t turn to ash.”
“Things I’m keeping from you?” I shook my head. “I’m not keeping anything from you. It’s just...my past never came up in conversation—”
“Quiet.” Another blast of scalding energy escaped him.
“I really do think we should go to Iceland. You’re burning up—”
“I’m well aware.” Looking at me with utter exhaustion, he chuckled blackly. “I’m barely holding on, so don’t do anything that will make me lose control, alright? Don’t think, don’t move, don’t talk. Just sit there.”
Our eyes locked.
My hand strayed over the enemy lines he’d drawn and landed on his forearm.
His reaction was instantaneous.
Sucking in a sharp, broken breath, his entire body seized. Heat exploded off him in a brutal wave, making the air shimmer. With a violent shudder and a sound that was half snarl, half relief, he reached for me.
His hand shot out, fisting the front of my dress and hauling me into him with enough force to knock the breath right out of my lungs.
His mouth crashed on mine.
His lips burned so, so badly.
His tongue shot between my lips, scorching and frantic.
But it wasn’t a kiss.
It was survival.
My hands flew up on instinct, landing over his stitches.
He groaned into my mouth, and I felt something inside me answer back.
A frosting, a freezing...
I cried out as the vicious darkness of yet another vasovagal syncope tried to knock me out.
But then, he jerked away.
Tearing his mouth from mine with a sharp curse, he shoved me back as if he’d suddenly realised what he was doing and hated himself for it.
“Fuck—” He dragged a hand down his face and spun to face the wall. With a snarl, he lunged for the window, wrenching the shade up as if he needed air.
I hissed like a nightcrawler as blinding dawn exploded into the cabin.
Lucien gasped, shying away from the brightness, only for his gaze to adjust far faster than mine and lock onto the view. Sagging toward the window, he rested his fingers against the thick pane, utterly transfixed.
My heart pounded as I shifted closer, needing to see what hypnotised him.
My mouth fell open as I drank in the most sublime sunrise I’d ever seen.
The entire sky dripped in molten rivers of celestial light. The horizon was painted with exquisite brush strokes, fluffy clouds were illuminated from within with their own miniature sun, and everything was gilded in gold. The heavens glowed with a riot of lavender and peach, coral and crimson.
Lucien exhaled heavily.
Every muscle in his body went still, and for one fragile moment...he looked exactly how he did on the night I’d dragged him into the media room and showed him the wilderness of Borneo.
His lips parted as the sunrise poured over him, caressing his cheekbones with a bronze so bright, it seemed to make him otherworldly.
Untouchable.
On fire.
My heart seized and I stopped looking at the sunrise.
I’d never seen anyone more breathtaking.
I couldn’t look away as emotions drowned me—deep aching waves of violence and agony.
I froze because...those emotions weren’t mine.
They slid into me like fog creeping under the door of my heart—a door I hadn’t even realised I’d flung wide open.
I felt him.
I glimpsed behind the mask of the man I’d fallen ridiculously in love with, and his grief crushed my ribs. Followed by fury so raw, it threatened to kill me if I held it back.
But it was his fear that broke my heart.
Fear of what was happening to him. Of what would happen when he couldn’t withstand the burn anymore.
My vision swam as pain flared sharp and sudden. My body protected itself by slamming the door, breaking the bond and—
Lucien spun to face me as if he’d felt that too.
The instant his scarlet-rimmed eyes met mine, the air between us snapped taut.
For one electrifying second, I thought he was going to kiss me again.
But something inside him broke.
Launching to his feet, he snatched my wrist and jerked me up. “Come with me.”
I squeaked as he almost stepped on Whisper. The panther shot out of the way, narrowly avoiding his tail being stomped.
The world blurred as my pulse roared, pain and heat and that impossible connection made everything hurt and ache and blaze.
“Lucien...what are you—?”
“Don’t talk.” Dragging me down the aisle, he opened the door to the bedroom suite and pushed me inside.
The lock clicked as he shoved me onto the bed, then pounced on me.