Chapter Five #2
“No. I can’t.” His entire body shook as if he was moments away from snapping. “Because your life is worth so much more than mine.”
“My life means nothing if you’re gone.”
“Exactly!” he roared. “I told you I wouldn’t cope if something ever happened to you. I was pretty fucking honest when I said I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if you died.”
The wintery rush in my veins sang louder the longer we stood in this strange place. I had no idea where we were or how we got here.
Memories of watching him die crushed me all over again. How he’d burned up, broken apart, and disappeared. It’d destroyed me. It’d shown me just how far I’d go to keep him, not just that time but every time.
“I forbid you from ever putting yourself in danger again!” His anger tore at me with teeth and fire—
But the sky suddenly shattered with a thunderclap.
Silver auroras exploded above with ribboning shards, lighting up every ugly, broken thing inside me as if they’d been waiting for this very moment.
He’d kept his plans hidden...just like he had at Cinderkeep.
He hadn’t trusted me and gone up that mountain on his own.
If only he’d listened to me, told me—
Lucien stiffened as all my secrets and grievances poured free.
I couldn’t stop it.
He saw everything. Every terrible thing I’d done to keep him.
I became a monster as I collected souls, fed on death, and didn’t care who I harmed if it meant I could save him. I harnessed the power of love to reap disaster, and I would never forgive myself because he might’ve killed so many that night, but I’d massacred half of the mountain to keep him.
The auroras spun faster as I tried to capture his ashes with shaking hands. How I went half-mad, willing his body back into existence by reversing time all over again.
Lucien staggered as the sky showed me reaching my limit and screaming.
“That’s what you did?” He choked. “That’s why I woke up and found you dissolving into snow? You sacrificed yourself for me?”
“I didn’t have a choice. You were dying. You were dead—”
“And so you thought you’d trade your life for mine?” His hand slid up to my jaw, his thumb pressing hard enough to bruise. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? Waking up and finding you breaking apart?”
“Probably exactly what it did to me watching you disappear!”
“How could you?” he snarled, his fingers dropping to my shoulders to shake me. “How could you give up your life for mine? You’re priceless to me, don’t you get that?”
He glanced at the sky again, the auroras revealing my death as I bargained with time to bring him back.
His eyes were positively wild, ringed with glowing scarlet.
“I had no idea what happened. How I was still alive. And now I find out you saved my life at the cost of yours? Did you think I would be grateful? That I would be okay with you trading yourself for me? That I could live a single hour without you? That I wouldn’t be fucking heartbroken? ”
His hands slid into my hair, fisting tight.
“What would’ve happened if I wasn’t able to reverse what you’d done, huh?
” He shook me again, his eyes welling with furious tears.
“What if I hadn’t been able to bring you back?
Did you honestly think I could let you leave me?
That I wouldn’t raze the world if it meant I got to keep you? ”
“Don’t blame me for this.” A bolt of power flared from my fingertips, sending a flurry of icy daggers flying.
They smashed into his chest, making him stagger even as fire surged and melted them.
“You don’t get to be angry at me. You don’t get to scold me or curse me.
You left me! You knew we were the only things keeping each other in stasis.
You knew how fragile that bond was. You knew that no one else survived the immortality trials, yet you snuck out of bed and left anyway. ”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“Yes, well, so was I!” Furious tears rolled down my cheeks, transforming into glittering crystals.
“And of course, I get that you want to protect me. And I’m grateful.
But...you should’ve confided in me, trusted me.
We could’ve gone together and none of this would’ve happened.
You wouldn’t have slaughtered so many creatures, and I...
I...” I sobbed, forcing myself to continue.
“I wouldn’t have done far worse to bring you back. ”
In one step, he collided with me.
In one breath, he crushed me in his embrace.
The silver auroras suddenly caught fire, showing the darkest secrets of his heart.
I saw it all through his eyes.
The moment he woke by that scorched river and found me draped across him, breaking into snowy pieces.
The gut-wrenching terror as my body dissolved.
The way he’d roared and fed—not on food or water—but on life itself.
How he’d torn the remaining shreds of life from every injured creature just so I wouldn’t have to die.
We’d become inhuman...all because we couldn’t say goodbye.
“You’re it for me, Rook. You’re the only reason I exist. And if that reason is taken away from me...well.” His gaze locked onto my mouth. “I’ll happily become the villain if it means I get to keep you.”
His lips suddenly crashed on mine.
The betrayal I’d felt ever since I’d woken to an empty bed shattered like tinkling glass. My anger snuffed out and a different kind of fire roared in its place.
A soul-deep ache almost made my knees buckle.
The ache was far, far worse than thirst or hunger. It was primal, instinctual—a matter of life and death.
I flung myself into the tempest and kissed him back.
No softness. No sweetness. Just teeth and tongue and the desperate collision of knowing what it felt like to lose each other.
Ice unfurled with a flash of goosebumps, imprinting my skin with white snowflakes.
He kissed me deeper as if trying to erase every second we’d been apart. His tongue speared into my mouth as my hands fisted in his hair, yanking him closer, closer. His arm banded around my waist, lifting me half off the ground.
And it wasn’t enough.
I needed more. I needed everything.
I felt him everywhere—inside my heart, behind my eyes, in the hollow ache between my legs. His emotions poured into me, full of jagged edges, terror, and rage.
He raked a hand down my side, bunching the nightgown up my thigh.
I moaned in encouragement.
He tore away from my mouth, his eyes utterly wild. “I can’t...” He swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t stop. It’s like I’m being driven by something other than myself.”
“I know.” I weaved my fingers in his hair, pulling him back down. “I feel it too.”
He fell on me again, his tongue fierce and slick.
The need grew worse, infecting us with mindless hunger.
Lucien’s hand slid higher under my nightgown, his fingers scorching my inner thigh.
My hips swayed toward him, not caring where we were or what all of this meant.
He cursed, low and filthy, pressing me backward until my shoulders hit something solid that wasn’t there a second ago. He broke the kiss, panting into my mouth.
He held me as if he wanted to wring my neck and worship me at the same time. “I hate you for hurting yourself for me.”
“Same.” I nuzzled his nose with mine. “I hate you for leaving me instead of talking to me. I hate that you didn’t give me a chance to help you. I hate that you tried to protect me—”
“I get it.” His teeth flashed with a vicious smile. “You hate me. So you better give me the chance to earn your forgiveness...one orgasm at a time.”
His mouth found mine again as he fumbled with his zipper.
I reached to help him—
Our clothes suddenly vanished, leaving us bare and aching.
He snarled as my hand wrapped around his hot hardness—
A shrill scream tore like lightning through the sky.
We froze.
A volley of bangs followed, dull and muted as if it happened in an entirely different world to this one.
“What...?” Lucien frowned.
Something shook me violently.
Something I couldn’t see.
The sky tore like wet paper—
The dream shattered as reality crashed back with brutal force. The power, the strength, the safety—all of it vanished, leaving me weak and empty, back in a broken body.
I wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. I wanted to go back to being better, but...sunshine blinded me as I lay flat on my back. My nightgown was nice and demure, and Lucien lay beside me unconscious, his shirt parted as if revealing the truth that whatever had happened wasn’t real.
Unlike the fantasy where his chest was smooth and metal-free, the vitalsync core was back—imprisoning his heart with that hated pacemaker.
My head throbbed trying to understand.
Had it all been a dream?
A quick, sexual dream where everything had felt so, so real?
The shake came again—the same shake I’d felt but couldn’t see.
Squinting in the searing sunshine, I gasped as Dillon jerked me upright. “We’ve got to run. Now!”
“Run?” I swallowed back another mouthful of bitter nausea.
I preferred the dream.
“Someone is firing at us.” Scooping an arm under my back and knees, he hauled me from the bed. Whisper hissed and jumped off the mattress, headbutting my bodyguard’s hip as if demanding he put me down.
Dillon ignored the panther and ran for the door. “They shot all the Snowflake Corp guards. We have to go. Right the fuck now!”