Chapter Twenty-Three #2
It just devoured my bindings and flickered at my ankles as I went to Lucien’s side. He stood in the centre of the carnage, eyes glowing like molten rubies, chest heaving. Flames danced across his skin, hungry and vicious for more.
You can calm down now. I clutched his hand. Enough, Lucien. They’re dead.
But the fire wouldn’t stop.
It snapped and flickered like a rabid beast. The walls groaned. The ceiling buckled—
“Lucien!” I grabbed his arm and shook him. “Don’t burn up again. I’m warning you.”
His gaze met mine, panic glittering in the depths. Help me...
The ice answered his plea with a violent blast of frost. It arrowed into his chest, scything through his flames.
He staggered backward as snow met fire with a clash of elemental power.
For a terrifying second, I feared we’d tear each other apart.
That we’d burn and freeze and this would be our grave but...something shifted.
The melding of our powers sent a shockwave of raw energy through the bond. Pleasure and pain crashed through us. His fire flooded my veins; my ice poured into him. Trapping us, helping us...granting us more time even as we fought and fed, healed and died.
Lucien’s arms snapped around me, crushing me against his burning body. In the heart of the swirling chaos, everything else disappeared.
There was only us.
His mouth crashed down on mine in a desperate, devouring kiss. Flames licked across my skin, while frost danced over his. Raw need urged us to connect—not just in lust but to fuse our spirits together so even death couldn’t break us.
Let’s get the fuck out of here. Grabbing my wrist, Lucien broke the kiss and dragged me over the ashes of burning corpses.
The entire mansion creaked as we cut into the foyer, setting everything ablaze. Flames tore along the architraves, devouring wallpaper, figurines, and light fixtures. Everything melted—all of it burning and dripping and smoking.
Ancient oak panelling bubbled and blistered as we headed toward the front door. The grand staircase became a waterfall of molten carpet, its banisters warping like floppy snakes.
We barely made it outside before the foundations lost all strength and the estate began to collapse.
“Come on,” Lucien growled, jerking me into a run. Leaping over the threshold, we charged down the three front steps and leapt onto the gravel driveway.
Lucien let my wrist go as we turned to face the massive fireball. A huge smoke plume blacked out the morning light. Cracks and pops echoed far too loud.
Anyone could hear this.
More people would know.
Without thinking, I threw my arms wide.
Ice exploded outward in a perfect dome—a glittering, freezing shell that swallowed the manor in seconds.
Angry flames licked up the sides of my cage, turning dense with acrid black.
Ricocheting back on itself, the fire destroyed stone and steel, tearing through support beams and knocking over pillars as if they were made of tinfoil.
The mansion’s main supports broke with a deafening crack, collapsing in on itself like a self-burying tomb.
For a moment we just stood there, breathing hard, watching our combined destruction.
But then, I screamed as the power we’d wielded recoiled with a boomerang of pain.
Agony punched us, sending us tripping backward—punishing us for using what wasn’t ours to use. Ice turned on me like a hundred frozen daggers. Lucien’s fire retaliated with thousand-degree burns.
We cried out, doubling over as we suffered the worst sort of backlash.
Lucien staggered into me. “Fuck—” His voice cracked as black blood came up.
Something ruptured in me—my heart, my lungs—I couldn’t tell.
I coughed up a mouthful of bitter blood, spitting it out all over the gravel. We clung to each other as the consequences of using unnatural powers reminded us we were still pathetically human.
Human and dying and—
The pain stopped.
The ice retracted into my marrow, vanishing with a snap. Emptiness filled me, matching the hollowness left in Lucien.
Rubbing my heart, I frowned. No cold. No heat. No power.
He huffed and stood straight. “I’m guessing the strength we borrowed from the dreamscape is officially over.”
My legs threatened to give out, but he tightened his arm around me and held me close. Even that small movement made him groan in pain and...urgent need bloomed.
He stiffened, feeling the same violent drive to connect.
My empty body ached for him. My thighs pressed together as heat pooled low in my belly. I wanted his mouth on mine. I needed him inside me. He needed to cure me, heal me, give me back the power I just lost so I didn’t—
I retched, spitting up another mouthful of black blood.
“Shit, we’re running out of time.” His fingers dug into my waist, pulling me into a walk. “We have to go. We have to get to your lab...before it’s too late.”
Dillon.
Where was he?
Shouldn’t he be here by now?
He could get us to Iceland—
“Dillon?” Lucien frowned, picking up on my thoughts. “How the hell would he be here? He was shot.”
“That won’t stop him from chasing after me.”
“He’s good at hunting you down, Rook, but he’s not that good.” Pulling me away from the smouldering ruins, we headed down the driveway.
“He tagged me.” I caught his eyes. “He put a GPS on me.”
“He did what?”
“Don’t act all territorial. He did it to keep me safe.”
“How didn’t I know about this?”
“I didn’t either. Roy Swift found a tracker on my ankle last night.
I guessed the only one who either had access to me or threatened to do such a thing was Dil.
Roy smashed it the moment he found it, but that doesn’t matter.
If Dillon isn’t on death’s door, he’ll be on his way.
Might even already be here for all I know. ”
“In that case, we better not disappoint him.” Lucien tugged me faster toward the road in the distance.
Looking over his shoulder, he narrowed his eyes at the ash pile behind us.
A flare of dark satisfaction and heady relief bled through our link.
“It took a couple of decades but...I finally got my revenge.”
I wanted to ask him what he planned to do, now Brimstone was finally in his control. I wanted to discuss our future—where we would go, what we would do, but...
I already had the answer.
We’re dying...
We wouldn’t have the luxury of growing old together or having a nice, normal life.
“You know I can feel what you’re thinking,” he whispered, our bodies bumping against each other as if we were drunks leaving a party that’d lasted all night. “Please stop. Have faith that we’ll find a cure, and all of this wasn’t for nothing.”
I wished I could be more positive, but every step sent deeper aches through my bones.
We stopped in front of the estate’s wrought iron gates. A stag head waited proudly in the centre, his antlers branching out like vines.
Lucien pressed a button on the concrete post, activating the gate opener. We didn’t speak as the antlers cracked down the centre, swinging the stag’s silhouette wide, nor did we look back as we stepped out of the Swift home and onto the main road.
My heart skipped a few beats as we looked left and right, studying the stone walls snaking down the long expanse of a pretty country lane. Dense oak trees dappled us with shadows, and a squirrel darted past, kicking up leaves in the ditch.
No Dillon.
And the thought of walking...
Pasting on a smile, I turned to Lucien, hoping he couldn’t sense just how cold I was, how tired and sick and dizzy. “We’ll walk to the closest house and ask to use their phone. We’ll call Sovereign Retrieval to pick us up.”
Neither of us mentioned how fast time was running out.
We didn’t say a word.
He merely clutched my hand and dragged me down the road.