Chapter Twenty-Six
I FROZE, JERKING LUCIEN TO A STOP. “Frank.” My breath caught as I drank in the man who looked more like a seasoned sea captain who’d accidentally wandered into a lab, rather than a world-class scientist and acting CEO of Snowflake Corp.
While my mother and father had chased breakthroughs in immortality, Frank kept the company grounded with renewable energy. He’d raised four children...plus me, and his once-bright blond hair had turned silver years ago.
Tears streaked down my cheeks as the man who’d become my surrogate father stomped out of the hut, completely ignored the fact that I was in Lucien’s arms, and dragged me into his own.
Lucien’s temper flared hot, but I didn’t have the capacity to calm him.
Frank’s scent and familiarity surrounded me, making me feel like a little girl again.
“Hello, little snowflake.” He hugged me so fiercely, I could barely breathe.
God, please, please let him be trustworthy.
I hadn’t realised until that moment how much I needed him to be on my side.
“Hi.” I blinked back yet more tears, begging, begging, begging that he wasn’t another enemy.
“I missed you so much.” Swiping his calloused thumb over my cheek, he rubbed away dirt as if I was six years old again and making a mess in his office. “Look at the state of you.” His deep voice caught with emotion. “I’ve been waiting for you ever since Dil said you were coming.”
Lucien groaned softly behind me. I really need him to stop touching you, Rook. He balled a shaking fist against his belly. The possessiveness is killing me. I’m either going to burn him alive or drop dead on this ice.
Tugging gently out of Frank’s embrace, I grimaced a little in apology. “Sorry, Frank, I just—”
“It’s fine.” Frank eyeballed Lucien as if he could hear our silent conversations. “He can’t stand another person touching you. I figured that would happen the more entwined you got. It’s just as I predicted all those years ago.”
“Wait. What?” Fear struck my heart. “What do you mean?”
What does he mean...all those years ago? Lucien snarled in my head.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “Maybe he means—oops.” Flinching, I shot Frank a look. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Lucien bared his teeth. I know you want to trust him, Rook...but I’m not so sure. He’s looking at us as if he knows far too much.
I agree. I nodded, making Frank narrow his eyes.
He studied both of us. “Interesting. So the synergy isn’t just physical, but mental.”
“What?” I wrinkled my nose, trying to follow.
“Has it become spiritual and emotional too?” Frank waved his hand. “What am I saying? Of course it has. I’m sure those neural and cellular pathways were formed the day you met.”
Something tightened around my throat. “The day we met?”
“Yes.” Frank nodded sagely. “Right here. In the lab.”
“Eh...” I blinked.
Lucien gave me an incredulous look. What?
The urge to ask my CEO a million questions swarmed me, but...Lucien was right. What if we couldn’t trust him?
Pushing past us, Dillon stalked into the hut and stomped his boots free from snow.
“Because you won’t tell him and I’m sick of watching you both fade before my eyes, allow me to break the ice, as it were.
” Pointing at us, he said, “I think they’ve turned telepathic.
Pretty sure they’re dying too. The cat is sentient.
The Requiem gene is in full swing. And the level of power they have destroyed an entire mountain range in China. Oh, and their blood is somehow black.”
Heading toward the single elevator that was the only thing in this tiny hut, Dillon added, “They also won’t hesitate to kill anyone who threatens the other, so...I suggest you all remain friends. Keeps my job simple, as well as the panther’s.”
Whisper huffed as if agreeing with Dillon, showing a hint of fang for Frank’s benefit.
“Hey.” I scowled. “What happened to being on my side and protecting our secrets?”
“I am protecting you. Starting with giving the benefit of the doubt to the very man who loves you like his own daughter. The one man who can hopefully save your life. However.” Dragging his finger over his throat as the elevator pinged and the metal doors opened, he pointed at Frank in warning.
“If you hurt them, I’ll hurt you. Got it, Frank? ”
Frank didn’t seem afraid or even shocked by Dillon’s revelations.
“Yes, yes. You can hang, draw, and quarter me if I so much as give her a papercut. Now come in, come in.” Bustling me inside the hut, Frank waited for Lucien to step over the threshold, then eyed up Whisper as the panther joined us in the small space. “Well, I never.”
The massive panther padded silently to Lucien’s side, his hackles raised.
Frank closed the door, blocking out the glacier and relying on a single lightbulb swinging above. He couldn’t take his eyes off Whisper. “He’s even more magnificent than I imagined.”
A soft growl rose in volume the longer Whisper stared at Frank, almost as if he remembered him. His tail stiffened and the hint of fang became a full snarl.
“You’re alright, you stupid beast.” Lucien placed his hand on the panther’s scruff, grabbing a handful of fur just in case. Speaking to Frank, he added, “He won’t hurt you. As long as you don’t hurt us.”
Frank didn’t reply, hypnotised by the glowing golden eyes of the giant predator.
Whisper grumbled as if tempted to ignore Lucien’s command and eat my CEO but then Frank held out his hand, allowing Whisper to sniff him. “You remember me, don’t you, boy?”
Whisper curled his upper lip as he sniffed Frank’s knuckles. Sneezing with what looked like approval as well as disgust, the tension in the room eased.
Frank grinned. “I remember you being no bigger than a house cat when we first met.”
“Wait.” Lucien snapped upright. “So it was you? He’s one of your lab experiments?” He flicked me a look, remembering our conversation on the terrace when tipsy wonderings had questioned Whisper’s origins.
“Oh, he wasn’t an experiment.” Frank headed toward the lift where Dillon waited, holding the doors for us. “We couldn’t give him immortality because true cellular immortality will always be beyond our capabilities—no matter what anyone says. However, I could give him targeted epigenetic therapy.”
“And in English that means...” Lucien crossed his arms, refusing to get into the lift even though it was big enough for towers of gurneys and boxes. Being the main entry point to the labs, it had carried thousands of pallets, supplies, and equipment from the surface to subterranean over the years.
Frank shrugged as if he didn’t mind Lucien’s curtness.
“It means we carefully edited his genetic expression at the molecular level. We upregulated telomerase production while reinforcing DNA repair mechanisms with synthetic proteins based on extremophile biology. It slowed cellular senescence dramatically. His body now ages at roughly one-third of a normal panther.”
“You’re talking all sciencey again,” I joked, slipping back into the useless owner of a company I’d run away from.
Frank scratched behind Whisper’s ear, smiling broadly as the panther shocked all of us with a soft purr.
“I don’t know how to speak in layman’s terms, but...
we also enhanced his neural plasticity and myelination in key areas of the brain.
He’s significantly more intelligent than any natural panther—closer to the cognitive level of... well, us I suppose.”
Dropping to his haunches, he grabbed Whisper’s jaws, careful not to catch his sensitive whiskers. “Look at that face. You know exactly what I’m saying and remember when we first met, don’t you? You know I would never hurt you and also know that you were destined for great things.”
“So you knew he was going to be given to me?” Lucien’s face was unreadable.
“Of course. He was tailor-made for you. A friend that would never leave you—for a long time anyway.”
Lucien’s entire body went stony. “Then that means you knew about me. About what I was.”
With a soft sigh, Frank straightened and nodded. “Not even through the door and you’re already asking the hard questions. But yes...I know you. I know everything about you. I’ve known about you your entire life. And we’ve met, not that you would remember.”
“Tell me,” Lucien snapped.
Frank nodded, not getting flustered or rushed. I supposed after years of dealing with the board, employees, and the demands of my workaholic parents, nothing fazed him anymore, even standing cramped in a little building on a glacier.
“Seeing as you’re keen to put all the cards on the table, let’s get the glaringly obvious stuff out of the way, shall we? And then we can all be friends.”
Cracking his knuckles as if he was about to enter a punching match instead of delivering facts, Frank said, “I know who you are and why Marcus Ward requested us to provide you with a mental health companion. I know the base ability of your Requiem anomaly is yang, which means your emotions wield fire but can also feed on other forms of energy. Including, but not limited to, sunlight, electrical currents, other creatures’ lifeforces, and even strong emotional states like rage, lust, and violence. Unlike Rook who is the exact opposite.”
He glanced at me. “Your R gene is yin, little snowflake. That means you’ve always fed off ice, moonlight, and...as morbid as it sounds...death.”
I choked on a breath as Lucien stiffened.
Not waiting for our response, Frank studied Lucien as if he could see everything he’d just listed percolating beneath his skin.
“In simple terms, you’re a living spark with a volatile temper, while Rook is your calm harbour thanks to her yin characteristics.
Rook can soothe you, but when you were younger, you needed to be kept alive, rather than sedated, so when Marcus phoned me to say you weren’t coping as a boy, I knew you would require an equally strong yang companion.
Something you could siphon energy off on those days you were in pain. ”