Until I Die

Chapter 26 The Return

The Return

You’re lucky she’s not dead.

— LUCAS SCOTT

Lucas was insatiable.

So was I.

After he decided no amount of sex would rip open the wounds he’d so carefully sewn back together, he took to worshipping my body with his mouth.

For days, I was drunk on him and dead to the world outside.

Like an addiction, every moment he wasn’t with me was spent fantasizing about when he’d return. I wanted to map him with my tongue.

Funnily, Lucas as a lover was not much different from Lucas as a sparring partner—he still kept me pinned beneath him, but the result was far more enjoyable. I always let him spread my legs.

But eventually, I healed enough to leave the house. As I stared at the faded bruises on my leg, greenish-yellow in the early morning sunlight, I fought the urge to cry. Was it too much to ask to stay inside our bubble, to lock the door and hide, disappear into the fantasy we’d created?

But I had to return to the real world, and we both knew it. I had a job to do, and without Lucas’s information, the Defiance was operating in the dark.

When Lucas entered the bedroom, already dressed in Hunter black in preparation for the day, he caught me examining my leg, and his mouth tightened.

“I have to go,” I said.

His head dipped, and he busied himself with straightening his cuffs. “I disagree.”

“I can’t stay here forever, Lucas.”

“Why not?” he asked, lifting his head to glare at me. “What have they ever done for you? Tell me what they can give you that I can’t. You are so much safer—”

“I’m hiding,” I said.

“You’re healing.”

I pointed at my thigh. “I’m healed. I’m better. Because of you.”

“And if I return you to them, they’ll throw you right back into the firing line.”

“I agreed to this,” I said, taking his hand. “This is what I signed up for when I agreed to be part of the Defiance.”

He shook me off and sat at the edge of the bed, dropping his head into his hands. Raven waves fell forward, hiding his expression. Morning sunlight glinted over the silvery scars on his knuckles, the sharp angles of his body. He was a study in melancholy, armored with trauma and sorrow.

And I loved him.

So much.

It almost hurt, this love, knowing how it would end. Part of me wondered why I’d even consider leaving him when we had so few seconds left together.

But what if there were a path for us?

What if I found a way for him to live?

It was only possible if the Defiance won.

He let out a sharp sigh, then pinned me with a stare. “You sure?”

I nodded and slipped closer to run my fingers through his hair. “I’ll always come back to you.”

He grunted.

“And you’ll stay with me, right?”

He tugged me down for a kiss. “Until I die.”

Until I die. The only promise he’d make. He wouldn’t admit to any feelings or imply we had a future. I could have him until the day he died, and he believed that day approached with unfailing speed.

The thought was like acid in my veins.

“I want you more than once a week, Sophia,” he said against my lips.

I gave in to the urge to climb on top of him. “I’ll come to you,” I said between kisses. “Every night.”

He spun me onto the mattress, and both of us relinquished our words.

The walk back to headquarters was both terrifying and painful. I hadn’t anticipated the vulnerability of the outdoors after being safely harbored with Lucas for weeks.

Golden sun. Singing birds. Death hiding in every shadow.

My leg throbbed relentlessly by the time I arrived, but I drew little attention despite my limp. Adam, however, stopped me at the top of the stairs with a slack stare.

“Sophia?”

I gaped at him, unprepared for such a quick run-in with someone who might have noticed I was missing.

He scooped me into a hug. “General kept saying you were okay, but I thought you’d been captured,” he said, tone full of giddy relief. “Where have you been?”

I told him the planned story—I’d been injured and taken to another safe house until I healed.

He released me, his expression morphing into confusion. “Which one?”

I said nothing, and Adam’s confusion faded to wary understanding.

“Ah. Are you…okay, then?”

“I’m fine.” I backed away. “I have to see Theo.”

“Right.” He swallowed hard. “Let me know if you need anything.”

I needed a miracle, but I doubted he had any of those. With a smile in his direction, I hurried toward Theo’s office.

The curt “Enter!” after I knocked made me hesitate. What would I tell him? Why hadn’t I cooked up a solid story? What would he do with the truth?

I took a deep breath before poking my head in. At his desk, Theo shuffled through some documents, but his gaze lifted as the door opened, and his eyes froze on me.

“Sophia?” He jumped from his seat and grabbed my shoulders for a hug. “You’re okay? Where have you been?”

When he released me, I shut and locked the door. “I was wounded and ended up at the house on Evanston.”

“Evanston? I thought you—” Theo blinked a few times, forehead wrinkled, eyes wide. “You’ve been gone three weeks.”

“I was unconscious for a week.” I tugged my clothes to show him the healing knife wounds. When I lifted my sweatpants and showed him my leg, he hissed.

“Shit. What happened?”

“I nearly bled to death. Lucas—he saved me, Theo.”

A long silence followed my words, and Theo sank into one of the chairs before his desk.

I perched on the one beside him. “I woke up stitched and healing. He was a surgeon, apparently. Before all this. He stayed with me, treated the infection, gave me his blood. He saved my life.”

Theo remained quiet, digesting that information. I let the silence stretch.

After a time, Theo stood and opened a drawer in his desk, extracting a small piece of paper. “I received a note.”

I recognized Lucas’s handwriting. “Uncle Theo, you’re lucky she’s not dead,” I read aloud. “That’s all he said?”

Theo sneered at the note. “The guy is a dick. I don’t know how you stand him. I received this a week after you disappeared.”

Pressing my lips together, I tried not to react. “How did he get that to you?”

“It was found in the pocket of a dead Hunter dropped off in the middle of our territory. Someone brought it to me, asking questions. It’s funny. Multiple Hunters have been found dead in our streets. Most of them traced back to the fight at that lookout.”

Given Lucas’s irrational anger at my injuries, that tracked, but I didn’t know what to say.

Theo sat in the chair behind his desk. “I have questions.”

I swallowed my apprehension and nodded.

“You’ve been with him this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Healing.”

“Healing.” Theo’s voice was thick with disbelief, his dark eyes narrowing on me.

“Among other things,” I said.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not especially.” I hesitated with the next part. “But he said he won’t help you anymore if something like this happens to me again.”

I neglected to mention the death threats.

Theo’s gaze sharpened, suspicions forming in his eyes. He folded his hands on his desk. “Why?”

“I think he feels…protective of me.” Understatement, yes, but Theo didn’t need to know that.

“We’re talking about the same man, correct?”

I glared at him.

“I don’t get it. You’re just a contact.” He raised his eyebrows. “Right?”

I fidgeted with a hole in my sweatpants. “Maybe I’m not just a contact to him.”

“Then what are you?”

I took a breath and scratched my face, uncertain what to say.

“Is he forcing you, Sophia?”

Now he chose to care? Where was this concern months ago when I was terrified each Thursday about what Lucas Scott the Blood Colonel would do to me that night?

“Would it matter if he was?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you wanted from me? Weren’t you under the assumption I’d end up with my legs spread for him?”

Theo flinched.

“You never even asked. I gave you the opportunity to ask, and you buried your head in the sand and changed the subject.”

“I didn’t want to hear about it. You said you asked him for it. What was I supposed to think?”

“You should have asked! You abandoned me and offered no support. Even Lucas knew what you thought would happen to me. You should’ve seen his disgust when he realized who I am to you.”

Theo’s jaw hardened. “I fought Williams to give you the choice. I thought you’d say no, but you didn’t. I never wanted this for you. Scott is a monster, and before this is over, I will kill him for what he’s done to you.”

Not I will kill him for being a Hunter, or I will kill him for how many people he’s murdered, but I will kill him for what he’s done to you.

Something shifted in my mind as I realized the source of Theo’s hatred. With how much Lucas had helped us, Theo should have been singing his praises, but he wasn’t. He’d offered me as collateral, but he hated Lucas for accepting it.

Voice softer, I leaned forward. “Theo, do you know what he’s been doing every time I meet with him?”

“I can imagine.”

I shook my head. “He’s been teaching me how to fight. His training is the only reason I survived that mission. The man you see on TV doesn’t exist, Theo. The real Lucas Scott never wanted any of this. His sister was a spy. She got caught and killed, and he took her place.”

Theo’s frown creased his entire face. “His sister was…a spy?”

I nodded.

A long moment passed before he gave a hesitant, “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t make it right.”

“There isn’t right and wrong in war. You know that. There’s only hope and what we do to survive.”

Theo relaxed into his seat, studying me. “So he never touched you?”

“He never touched me unless I asked to be touched.”

Brows raised, Theo narrowed his eyes.

“We’re sleeping together,” I clarified.

He blanched. “So that’s why he won’t work with us if you’re hurt? He’ll lose his toy?”

I tried not to take offense at that. I wasn’t the target of Theo’s anger here, but being referred to as a toy wasn’t winning him any points. “Not exactly,” I said.

Fingers tapping a rhythm against his desk, he stared at me with a curious edge, like he knew I was holding back. “Then explain.”

“I’m in love with him.”

His eyes went wide. “What?”

“I tried not to be, but he’s a good man, Theo. A good man who’s had to make hard choices.”

He gaped at me.

“And Lucas…feels similarly.” The words tasted strange in my mouth, and I realized I didn’t like stating something Lucas had never admitted to himself. He didn’t need to say the words, though. The sentiment glinted at me from the depths of his eyes.

“That can’t be true. He’s—he’s inhuman.”

I sighed. “I don’t care what you think. I love him, and I won’t give you any of his information if your plan is to kill him. I won’t help you hurt him. In fact, I want immunity for him.”

The words burst from me, and it wasn’t until that moment that I understood the bargaining chip I possessed. Lucas had failed to secure his own clemency, but I could do it for him. If they wanted his information, they could only get it through me.

And I needed Lucas Scott to live.

Theo exploded into incredulous laughter. “That’s impeding the war effort, Sophia. It’s illegal.”

“You think I care? Imprison me then. You’ll lose your informant, and I’m not sure you want to see what he’ll do if you take me from him.”

His mouth opened, but he said nothing.

“I’d like your promise, Theo. And I’d like it in writing.”

He ignored me. “Take you from him?”

I gave him a slow, Lucas-style smirk.

Theo’s skin went gray. Chandelier lights glistened in his dark eyes. “What will you do if I refuse?”

“I won’t give you any of his information.”

Another laugh boomed deep in his chest. “He’s the only reason we’ve gained an advantage. We’re getting close to the end, Sophia. You’d jeopardize that for this monster?”

“Yes.”

I had something of extreme value in my hands, and if I played my cards right, he’d give me what I wanted.

His voice went faint. “Who are you? You’re not the girl I saw raised with morals and integrity.”

Something snapped inside me. How dare he use my upbringing against me? I’d lain to rest every person I’d ever loved, and now he chastised me for trying to hold on to someone who made me feel whole again?

I stood, towering over him. “That girl died with her parents. She was buried when her best friend was taken and killed. The dirt was laid when her only remaining family sold her as a whore to a spy. Would you like to put flowers on her grave, Theo? Here lies Sophia Elena Reeves, a girl with integrity.”

Stricken, he glanced away from me. Silence rained over us.

“You said Williams wants him dead at the end of this,” I murmured. “I’ll do anything I can to stop that, even if it kills me. If you care about me, you’ll find a way to make this happen.”

Theo blinked at his desk a few times and sighed. “Alright, Soph. We’ll talk again later.” I started to leave, but he stopped me. “From now on, I will make sure every officer knows you are unavailable for missions. That never should have happened.”

“Where were you?” I asked. “I looked for you.”

“Classified,” he said. “But we’re getting close. We’re going to win this thing.”

I gazed into his hopeful eyes. “Is there any winning after all this?”

He dropped his gaze to his desk. “Dear god, I hope so.”