Chapter Thirty-Three
OUR PRIVATE SNOWY MEADOW WAS DYING.
The sky no longer danced with auroras, and petals no longer cascaded from the blossom tree. The river had dried up days ago, and each time we entered this place, the illusion cracked a little more.
We no longer made love in a perfect snow globe, but fought to survive in a rotten bubble about to pop.
The ache in my heart intensified as Lucien pinned me to the ground, his weight grounding and heavy and real. His hands framed my face almost too tightly as he kissed me—not sweet or soft but vicious with denial.
I kissed him back.
Our teeth clashed and tongues fought.
We kissed as if we could share our souls, hoping that when the time came, we could find each other again.
“I won’t lose you,” he growled against my lips. “I can’t.”
Tears slipped from my eyes, freezing against my skin as I pulled him closer. I dug my nails into him, anchoring him to me for always. I wanted to tell him he never would. To make vows and promises that we’d always be together, but...they would be lies.
Pieces of me were fading.
During the past week of subjecting ourselves to every test possible, I’d hidden the fact that my memories were cracking and vanishing.
The sound of my mother’s laugh. The colour of my childhood bedroom.
The faces of the girls I’d been trapped in Cinderkeep with.
They’d all gone as if I didn’t need them where I was going.
Even the precious memories of Lucien weren’t safe. I knew I loved him, and I knew I met him in that black stone palace, but...I couldn’t recall how.
What was our first meeting like?
What had he said to me?
How was I supposed to stay with him and love him when everything about me was deleting itself—almost as if the ice was erasing everything that made me me.
Tears streamed down my temples as I clung to him, kissing him ever so deeply.
I tried to keep the truth from him, but the bond made it impossibly hard.
“You’re not fading,” he hissed between kisses. “I won’t let you. And we first met in the ballroom. I think I said how bold you were...not bowing like the others.” He nipped my bottom lip. “I fell for you even then. I fell the moment our eyes met, and I will never let you go.”
I cried out as the ice kept churning, calcifying my bones with frost. The tips of my hair dusted with snowflakes, breaking apart and rising into the air.
Horror squeezed my heart.
No. Not yet...
He growled at the sight of my hair trying to dissipate. His fury wrapped me in a warm cocoon, thawing me out just enough that my hair melted back to normal.
“You. Are. Mine.” He lowered his head and spoke against my throat, his teeth sharp against my skin. “Every piece of you. Every damn part of you is mine, and I’m not letting a single part of you leave me.”
Even as he vowed to keep me, another life thread snapped deep, deep inside.
The meadow dimmed as if it only existed because of us and if there was no more us...
His mouth captured mine again, tasting my tears.
“You don’t get to say goodbye,” he breathed, deepening the kiss until I surrendered entirely to him. “I will never let you say that word to me, got it?”
I closed my eyes and held him tighter, memorising the feel of him, the heat of him, the way his fire surrounded my ice and held it at bay from hurting me.
I tried to believe him, but all my terrors spilled free. “I think we’re really running out of time, Lucien.”
His face darkened as he pulled away and cupped my cheeks. “Don’t say that. Frank is busy. He’s still working while we’re here healing. He’ll find something.”
“But what if he can’t?” My voice cracked. “I know you feel it too. The weight inside us. The sickness—”
He made a low, broken sound and kissed me again. His mouth claimed mine like he could seal us together for eternity and I kissed him back with the same ferocity.
We didn’t speak again. We couldn’t.
Our clothes dissolved and our skin met skin.
The moment he pushed inside me—slow and deep and achingly gentle—the dreamscape flared with light as if reacting to our connection.
Silver frost bloomed across my breasts, only to melt instantly under the heat of his body. His smoky wings unfurled only to be swallowed up by snow.
Every thrust was reverent and tender.
I arched under him as he kissed the hollow of my throat. Snowflakes drifted over us as my power grew stronger, blanketing us with an arctic chill.
I clung to him, nails digging into his back, heels locked behind his thighs.
“I can’t lose you,” he rasped against my mouth. “I won’t. I’ll burn the whole fucking universe down before I let it take you from me.”
Every kiss tasted of salt and smoke and goodbye. Every thrust caused the bond to pulse brighter, tighter, weaving us together even as the power we never asked for did its best to tear us apart.
Another blizzard escaped my skin, swirling around us with a snowy vortex.
“You’re not taking her,” he hissed, driving into me with a savage stroke.
The meadow turned blinding with sunbursts.
Every thrust tore a broken gasp from my throat. Every rock caused the bond to flare with silver and gold, twining together as if trying to knot us into one.
“You can’t go anywhere.” His forehead pressed to mine, his skin hotter than the sun. “We stay alive until we figure this out. I will never be able to let you go, Rook, so...don’t fucking make me.”
I dug my heels into his back, pulling him impossibly deeper. “We’ll stay alive. For as long as it takes.”
I choked as something ruptured in my heart.
A hollow, aching void tore wide.
My body flash-froze—not with pretty snowflakes but transforming into a mannequin made of pure ice. I turned translucent as if I’d become one with the glacier we were buried in, revealing every bone and artery, every beat of my rapidly failing heart.
Lucien wrenched to a stop mid-thrust. His cock was the only warm thing inside me, spearing deep and keeping me anchored.
I focused on him as my vision started to go, turning watery and glassy as if I stared at him through a thick layer of ice. Lucien...
“Rook?” His handsome face twisted with horror. “Rook!”
For a second, he looked as if he’d lose his mind and tear apart the universe, but then his eyes narrowed with lethal focus. His entire body trembled as he called on the very power that was killing us, growing warmer, hotter, beginning to steam and smoke.
“Don’t.” I stroked his lower back where we were still connected in the rawest of ways. “Stop it. You’re k-killing yourself.”
He didn’t answer me.
With a snarl, he smothered me with his burning weight and kissed me.
The second our lips touched, his entire body erupted with fire, fire, fire.
I screamed as liquid flame poured down my throat. His heat was excruciating and glorious and healing.
It scorched away death, thawed my frozen heart, and forced my translucent body to return to flesh and blood. For a few blinding moments, I felt strong again—devouring every droplet of energy he gave me, brimming with life and power.
Hope grew wings.
We could do this.
We can fight—
With a groan, Lucien pulled out of me and flipped me onto my hands and knees. Yanking my hips back, he slammed into me with a brutal thrust, cocooning us in a raging fireball.
The ground caught fire around us. The tree caught ablaze.
Wrapping one blazing arm around my waist, he held me in place as he planted his fist into the burning ground and took me like a beast. “You don’t get to die. You don’t get to leave. I won’t let you.”
Tears ran down my cheeks as I pushed back against him, meeting every thrust. His teeth sank into my shoulder, breaking the skin and feeding me flames that burned as hot as venom.
Dragging me upward, he held me on my knees as my back plastered to his scorching chest. Kneading my breast with one hand, he grabbed me around the chin and angled my jaw to kiss me.
I cried out as his lips devoured me.
The sky caught fire as his power spiralled out of control. The auroras fell like raining ash. The entire dreamscape trembled.
Horror filled me as he fed me every drop he had left.
“Lucien...stop.”
Every rock pushed more of his energy into me, tearing his soul apart.
“Lucien.” I tried to fight. To get him off me. “Please—”
He merely took me harder, flinging open his heart to save me.
I felt it.
Felt him burning himself up for me. Giving me everything in the hope that it incinerated the ice inside me forever.
“Lucien!” I squirmed and wriggled, but he just held me tighter.
“Please don’t do this!”
His fingers found my clit, drowning me under pleasure.
I moaned as my core clenched around him, driven into bliss beneath his relentless rhythm. “I can feel you fading. Stop it.”
He only fucked me harder, hips snapping with brutal need. “I don’t care if I burn out. If you die, I die. So take what I give you. Take everything.”
My orgasm shattered like a firework, ice exploding outward in jagged constellations. Lucien followed with a guttural roar, pouring everything into me—every last drop of fire, every scrap of life, every piece of his soul.
He collapsed, falling to his side, taking me with him. He stayed buried deep inside me, his chest heaving as he embraced me like he couldn’t bear the thought of losing me.
A sob caught in my throat as I hugged his arms wrapped tight around me. Our hearts connected with agony.
“I love you,” he whispered, pressing the sweetest kiss to the back of my head. “I love you so much.” His words slurred a little, his heart pounding against my back.
“I love you too.” I couldn’t fight the sobs anymore and burst into tears.
Switching to the silent intimacy of speaking through our bond, I begged, Never do that again, do you hear me?
You can’t destroy yourself for me. I can’t live without you either, don’t you get that?
We’ll find a way. We just need a little more time.
I bowed my head and kissed his forearm locked tight over my breasts.
Just don’t be reckless. Don’t give up. You can’t give up.
He mumbled something I didn’t catch, gathering me in a vicious hug. A second later, his arms loosened as he plummeted into exhausted sleep.
We’d slept in the dreamscape before. Sometimes we stayed in this realm and sometimes we snapped back into reality. I waited to see if he’d vanish and leave me alone, seeing as I hadn’t joined him in slumber, but he twitched against me and fell deeper.
I felt his thoughts pulling away from mine.
Felt the bond going quiet and dark and cold.
Lucien... I shook him. Answer me.
No reply.
He left me lying there with his body still inside me, clinging to his arm as he twitched.
“Please, wake up,” I begged. “Please, don’t do this...”
I tugged on the link between us, trying to reach him on the other end, but...it snapped.
No!
The connection between his heart and mine severed with soul-slicing agony and...tiny pieces of his arm started to flake.
“No...” Scrambling upright, I rolled him onto his back and shook him. “LUCIEN! Wake up.”
His head flopped to the side.
Golden embers coiled from his shoulders, his skin going sooty and soft. Tiny cracks of light appeared across his chest, his arms, his beautiful face.
“Lucien! Wake up!”
He groaned as he roused just enough for his dull, dark eyes to meet mine. He looked at me with such love, it ripped out my heart and hurt.
“I’m fine,” he slurred. “I’m just...tired, that’s all.”
But the bond never reconnected.
His heart never restarted.
His eyes closed and I slammed my lips to his, summoning a snowstorm to bury him—to stop the burn, bandage the cracks, and keep him with me.
But the ice never answered and the dreamscape shattered—
I shot upright in the real world.
Scrambling onto my knees, I turned to face Lucien beside me. I shook him hard. “Wake up. We need to find Frank. Open your eyes. Hurry—”
My voice cut off with a cry.
He lay unconscious, the tiniest dusting of ash coating his cheekbones.
No, no, no.
He couldn’t do this.
He can’t!
Flinging myself on him, I pummelled his heart. I punched and struck, beat and begged. “You can’t. You can’t!”
His body continued to break and scatter.
I kissed him.
He didn’t respond.
I slapped him.
He didn’t even twitch.
“LUCIEN!”
I didn’t think. I simply reached.
To the ice that Lucien had tried to melt out of me.
To the power that would rather see me dead.
It answered like my worst enemy.
It tore through my veins, smashed apart my bones, and surged free with black, destructive frost.
It hurt. It burned. I was never meant to hold this much power.
But it obeyed my plea.
It accepted my bargain.
I screamed as I forced every last polar shard into Lucien, arrowing it directly into his heart. It crashed into him like a blade.
Frost webbed over his skin, racing over his shoulders, and across his fracturing face. His body seized, arching off the bed as coldness clashed violently with the dying remnants of his fire.
Blood trickled from my nose as other things broke inside me.
I coughed up black tar as I forced the ice to bring him back. “You don’t get to leave me either.”
He jerked again.
Then crashed down and didn’t move.
The ash on his skin continued to flake, hovering over his body.
Lucien. I closed my eyes, searching for him down the bond. Please, please come back. Don’t leave me.
He didn’t reply and that wonderful bridge that stitched us into one exploded into a million tinkling pieces.
Everything went dark.
Everything went silent.
Run!
Pushing off the bed, I flew barefoot out the door.
For help.
For hope.
For him.