Chapter Thirty-Five
NO.
NO.
NO!
I curled over the reason for my existence as she died in my arms. I kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her ice-blue lips.
For a second, I was allowed to keep her, but then auroras screamed across the heavens with violent streaks. A shockwave of raw power tore through the night.
The earth shook, the stars shivered. And the rest of her body shattered like spun glass.
I couldn’t breathe as she exploded into a cloud of tiny silver stars and snowflakes, scattering through the night like glimmering ashes.
My arms went from holding her to being empty.
I-I couldn’t believe it.
She couldn’t be gone.
It...it just wasn’t possible.
I stared at the empty space where she’d been.
Waiting.
My arms stayed curled around nothing, not daring to move just in case.
She’d come back.
Any second now.
The fire always brought her back. It’d woken me in time to come for her. I’d felt her pain even in the depths of mine and I’d come for her. I’d stopped dying for her.
Why wasn’t it enough?
Why wasn’t she coming back?
She’d survived laboratories and torture, disasters and nightmares. She’d survived things that should’ve killed her a thousand times over. This was no different.
Come back...
You have to come back.
I scrambled forward on my hands and knees, grabbing at the stars dissolving into the darkness. She’d simply fallen apart. That was all.
“Stop scaring me, Rook.” A manic laugh escaped me. “This isn’t funny anymore.”
Nothing answered.
No tug on the bond.
No whisper in my heart.
Empty silence stretched.
For the first time since I’d met her, I couldn’t feel her.
And that fucking ruined me.
No.
I crawled faster, searching for her, begging her.
“No, no, no.”
Any moment, she’d return. The fire would bring her back. It couldn’t end like this.
It can’t.
It had to be a cruel joke. A test to see how far I would go.
That was easy.
I would trade any life for hers. I would trade a million lives—
The thought had me casting out my awareness, hunting for anyone close by, ready to feed on them to save her.
Whisper groaned as his powerful thrumming heartbeat filled my head.
I yanked on his lifeforce.
He stumbled.
And...I couldn’t do it.
An inhuman roar ripped out of me as I slammed my fists into the glacier.
I would kill for her.
I had killed for her.
Yet I couldn’t hurt Whisper.
Rage smashed into me. Fury. Hate. Injustice. Grief.
Every emotion added fuel to the fire chewing its way through me, and...I couldn’t exist anymore.
What was the point?
Why should I even try?
If she was truly gone then—
A cataclysmic burst of flames erupted from every inch of me. Pillars of fire screamed into the sky as I reached the tipping point between fighting to live and surrendering to die.
The fire answered instantly—almost as if it’d been waiting for this moment. The moment where I finally gave in.
Titan-level power surged through me like a god awakening—ancient and limitless and utterly merciless. My veins burned with liquid starfire. My bones ignited. Every cell in my body screamed.
I threw my head back and roared.
The glacier answered with an avalanche of cracking ice and thunderous booms. The sky split open as golden flames wreathed my body in a blazing corona of raw, apocalyptic power.
I felt unstoppable. Eternal. A force of nature reborn in fury and loss.
Pain unlike anything I’d ever endured blinded me. My ribs shattered. My spine splintered. Every heartbeat was agony. Every breath was lava.
The fire used my mortal corpse to fuel its immortal rebirth and I couldn’t stop it.
Didn’t want to stop it.
I wanted to go where Rook had gone.
I wanted to find her before it was too late.
Flinging my arms wide, I gave in.
Fire raged higher, wild and untamed. I kneeled amid an inferno and burned.
The crevasse she’d caused deepened with a deafening crack, revealing sections of the lab far below. The sky throbbed red as distant volcanoes answered my grief, erupting in the distance with plumes of fire and smoke.
I screamed her name as the power reached critical and my heart wrenched to a stop.
I collapsed sideways, clutching my chest.
Whisper snarled and nudged me onto my back, shoving me so hard he shunted me across the ice—
The world tore open.
Another deafening crack as reality broke.
I wrapped my fist around density and rewrote it, forcing fate to deliver a new ending. A better ending. An ending where—
Ashfall Cliff welcomed me home.
Windchimes sang in the blossom trees and the scent of honeysuckle clung to humidity. The rooflines of pavilions, corridors, and the Whispering Dragon wall slumbered beneath a crisp, clear night full of stars.
Spinning around, drinking in my home, I—
“There you are.”
Her.
My heart.
My everything.
Everything calmed.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
Rook smiled only a few paces away. Whole and radiant—glowing like an iceberg lit by the sun. Her silver gown puddled around her feet like mercury, a gorgeous smile tipping up her lips.
She opened her arms to me, welcoming me home. “I’ve been waiting for you. What took you so long?”
A broken, grateful sound tore free.
Crossing the distance in two strides, I crushed her against me and buried my face in her neck. Relief. Such overwhelming relief.
“You’re here.” My voice shook with gratitude. “I survived the ascension. I-I brought you back. Things are going to be better now, you’ll see.”
Her arms wrapped tight around me, her hands stroking my back. “I believe you. Everything will be wonderful.”
Kissing my way along her jaw to her lips, I captured her mouth and groaned. Her scent of icy sugar and sweetest honey consumed my senses.
Her tongue teased my bottom lip, licking me with affection.
Lust exploded, followed by desperation.
“I need you, Rook.”
She giggled as I scooped her off her feet, holding her like my bride. The weight of her in my arms. The chill of her frosted skin. The feel of her heart thundering against mine.
She was real.
I’d achieved the impossible and brought her back to me. “I told you I would never let you die.”
Her eyes softened with adoration. “That’s because you’re the most stubborn fool I’ve ever met.”
“Your fool.” I kissed her again, carrying her through Ashfall Cliff to my courtyard. Carp splashed in their ponds, moonlight dappled the flowers, and absolute peace reigned over everything.
All the staff were asleep in their beds, giving us privacy to kiss like the fools we were and stumble to bed.
Only after we’d spent a week (or five) reconnecting and recovering, would I throw the biggest banquet Ashfall Cliff had ever seen.
I’d invite everyone: Dillon, Whisper, Uncle Wen, Auntie Mei, and all the villagers.
We’d celebrate the end of Brimstone, the completion of my revenge, and the beginning of our real life together.
Kicking open the door to my courtyard, I stepped over the raised threshold and braced against blood stains and carnage.
But...Auntie Mei must’ve been hard at work because everything was exactly how it should be.
The gnarled tree cast a shadow over the stone pavers, the table and chairs were righted.
No evidence of men invading or bullets being fired.
Another wave of absolute gratitude filled me.
I was so lucky.
Unbelievably lucky.
Climbing the steps, my foot smacked open the doors to my pavilion. Rook drove me mad, pressing the softest kisses on my throat as I carried her straight to bed.
The moment I laid her down, her clothes vanished with a flash of mist—just like they did in the dreamscape.
“Hi,” she murmured.
She was gorgeous and naked and...a flicker of unease tightened my chest.
“I want you, Lucien.” She bit her bottom lip like a seductress. “I’ve missed you so much.”
The unease vanished as quickly as it came.
It was natural not to trust something so sublime.
After all, I’d spent my entire life waiting for disaster.
But she was here.
We were finally safe.
Everything’s perfect, you’ll see.
With a hungry growl, I fell on her, claiming her mouth in a deep, devouring kiss as my hands roamed over her cool skin. She arched into me, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer.
She moaned in impatience and I reached for the power that was now mine to rule.
I trusted that we’d ascended enough where a single, silent command wished my clothes away.
They vanished instantly.
I settled between her thighs, hard and aching.
I claimed her in one smooth, possessive thrust.
Rook cried out as her tight, icy heat surrounded me like always. Familiar. Wonderful. Mine.
Any doubt that this was too good to be true vanished as I rocked into her slow and deep.
This was real.
She was mine.
And I was never letting her go again.