Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
A blanket of ice covered the ground with a giant spiral, killing yet more of the shrubbery.
“What emotion was that?” Dillon frowned. “Pain? Betrayal? You should be writing your reactions down, so you know what each feeling does.”
“So you agree that you think my parents were the ones who did this to me...who did this to Lucien?”
The temperature suddenly plummeted again.
Dillon’s breath crystallised as snow began to fall. Not from the sky, but from me. Tiny flakes spiralled from my chest—blanketing the entire courtyard.
It didn’t hurt. I didn’t have a migraine or nausea like before but...I was in pain.
“That’s grief.” Dillon hugged himself, shivering from the cold. “Write it down. It’s soft but lethal.”
Shaking away the agony in my heart for what my parents had done, the snow lightened, turned to powder, then vanished.
“Your parents loved you,” Dillon said softly, stepping into me and rubbing away the single tear that rolled down my cheek. “Maybe they loved you too much and wanted you to be more than what everyone else is.”
“If my parents loved me.” I sniffed back my sadness. “They would never have experimented on me.” My heart pinched with guilt. “What if I’m the reason Lucien has been suffering his entire life? What if—”
“Are you honestly saying you feel responsible?” He cupped my shoulders and held me firm. “That you feel guilty for something you didn’t even know about?”
“Yes.” My temper flared, bringing another scattering of frost. “I do feel guilty. He’s spent his entire life in misery. And if it was my family who did this to him—”
“Then I suppose you were meant to find each other, seeing as it’s looking more and more likely that you’re keeping each other alive.” He cocked his head. “Or are you denying that fact?”
“No, I just—”
“What if they’d tampered with you and not him? Do you think you would’ve survived when your necklace came off? Because I’m telling you right now, you wouldn’t have. You were almost dead when I found you that day.”
He swallowed hard as if the memories haunted him. “I’m grateful he was able to protect you and I’m grateful you have each other. You’ve been on your own for far too long. So...whatever other worries you have. Whatever guilt you feel or questions you have...those are all tomorrow’s problems.”
Letting me go, he ordered, “Focus. There’s a shit-ton more emotions we haven’t tested and I’m not letting you out of this courtyard until you do.”
Feelings surged inside me.
Panic and worry, disbelief and shock.
I missed Lucien.
The bond’s incessant tugging made me irritable and anxious.
I wanted him.
I—
The bond tightened without warning, wrenching. I staggered forward, clutching my heart.
“Rook?” Dillon reached for me. “You okay?”
Heat flared through the tether. Snippets of Lucien’s thoughts bled into mine.
The fear of what lurked in the mountain. The rage of his hate. The single-minded determination to exterminate all those who’d betrayed him.
If he got hurt.
If something happened to him—
I almost doubled over from the pain.
I loved him.
I’d admitted it to myself before, but now...now the very earth shifted beneath my feet. The words carved themselves into my bones, branding their truth into my soul.
I love him.
Something primal and insanely powerful unlocked inside me as if it’d been waiting for that final confession.
Love was cruel and kind, vicious and forgiving. It was domination and surrender, protection and savagery and the cold kept rising, rising.
The temperature dropped so quickly, the stone wall cracked. Ice spikes the size of spears erupted from the ground in jagged constellations. Sound warped. Light bent. Permafrost surged outward in violent rings, devouring the courtyard tile by tile. Snow condensed into razor blades. And a polar maelstrom formed above, its eye directly over me.
I cried out as a cryonic shockwave shot out of me, sending weaponised sleet in every direction.
Dillon didn’t stand a chance.
The blast hurled him backward.
He hit the pavilion’s doors as the stone lions turned into solid icebergs.
Bending over, I planted my hands on my knees and gulped air.
Stop it.
Stop it!
The storm dissolved above. Snow vanished. Frost melted.
With a groan, Dillon peeled himself off the frozen doors. The courtyard looked like the aftermath of an ice age. Adjusting his vest, he shook icicles out of his hair and came toward me with the slightest limp. “Whatever emotion that was...that’s the one I want you to remember how to wield if you’re ever in trouble.”
My bones started to shake.
I wanted to collapse and pretend I wasn’t capable of such destruction. That my love could cause such a catastrophe.
“I-I need to go see him. I need—”
“Not yet, you’re not. We’re not done.” Moving out of striking distance, he crossed his arms and commanded, “Again.”
Chapter Sixty-One
IT WAS ME WHO TURNED DESPERATE THAT night.
Lucien’s arms snaked around me, dragging me out of troubled dreams and pulling my back into his naked body.
I didn’t know what time it was. The exhaustion from Dillon’s relentless drilling ached in my bones, but the moment Lucien’s heat enveloped me—bare skin to bare skin—it felt as if I’d stepped into the heart of a flame that would never burn me.