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)
“W-What are you talking about?”
He shrugged listlessly. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was the reason you died. I’m grateful to know I didn’t cause you pain tonight by leaving.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that was exactly what happened. He’d put too much distance between us. He’d taken away the very connection we needed to stay alive but...my throat froze over.
I couldn’t tell him that I’d been in excruciating agony. Couldn’t tell him how close I’d been to my final breath as I’d found him on this mountain top. How I’d twisted time to get to him—
How was I supposed to layer him with yet more guilt when he couldn’t stop looking at the little girl as if he’d personally murdered her?
“Lucien, I—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want you to see this, but...I know what I’m doing. I know what has to happen, and I’ll protect you with everything I have.”
Tiny flames licked along his collarbone. The pyre in him caught fire again, chewing through the frost I’d fed him.
No...
Bringing my wrist up, I went to bite a bigger wound—to force him to drink more of my blood, but...a rustle in the trees. A twig cracking.
The bond twisted as Lucien’s attention arrowed into the night.
The glow beneath his skin brightened just as a familiar nightmare picked its way through the rubble of bodies and stepped into the crater Lucien had caused.
“Well.” Marcus pulled out a pristine white handkerchief from his navy suit and held it to his nose. “This is unfortunate.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
I’D ENVISIONED THIS MOMENT EVER SINCE the fire awoke inside me. I’d been smug with power and eager to torture him. I’d plotted all the ways I’d make him scream but now...now I didn’t care.
I’d had it so lucky compared to these people.
I’d lived in a palace—had food and shelter and Whisper.
And the immature asshole inside me who believed he was owed retribution had far worse things to worry about.
“I thought you’d turn up at Brimstone’s old head office.” Marcus drank in the carnage. “A little birdie told me you left that fortress you call home earlier today and I was rather looking forward to a visit.”
I didn’t reply.
Dragging Rook into me, I wrapped my arm around her perfectly icy waist and held her tight.
I stood on the brink of death and all I wanted to do was protect her after I failed at protecting so many others.
Marcus stepped a little closer, wrinkling his nose at the corpses. “You owe me for this, Lucien. Do you know how long it’s taken me to even come close to what lives in your veins?”
I gritted my teeth and stayed silent.
His eyes narrowed. “Twenty years I’ve been trying. Twenty years of injecting your blood into them, watching so many of them die, only to have a scant few survive and even fewer show any signs of replicating the Requiem gene.”
Rook tensed in my hold. She opened her mouth to ask questions, but I squeezed her.
He wanted us to talk. He was baiting us to ask.
And...I didn’t fucking care.
The fire in me was growing weaker. It’d burned through every inch that was edible, spluttering on the dregs left behind.
I had one shot.
A single chance to slaughter him before my heart stopped beating.
“Tell me.” Marcus arched his chin at the warped piece of metal in my chest, taking another step toward us. “Did you figure out what you could do before or after you destroyed the vitalsync core?”
My skin crawled. Whisper hissed.
“Not talking, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “I must say, you’re far more powerful than anyone expected.” His face darkened as he came to a stop. “How are you even alive? I was told you’d die if that little tool we implanted in your heart gave out.”
I refused to give him a single word.
I just glowered at him, gathering as much strength as I could.
He sighed dramatically but then his gaze shifted to Rook. “It has something to do with you, doesn’t it?” He grinned as if he’d finally figured out life’s greatest secret. “So there is hope. I was beginning to wonder. But you’re proof that there is a way to keep the power stable. How?” He looked her up and down. “How are you keeping him breathing? Are you like him and at the mercy of fire or are you...” He stepped closer, dragging his disgusting eyes over her. His gaze locked on the twinkling frost over her chest. “Ice...”
I lost my ability at holding my tongue as I snatched her hand and positioned her behind me. “You don’t get to look at her. You don’t get to even breathe the same air as her.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You always were dramatic.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you!” His decorum broke. “Look at the mess you caused!” Waving at the pile of corpses, he hissed, “Do you know how long this has taken me? How much effort it’s taken to get this far?” Flinging his arms wide, he kicked another cadaver. “The dregs of power they offered was nothing compared to you, yet I kept trying. Kept hoping. I sacrificed litres and litres of your blood to make them stronger. Blood I could’ve drunk myself—”