He didn’t reply. The muscles in his jaw flexed, his throat working like he was swallowing something far heavier than air.

Whisper lay down, resting his giant head on Lucien’s knee. Lucien stiffened as if he was about to leap to his feet and either strike me or run. The barest shimmer of sweat glittered on his hairline, hinting he still hurt, still burned.

I couldn’t help myself.

Scooting closer to him, I rested my hand on his forearm.

His nostrils flared as he looked at where I touched him. His hand curled into a fist on his leg but...he didn’t shake me off.

He looked up.

Our eyes locked.

We didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

His gaze tore into me, fierce and angry, but the stony feel of his arm slowly relaxed. His forehead smoothed and his teeth unclenched as he sucked in his first proper breath since I’d found him in the cold plunge.

His hand drifted to his shirt, pressing against the silver metal trapping his heart.

“What is it? Is the pain getting worse?” I shifted closer, to do what I didn’t know.

He didn’t answer, but the rigidity of his body eased as though some invisible weight had finally released. The burning in his eyes dimmed to something less agonising.

He sucked in a relieved breath.

“Has it stopped hurting as much?” I whispered, thanking this room, this idea, this small reprieve from his pain.

He scowled, his handsome face turning cruel and ruthless, just like that first day we’d met and he’d snapped a girl’s neck right in front of me.

Even those memories didn’t have the power to stop me as I reached up and smoothed away the frown lines between his eyebrows.

He flinched back, his expression almost...shy. But then his face hardened. “What are you doing?”

“I told you.” I shrugged, my cheeks turning hot. “You’re far too good-looking to scowl all the time. You shouldn’t waste such a pretty face.”

God, did I really just say that?

Self-consciousness prickled down my back as I stood and brushed off my dressing gown. My gaze caught on the screen—on the thick roots knotted above the earth like sleeping serpents. The drip-dripping of the falling rain splashed all around us as trees soared like ancient pillars toward the sky. Colourful wings fluttered past, a flash of bright feathers vanishing into emerald and shadow.

I lost myself in the fantasy of being free.

I didn’t know how many minutes passed but goosebumps suddenly scattered down my spine. Turning my head to look at Lucien, I froze—

His eyes weren’t on the jungle.

They were locked on me.

Unflinching and furious, hungry and lost. The air instantly thickened as if a thunderstorm was about to crack within the small room. His chest rose and fell as if forcing himself to breathe. The light of the recording rippled over him, gilding the sharp bones of his face.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. I forgot language and movement and became nothing more than heartbeats and heat.

Lust shot through me so violently, so desperately, I backed away.

My heel caught on the long hem of my borrowed dressing gown—

The world tilted and I went down.

Hard.

The carpet didn’t offer much cushioning; the breath knocked right out of me.

Trying to get my bearings as animal noises cooed and sang around us, Lucien slowly stood. Graceful and elegant, he looked like an assassin honed from years of pain to kill anyone he deemed dangerous.

Whisper shot to his paws, gluing himself to his master’s side.

Both of them moved to tower over me.

I waited for him to offer me his hand. To help me up. To enquire if I was okay.

I braced myself for the sensation of touching him. Of the electrical rush I knew would happen the second our skin connected but—

He shifted his arms behind his back, the action deliberate and cold. “You should stop spending time on tricks and focus on how to stay alive in here. It would be a far better use of your time than wasting it on me.”

Without another word, he stalked to the door and left—abandoning me in the wilds of Borneo and taking his domesticated pet panther with him.

Chapter Forty-Three

MY BEDROOM FELT LIKE A CRYPT.

Dark and empty, silent as the grave I’d survived in for twenty years.

Silence never used to bother me, but tonight, it scratched at my skin and dragged my thoughts into places I refused to go.

Her.

What the fuck was she doing to me?

How did she make me suffer in completely new ways, even while curing me of old ones?

That damned room.

That damned moment.

That damned girl.

Dropping onto my bed, I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw stars. Whisper headbutted me before sprawling behind me on the blankets.

I’d known that room existed.

I’d heard it being installed after a particularly rough year when I was thirteen. Marcus had dragged a psychologist in to see me—diagnosing me with my first official mental breakdown after being trapped without seeing a single soul, apart from the nurses who came to harvest my blood.

For four years—ever since my parents tried to blow up Brimstone Industries in a joint suicide attempt—I’d been treated as the most precious key imaginable. Without me, there was no company. No endless wealth. No infinite power. No kingdom.

I’d been a terrified nine-year-old as I’d been stuffed in here after my parents never came home. The wall was built, the doors were locked, and the security cameras were installed.

For four awful years, my only form of communication had been with the men operating those cameras, warning me not to destroy them as I attacked each and every one until they were all gone.

By the time I’d reached my teens, my mental health took a nosedive.

I hadn’t been touched or hugged or cared for in almost fifteen hundred days.

I’d cried myself to sleep so often, I’d suffered severe health issues and constant sickness.

The day the psychologist came had been one of the best and worst of my short life.

Best because he spent a full week with me, diagnosing my issues through games, conversation, and just being with me. And worst because he was on Marcus’s payroll. He didn’t care that I got on my knees and begged him to take me out of here. He wasn’t affected by my violent outbursts or sobs. Instead, he told my prison guards how to ensure I didn’t have another breakdown.

The key to keeping me from going completely insane was company—which was where Whisper came in—and simulated freedom. Marcus had agreed because he needed me lucid enough to bleed and breed from, but I’d refused to participate.

The one and only time I’d ventured into the domed room, I’d been sixteen or so, and failed at yet another attempt at killing myself. I’d woken from being knocked out by the vitalsync core and couldn’t stop the screams for death in my head.

I just wanted peace.

I wanted to be free.

I’d broken enough that I’d accepted those psychologist’s tricks and entered the room in a full-blown panic attack.

My hands had trembled as I’d tried to start the program. My mind had blanked because I didn’t know how any of the technology worked and there was no one there to teach me.

I’d turned catatonic and curled up on the floor instead, feeling as if I’d been buried alive—forgotten and rotting, my head pounding until I’d passed out.

I’d forgotten all about it until Rook dragged me there. I’d forgotten quite a lot, thanks to trauma erasing certain things. Year by year, my realm of tolerance grew smaller and smaller until I never ventured into the upper levels or down certain corridors anymore.

I supposed that heartless psychologist would say I suffered from agoraphobia—fearing situations and spaces that made me feel trapped, unsafe, or powerless.