Grabbing me around the nape, he dragged me back to his lips.
He kissed me again, his whole body burning, summoning the ice inside me to answer.
White swallowed the edges of my vision; silver fractals distorted everything as my body finally mutinied.
Pain. So much pain.
“Lucien—” I gasped, clutching his shoulders. “I need—”
He stole my words and kissed me.
I was suffocating.
Losing grip on reality as my condition shovelled snow over my senses, burying me alive.
Hurting.
Hurting.
My fingers scrambled on his chest, trying to get him to stop. “Lucien...”
He just kissed me deeper.
“You help,” he panted against my mouth. “You’re the only thing that helps.”
Wrenching despair made me attack him with another kiss, even though it cost me everything. I wanted to help him. Needed to help him.
He groaned and wrapped me in the tightest embrace. His hips surged upward, branding me with his arousal.
I didn’t want him to die.
My heart broke in two at the thought of failing him.
I kissed him again—terror choking me that if I stopped, he would die.
But if I didn’t stop...I might die.
Each kiss stole something from me.
Breath and life and heartbeats.
Lucien drank everything I gave him.
I sobbed against his mouth as the pain became too much.
Even his blood wasn’t helping.
Even his fiery power wasn’t enough to prevent the smothering cold from killing me.
Today had been too much.
The plane ride, the arrival, the confession, the fear...
Help him.
Help him.
Help—
My skull cracked with excruciating agony.
His hips rocked beneath me as his hand slipped up my skirt and cupped me.
I cried out. My back arched. A lightning bolt of lust tore between my legs.
And...I was done.
My migraine detonated.
Tears streamed down my face as darkness rushed in.
I hated myself.
Hated that he might not be alive when I woke up.
That I was abandoning him when he needed me the most.
That I was betraying him even when I didn’t want to.
My fingers wrapped tight around my pendant, begging it to keep me awake.
I’m sorry.
So sorry.
My strength gave out.
The last thing I felt was his finger slipping inside me—his heat and desperation wrapping me in fire as darkness swallowed me—
Chapter Thirty-Seven
SHE LEFT ME.
At the height of my misery and the final slope of my decline, the only person in the world who could save me...passed out.
My finger froze inside her and for a disgusting second...I didn’t know if I could stop. I didn’t have the strength to pull back. Or the courage to do the right thing because the right thing meant...I might never see her again.
I might never touch her again. Kiss her again. Be with her—
And fuck, I wanted to be with her.
Not because of lust. But because I was moments away from death and I didn’t want to fucking die.
Whisper headbutted Rook’s sagging shoulder as if he sensed how desperately I needed her to open her eyes. He chirped and licked her cheek, his rough tongue catching on her hair.
When she didn’t move, he withered before my eyes as if she wasn’t just asleep but...
“Rook.” Ripping my hand from between her lax legs, I gathered her into my arms and buried my face against her chilled throat. “Please don’t leave me alone. Please...”
Nothing.
No twitch. No flutter.
It was like hugging a frozen corpse.
The world fell out from under me, dropping me into the grave I didn’t want.
A thundering roar gathered in the pavilion.
The walls creaked and the floorboards blackened—lacquer blistered and beams bowed like melting wax. The air flexed as I lost to the inferno that wanted out.
Whisper tucked his tail, baring his fangs at my childhood room as it started to melt and warp and drip.
“Rook.” I clutched her closer, pressing my forehead to her temple, begging her to help. Why wasn’t it working? Hadn’t her presence always eased me? Even when she was unconscious in Cinderkeep, she’d made a difference.
If I held her tighter, embraced her harder...it would work.
It has to work.
“Rook.” I shook her like a madman as smoke started to spiral from my collar. “Open your eyes. Please open your eyes.”
Whisper lost his ever-loving mind. Driving his massive head against my shoulder, he shoved me against the pillar, his raspy tongue dragging painfully across my cheek as if he could lick the fire out of me.
“I know,” I choked. “I know.”
I hissed as heat stacked on top of heat—pain compressing into something sharp and furious.
I felt as if I was about to ignite.
My lungs no longer wanted air.
My heart no longer pumped blood.
The room recoiled away from me, walls bowing and air turning thick with smoke as the furniture started to smoulder.
I had to go.
I couldn’t stay here.
I’d end up killing Whisper and Rook the moment I took my final breath.
Glancing down at her slack beautiful face, I stiffened as the ice that I’d begged to save me wrapped her in a death shroud instead. Frost jewelled her lashes, her hair dusted white—her skin glittering with perfectly formed snowflakes like blue-white tattoos.
Shaking, I ran my fingertips over her filigree-flaked skin. My hand was hot enough to burn the very foundations of my quarters, yet it didn’t leave a single mark on her. Didn’t melt a single snowflake.
She seized in my arms, her back bowing as a blizzard detonated free. It shot into me like the best kind of breeze, blowing out the agonising fire...just for a second.
I trembled as I shifted her on my lap and groaned as her weight brushed against my hardness that refused to abate.
For one terrible, selfish heartbeat, another black thought came.
If I stayed...if I touched her, took her...
Could she save me?
If I betrayed her in the worst possible way and slept with her while she was unconscious, could I stay alive long enough to beg for forgiveness?
The idea repulsed me even as it tempted.
Whisper growled, policing me and following my despicable thoughts.
“You know I’d never,” I snapped as cracks shot over the ceiling, sending plaster dust all over us. The light fractured. Shadows tore loose from their corners, crawling toward me.
I’d officially run out of time.
Gathering every drop of strength I had left, I clutched Rook close and stood.
I almost fell back down again.
Carrying her like a frozen sacrifice to my bed, the floor undulated under my boots, sizzling with baby flames.
The second I was close enough, my arms gave out and I dropped her.
She bounced on top of the blankets, her hair splaying like ink, her arms loose and face tilted away from me.
I staggered as fire bled through my veins.
I could feel it cannibalising the rest of me, devouring me, coiling and gathering, demanding to be released.
I have to go...
But her breath puffed with little white clouds, her skin thickening with ice.
With quaking hands, I tore the red-stitched blanket from beneath her and bundled it over her subzero body. Frost spread outward over the bedding the second it touched her, shimmering like frozen stars.
“What are you?” I choked as my heat rose to answer her frigid temperature.
If it was true that Snowflake Corp had done this to me, then what the hell had they done to her?
What if her parents had tampered with both of us?
I cried out as a catastrophic spike drove through my heart.
