Chapter Seven

FOR A SECOND, I THOUGHT I was suffering a crazy hallucination. A shocking, morbid daydream where the guy I’d slowly been getting to know turned into someone I couldn’t imagine, mowing down men in cold blood.

But...it wasn’t a dream.

And it wasn’t cold blood.

It was premeditated in fire, delivered with flames of fury.

Lucien lowered his arm, the gun’s bang still echoing around us. His slightly glassy eyes met mine.

My pulse skyrocketed, remembering the last few seconds before I’d had an involuntary reboot. Blood. On my fingers. A dagger. Stabbed into—

My gaze shot to his chest where his black shirt plastered to his skin, partly from the rain but mostly from the dark scarlet soaking out of him.

“Y-You’re not dead,” I gasped, struggling to sit upright. My rucksack weighed me down like a soggy boulder.

“No, I’m not.” He swayed a little. “Not yet, at least.”

I squeaked as he broke into a fast, jerky stride.

Closing the distance between us, he dropped to his haunches, placed the gun on the rain-slick grass, and reached into his pocket. Palming whatever it was, he leaned forward, grabbed my cheeks, and squeezed. “Open.”

I tried to fight him off, but his fingers were too strong. My jaw hinged open against my will. With a scowl, he shoved something round and big and bitter onto my tongue before sweeping upright.

“Swallow that and then we’re leaving.”

I gagged, trying to spit it out. But the metallic ball rolled to the back of my throat, refusing to be removed. It started to dissolve, coming alive with the sharp taste of carbonated iron. I swallowed on reflex even as my tongue tingled then went numb.

The sensation crawled down my throat as I gagged again.

As the pill slid inside me, an icy chill feathered outward. It spread from my belly, through my ribs, and into my heart.

The sickly palpitations from too much stress smoothed into steady drums. The jittery weakness in my limbs went still and calm. The taste in my mouth vanished just like all my other symptoms, leaving me eerily void of everything.

It...reminded me of something.

Of a pill Snowflake Corp had been working on that was said to be a miracle aid. I couldn’t remember the name, but it’d been a project overseen by the same researchers who thought they’d come up with a pill for immortality—the same pill that killed my parents.

The lifelong headache that’d refused to abate no matter what I ate, drank, or did, just...disappeared.

While I marvelled at the sudden peace, Lucien stalked to each man lying unmoving on the lawn. Without a word, he snatched three guns from their dead possession. Jamming all three into his waistband, he staggered sideways before gathering his strength and returning to me.

My eyes whipped to his, my fingers straying down my sternum and brushing against my raindrop pendant. I pressed my palm over my steadily pumping heart. No skips. No flutters. No dizziness of any kind. “What...what did you just give me?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Grabbing my wrist, he yanked me to my feet and dragged me toward one of the motorcycles. “All you need to know is you’ll be free from everything that makes you miserable for a few hours, and we need to make every one of those hours count.” His fingers tightened around me as he eyed up the bike. “Can you drive one of these things?”

I gawked at the machine.

I’d ridden a couple of mopeds in the rural villages of Vietnam, but even grassy tracks and very little traffic had caused my pulse to skyrocket. I’d stopped because I hadn’t wanted to be in charge of a moving projectile while having a blackout problem.

“Not really. Not enough to drive both of us.”

He frowned, studying me closely. “Are you lying?”

“Why the hell would I lie?” I shivered, unable to stop myself looking at the guards who’d been alive before I’d passed out and now were somehow dead. Then again, the ‘somehow’ was fairly obvious. Whisper padded toward us as if taking full credit—muzzle glistening red-black and golden eyes full of unrepentant pride. “You already know I’m useless.”

“You’re not useless,” Lucien murmured softly, his onyx eyes burning.

My gaze snapped to his and I suddenly wanted to hug him.

To wrap his bleeding chest with a thousand bandages and find a hundred doctors to stitch him up.

Guilt crashed over me in a suffocating wave.

I moved before I could stop myself.

Touching his chest, I cursed the hole in his clothing and him. The hole I’d caused.

“You’re bleeding so much.” My voice cracked. “How are you even standing?” My fingers became coated in his blood, trying to reverse the damage by touch alone. “You need to sit down. You—”

“I’m fine,” he said automatically, clamping his hand over mine and stilling my frantic pawing.

“You are absolutely not fine.” Panic punched through the pill’s false calm. “You were stabbed. I stabbed you.” The truth tasted horrific. “I didn’t mean to...I shouldn’t have...God, what was I thinking?”

He went rigid, stunned.

He stared at me like he hadn’t expected me to care. Like he’d completely skipped over the part where I would hate myself—knowing his pain was entirely my fault.

Ripping my hand from beneath his, I pressed both of them over his seeping wound. I pressed hard, my red-covered fingers clumsy and unsure, trying to stop any more blood from leaking. “You can’t die. I don’t care how you’re standing or how long that pill will give you energy for but...it’s fake. It’s not real. You’re dying and the longer you pretend you’re not, the worse—”

“You have a talent,” he said under his breath, never looking away from me. “At confusing me.” His heart pounded beneath my palms as he tipped a little closer. “I can’t figure you out. Whenever I think I have, you go and mess me up all over again.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t reply. Every inch of me tripped and burned.

“You’re the reason I’ve gotten this far, and you’ve made it impossible for me not to want you but...everything about you triggers my nervous system into thinking you’re the worst kind of threat.” He chuckled, shaking his head, causing droplets to scatter from his thick hair. “Honestly? You’re kind of exhausting.”

“I’m the exhausting one?” I fought the urge to punch him right where I’d stabbed him. “It’s a constant battle not to pass out in your company.”

“Yes well, you do that often enough, so you’d think you’d be well caught up on sleep by now.”

“I changed my mind. You can die if you want.”

He laughed out loud.

“How are you laughing?” I glowered at him, tears stinging. “Is this what doctors talk about? That thing where people suddenly seem fine right before they die?” Terror choked me. “Are you feeling woozy? Tell me. Are you saying these things because you are dying? Oh God, you can’t.” I mopped up his blood with my bare hands, trying to stuff the cooling liquid back into his body. “Forget what I said. You can’t die. I’m so sorry. I—”

“Rook.”

“Lie down. I’ll go get help. I’ll—”

“Rook.”

“Just let me—”

“Rook!” Something unreadable flickered across his face—shock and stubbornness and something dangerously soft. “Stop it.”

I froze in his stare, ensnared and lost and—

He kissed me.

He ducked his head, slammed his mouth to mine, and delivered the swiftest, hardest kiss before pulling back just as quickly. “I promise you, I won’t die.” Tugging me toward the bike, he added, “And I asked you to stab me, remember? I almost got on my knees and begged. So...you have nothing to be sorry for.”

Before I could respond, he slung his leg over the machine and patted the back. “Get on.”

“What?” My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”