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—”

“WHAT?!” Fire erupted over my skin, granting false power. “You did what with my blood?”

“Oh, come now, don’t get offended. You should be grateful. Grateful that a single cupful of your blood gave me strength that lasted months compared to the pittance that these idiots offered me.”

Idiots.

He called the men, women, and children he’d tortured idiots.

Fire wrapped around my throat.

I couldn’t speak past my fury.

I burned and burned and—

Rook stupidly shifted to my side, letting him see the gorgeous constellations of snowflakes stamping all over her skin.

Marcus sucked in a breath as sleet flurried around us, reacting to her rage just like the fire reacted to mine.

“So that’s what you’ve been doing?” Her hand turned frigid, sending ice feathering up my arm. “You thought you could siphon whatever power dwells in Lucien and replicate it? Use it? Drink it?”

“I don’t see the problem.” Marcus never looked away from her frost-glittering skin. “It’s human nature to want to live forever. I was told Lucien was designed to be immortal. That he was the first of his kind to survive infancy and every year he managed to live increased his odds of evolving into what everyone in today’s society would consider a god.” His smile was sly as he caught her eyes. “But then I found you...so that was a lie, wasn’t it? He wasn’t the only one to survive childhood. You did, too. And now... I have two of you.”

Rook bared her teeth. “How can you even think he’s immortal when he’s literally on death’s door?”

“Yes well.” He nodded. “That has always been the problem. It’s been a full-time job keeping him alive.” He rolled his eyes in my direction. “You just couldn’t keep your emotions in check, could you? Not a single day went by that you didn’t try to reach for that power and the only choice I had was to knock you out...buying myself more time to figure out how to take what I wanted.” He sighed as if the last twenty years had been such a chore. “If only the strength I earned from your blood was permanent instead of wearing off, I could’ve just drained you dry and be done with it.”

Rook sucked in a breath.

Whisper growled.

And I merely nodded as the fire kept chewing its way through me, erasing the last pieces that made me human. “If I’m worth that much to you. If these people were your backup plan...then why treat them so badly? How were they ever meant to be strong enough to—”

“Them?” Marcus laughed. “Oh, they’re just throwaways. Some of them showed potential, but the meagre power we managed to cultivate dried up too fast. They’re just used as breeders now...on the off chance they’ll produce another like you.” He winked. “After all, it’s not just me who needs a constant supply. I have friends. In fact, you know most of them.”

A movement in the treeline wrenched my head to the left.

Horror buckled me as men bled from the trees. Men who’d been there when I’d been held down for the vitalsync core and thrown into Cinderkeep as a nine-year-old. Men who’d all drunk my blood...

Brimstone board members.

They kept coming, spreading out and hemming us in.

Some I recognised, some I didn’t.

I only counted fifteen. Where were the other lot? There’d been twenty-four when I was first imprisoned...

My eyes met theirs and a lifetime of conditioning tried to make me weak. I’d been at the mercy of these bastards for so long, but Rook squeezed my fingers and hissed, “There’s a special place in hell for all of you.”

“Perhaps.” Marcus nodded and crossed his arms. “But if we manage to become immortal...” He left the sentence hanging.

Painting far too many scenarios.

Images of him and these assholes harnessing the power that broke me. Of them hurting so many others. Of them ruling unsuspecting people who would never have a clue they were unkillable, unstoppable, inhuman.

No.

It couldn’t happen.

I would never allow it.

Savagery filled me.

I sank into the furnace that’d replaced my heart.

I’d been prepared to die to prevent any other prisoners suffering. But now...now I wanted to take every one of these cunts with me.

Rook tightened her grip around my hand, sensing what I was about to do.

Our eyes met and I broke beneath the love she gave me.

I’m so sorry.

She flinched as if she’d heard me and...I gasped as she replied.

Don’t do this. Tears filled her silver-ringed gaze. Don’t you dare.