Текст книги "Darkest distiny"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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“L-Let me see.”

His teeth ground together. “Why would I obey you?”

“Because I c-care, that’s w-why.” Bracing myself, I leaped back into the horrible, bone-breakingly cold water and darted around him before he could stop me.

My hands landed on his naked back, my gaze following the thin trail of blood spilling from a small wound on his left shoulder.

He shuddered as I pressed closer, peering at his injury. Sucking in a breath, I ran my thumb over it, tracing the angry broken skin—

He jerked as though I’d branded him.

He spun around, droplets flinging from his body. In a blur of ice and fire, he shoved me backward and pinned me against the side of the pool. The impact made me gasp, trapped between the frigid wall and the blistering heat of him.

My dressing gown floated like creamy seaweed as his hands clamped onto my hips, gripping me tight.

“I told you,” he snarled. “I’ve dealt with it.”

“But you’re s-still b-bleeding. Let me—”

“It was a throwing dart.”

“A what—?”

“I’ve ripped it out and the wound is small.” His chest rose and fell too fast, his gaze tearing through mine. “The weapons they manage to smuggle in are usually small and more troublesome than dangerous.”

“I don’t r-really care if it’s d-dangerous or not. I-It still m-made you bleed.”

“Stop chattering. It’s incredibly annoying.”

“I-I’m not doing it o-on p-purpose.” I tried to see his back again. “Let me—”

“Leave it alone. That’s the last warning I’ll give you before I get angry.” He didn’t shiver like me but radiated a false fever that felt utterly inhuman.

My heart hammered. “But—”

“I said leave it.” He was close enough that the temperature difference felt as if we were completely different species: him made of volcanic fire and me cocooned in a snowdrift.

His eyes dropped to my mouth, lingering with all those dark, conflicted thoughts. The raw tension between us was almost unbearable—his proximity, his half-nakedness, his pain and hate and fury.

For one suspended moment, I swore he might kiss me in a fit of rage.

But then his hands spasmed around my hips. His touch scalded through my sodden clothes and with effortless ease, he hoisted me up to sit on the edge again.

I shivered harder, the sound of water dripping off me the only noise as thick awareness roped us together. He didn’t step away—staying between my spread thighs, his hands still gripping me. His arms flexed as he steadied me, veins standing out like dark lines beneath his skin.

The longer he stared at me, the more I crumbled. I didn’t trust what I’d do the longer we shared this intimate intensity.

“Why...” I swallowed hard, my breath catching. “W-Why are you t-torturing yourself in this f-freezing pool?”

His eyes shuttered—everything about him shut down as if he’d reached his limit.

I slouched, accepting he wouldn’t answer me—

“It’s the only thing...apart from you...that helps,” he said, rough and low. “The cold dulls whatever they use to subdue me. It keeps me from burning alive.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

His jaw clenched, his eyes once again diving into mine with a hint of surprise. “You’re not the one who did it.”

“They keep you in pain constantly.” The ache in my chest swelled until it hurt to breathe. My eyes fell to his mouth. The sharp perfection of it and the streak of blood ending at his chin.

I reached to wipe the redness away, but he caught my wrist, his fingers snapping painfully tight.

“What are you doing?” he growled.

Good question.

What was I doing?

Why was I drawn to him again and again?

Why did my annoying crush get stronger and stronger the more I was around him?

Why did the urge to help him chase away my shivers and fill me with injustice for his pain, his suffering, his misery—overwhelming me with the need to help?

Twisting my wrist in his grip, I tried to get free.

He didn’t let me go. “What exactly are you up to?”

I didn’t know if it was rioting emotions inside me, my lack of ability withstanding them, or the way he held me, but truth escaped against my control.

“I-I want to do s-something for you.”

His eyes flared. “Do something for me?”

“Something that w-will make you h-happy.”

“Happy?” His entire hand jerked around my arm. “Why?”

I winced at my audacity but stayed as honest as I could. What was the worst that could happen? He wouldn’t kill me. I didn’t know why I was so certain of that but...he won’t.

“Because you’re not happy,” I whispered. “And I d-don’t think you have b-been for a v-very long time.”

He froze. The flicker of wary shock on his terribly handsome face made my stupid heart skip a thousand beats. He stared at me, jaw tight, eyes unreadable, the fire beneath his skin and the cold air merging into one impossible connection.

Neither of us spoke.

Neither of us were experienced enough to know what the hell was going on or how to stop it.

At least panic did it for me.

Wrenching my arm out of his hold, I scrambled to my feet. Water splashed off my dressing gown as I wrapped my arms around my middle and squeezed, my bones jangling with cold. “I’ll...I’ll g-get changed and we’ll d-do something together? Okay?”

I didn’t wait for him to reply.

Bolting to the changing rooms, I prayed I wouldn’t slip and pretended I didn’t hear him mutter to Whisper: “That girl is ten times worse than the drugs in my veins. What the hell am I supposed to do with her?”

The panther didn’t reply.

Chapter Forty-Two

“WHY THE HELL DID YOU DRAG me here?” Lucien muttered as we came to a stop outside a door in a part of the palace I doubted he’d explored in years—judging by the amount of dust I’d found when I’d cleaned.

I had a sneaky suspicion that I knew his home better than he did now—thanks to the past five weeks of snooping, hoovering, dusting, and mopping. He didn’t venture out of his sprawling quarters—quarantining himself as if forsaking the world, just like it had forsaken him.

“You’ll see.” Pushing open the door, I stepped aside for him to enter. Whisper streaked from nowhere, slipping inside without an invitation.

When I’d first stumbled on this room a couple of weeks ago, I’d thought it was some sort of odd torture chamber. A tomb with no windows, one door, and a single chair beneath a domed white ceiling. I’d never seen anything like it, and it wasn’t until I’d been dusting the control panel, tucked behind a booth by the wall, that I’d accidentally pressed a button and it all suddenly made sense.

“I want to go to bed,” he grumbled but went inside anyway, his black coat whipping behind him, cloaking his black trousers and shirt.

He’d dressed when I had, but unlike him wearing actual clothes, I wore the only thing I’d found in the changing room—the thickest, cosiest white robe that was miles too big for me. The hood hung down my back, the sleeves swallowed my hands, and the hem drowned my feet. I probably looked ridiculous, but my God, I was toasty beneath the fluffy wonderful fleece.

Following him, I closed the door and flicked the switch.

A single lamp by the control panel sprang to life, granting enough illumination to spy the single recliner right beneath the apex of the dome. “Go sit over there.”

He turned to glower at me. “Why? What are you up to?”

“The fact that you’re asking means you don’t know what this room does, do you?”

“I’ve lived here twenty years. Do you honestly think I don’t know every inch of this cage?”

“Just sit.”

His hands balled. “You’re really starting to get on my nerves.”

I grinned. “Do as you’re told. You can scold me after.”

His gaze shot to the door and my heart stopped as he swayed to leave. But with a huff, he obeyed and reluctantly made his way to the recliner. His bare feet made no noise on the thick black carpet, the white domed ceiling falling to meet it, giving the impression we existed in the middle of a sphere.

Whisper went to sit by the chair, his ebony pelt making him become one with the floor.

“I don’t like surprises,” Lucien warned as he sat down, arranged his coat to cover his legs, and gripped the armrests. He winced a little as he reclined—the cut on his shoulder pressing against the chair.

I hoped he’d at least put a bandage on it because he hadn’t allowed me to tend to him.

“You don’t like anything,” I muttered, heading toward the control panel.

He glowered at me.

I smiled. “Which is completely understandable and not at all your fault.”

His growl was soft but threatening. “You have two minutes before I’m leaving.”

Tapping the master button to wake everything up, I thanked my past of working in a high-tech company like Snowflake Corp and regularly playing with projector screens when I should’ve been studying. I might not be good around people or feelings, but technology was different. It wasn’t messy or complicated but logical and didn’t stress me out.

Lucien made a noise as I flipped the switch to make the chair recline so he was almost lying down, his eyes locked on the domed ceiling.

“What are you doing?” Raising his arm, he shook down his coat sleeve, revealing the silver cuff around his wrist. “If you’re wanting to siphon my blood, you’ve brought me to the wrong chair in the wrong room.”

I ignored him and the way he made my insides scrunch with pity.

“Just relax.” Even as I said the word, I knew he wouldn’t be able to. Probably didn’t know the meaning of it.

Flicking another switch, my ears caught the quiet whirr of the program kicking in and the projectors preparing to play.

Lucien fought to sit up. “This is a waste of my—”

The entire dome flickered to life, transforming the room from a claustrophobic chamber into the wild tangled jungles of Borneo. Birdsong erupted, loud and crystal clear. Frogs croaked, adding wonderful percussion, while sunlight poured through huge umbrella trees, turning the light faintly green.

Lucien sucked in a breath as an orangutan ambled down a forest path, a little stream babbled past complete with jewelled dragonflies zipping over algae-slick rocks. Everywhere we looked, in every sense and corner, trees and vines and flowers swallowed us whole.

With the trick of immersive panels, we were transported from his prison into the world he hadn’t been allowed to step foot in for ever so long.

I couldn’t look away from him as the camera started to pan, moving forward as if we walked the path with the orangutan, micro details of tree trunks, lichen, and dust motes surrounding us. Rain began to fall, the soft ping of droplets like music on thick tropical leaves, intermixing with the birdsong and animal calls.

Whisper shot to his feet, snarling as a parrot screeched overhead, followed by a roar of a predator. His ears flickered, fangs bared, completely tricked by the illusion.

Just like his master.

Lucien sat frozen.

The green light of the jungle washed over his face, catching on the tightness of his mouth. His eyes slowly widened as he sank deeper into the chair, his fingers loosening around the armrests.

The deeper the scene took us into the heart of the jungle, the more his reaction broke something inside me.

The way he watched was like a wary child who’d never seen a flitting butterfly before. An angry boy who’d never been allowed to explore the wilds of the world or participate in life itself.

Whisper moved closer to the screen, his head whipping left and right as if every instinct in his body said this was home. This was where he’d come from. Some equally gorgeous forest before he’d been captured, just like Lucien.

Lucien suddenly launched himself out of the recliner and staggered toward the cat.

The two of them stood side by side, both transfixed and trembling, too caught up in the illusion to guard themselves.

I couldn’t breathe around the obstruction in my throat as Lucien rested his hand on Whisper’s head, almost as if leaning on him for support.

I’d brought him here as a crazy idea to give him a taste of freedom—even though I couldn’t break him out of Cinderkeep. I’d hoped he’d find a few minutes of entertainment—to forget about his shitty, agonising life—not drop to his knees as if I’d severed his strength to survive.

Whisper grunted as Lucien knelt, the thud of his legs audible even over the animal sounds. The panther pressed against his master, and Lucien wrapped an arm around the powerful form of his only friend, never taking his eyes off the unfolding world as the camera continued to pan.

Mist clung to the trees, curling around trunks thick with bromeliads in full bloom. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy in sparkling columns, scattering gold everywhere. Cicadas sang in the branches, and the carpet of fallen leaves tricked the senses into believing we could smell them—loamy and earthy and rich.

The forest rippled across his back as the projector cast images from all directions, ensuring no matter where he looked, he only saw open space with no walls, no drones, no pain.

His shoulders shuddered as he chuckled under his breath—a tortured, black little scoff. “You brought me here to watch a lie?”

Going to him, I dropped to my knees a little distance away, tucking my dressing gown over my lap to ensure I wouldn’t flash my naked skin beneath. “It’s not a lie. I’ve seen it.”

He didn’t look away from the jungle.

My heart thundered as I shared a piece of myself. “I’ve been there. This rainforest was one of the only places I’ve visited where every thought, worry, and fear just...disappeared.”

His gaze snapped to mine, glaring at me so intensely, so deeply, he hooked my heart and dragged it right into his control. The projection’s light made his eyes darker, deeper, full of misery.

Neither of us moved.

“And you thought you would share? Show me a place I can never visit?” he finally murmured.

I swallowed hard, hearing a trap in his words but unable to prevent stepping into it. “I can’t do anything else to help you. I can’t remove those cuffs or stop the pain that you feel. I can’t get you out of this house. I can’t take away your worries or fears but...I can try to make you happy...even for a moment.”

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.

My quarters were the only place in the entire estate where I’d conditioned my mind to feel the smallest resemblance of safety. Everywhere else represented twenty years of daily torture, isolation, and helplessness.

It wasn’t just my mind that’d imposed such parameters, but my body too. Each time I ventured into different parts of Cinderkeep, my system reacted with hypervigilance, waiting for pain. My pulse would kick, my heart would race, and Marcus would think I was up to no good, giving me a higher dose of agony to make me behave.

A self-fulfilling cycle that I couldn’t break free from.

Yet her...

She was the first person to try to help me instead of hurt me.

The first person who spent any effort in understanding me.

The one and only person to ever care if I was happy.

And that...

Fuck.

I could survive living in hell.

I could exist in a never-ending nightmare of agony and blood, but I wouldn’t be able to survive her.

Raking my hands over my hair, I tried to stop thinking about her.

For the first time in decades, I felt different.

Alive and dead and changing.

I felt as if I’d actually stepped foot outside this prison and tasted the flavours of freedom. Every sense in my body believed I’d travelled to a jungle. That I’d watched creatures that I’d only ever read about in books and heard sounds I never knew existed.

And I was fucking desperate for more.

It woke up an emaciated part of my soul that’d long since decayed.

A primal part of me that was hungry and thirsty, savage and greedy.

It wanted to blow apart this estate.

To slaughter every man and woman responsible for my suffering.

But most of all?

Most of all I wanted her.

I wanted the way she looked at me, talked to me, touched me.

I wanted to know what it would feel like to give in.

But...what if she was like that room?

What if Rook had been planted in my cage to keep my mental health from shattering entirely? A mere program to keep me distracted with the illusion of connection? The hallucination of everything I’d been longing for and never had?

She was dangerous.

So, so fucking dangerous.

And I didn’t know how much longer I could last.

Out of countless women, numerous enemies, and two decades of agony, she might finally be the one to ruin me.

And if I didn’t find a way out of this hell soon...I might very well have to kill her to stop it.