Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Chapter Thirty-Five

SHE COLLAPSED AT MY FEET AND my own legs gave out.

My knees hit the wooden floor in front of her—the impact cracking through me like a gunshot just as fresh fire ripped up my spine. My hands slammed to the floor on either side of her ankles, smoke pouring off my skin in thick, choking plumes.

Red shadows danced over my flesh—marbling me with molten heat.

I was splitting apart from the inside.

I wanted to tear off my clothes as well as my skin.

I had minutes.

Maybe less.

Moments before I either cremated myself or found the guts to give her my heart and beg her to save me.

“Tell me,” I snarled. “Help me trust you. Give me something, Rook, and I vow to you, I will never doubt you again.” Agony percolated around my heart. I clawed at the vitalsync core, my fingernails catching on the metal edges, making myself bleed.

The device no longer worked—I’d felt the change in it after the defibrillation—yet the longer Rook refused to talk, the worse I suffered.

The pain was a thousand times worse than any setting Marcus had used.

A million times worse.

“Please,” I groaned. “Speak to me.”

Rook crawled back a little, scooting along the floor. For a second, I swore ice spiderwebbed from beneath her palms, freezing the floorboards.

She swallowed hard as if something was choking her.

She did it again. Her eyes tight and face waxen.

She was hurting.

I knew that.

Felt that.

But it didn’t stop me.

Crawling forward, matching her retreat like a hunter instead of a beggar on his knees, I panted, “Just spit everything out. I don’t care what. Give me something, or I swear to God, I’ll burn this place down with both of us in it.”

She flinched.

She crept backward before her hand came up, massaged her throat, and she rasped, “I-I’m the sole h-heiress of Snowflake Corp.” Swallowing again, she cleared the last of whatever was obstructing her. “Brimstone deals in volcanic renewable power and...Snowflake Corp deals in water and ice. W-We’re direct competitors and I overheard a few girls in Cinderkeep saying that they were sent by Snowflake Corp to kill you.” Her skin flashed white and the illusion of snowflakes appeared on her eyebrows. “But I would never. I would never hurt you, Lucien. I’d never betray you or do anything to harm you in any way. You have to believe me.”

“Go on.” The room warped as I crawled toward her, closing the distance she kept trying to put between us. The carved beams sagged a little as if they were softening from my heat.

“I-It seems as though I might’ve been deliberately kept in the dark about you.” She coughed, scooting backward at the same pace I crawled. “I’ve never heard of you. Never heard of Brimstone. But that doesn’t mean much seeing as I ran away seven years ago. But there’s definitely something that feels off about all of this and...I swear to you, on the soul of my parents, I’m on your side—”

“Ah, yes.” I grimaced. “The bad side.”

She flinched, remembering our previous conversation in the bed and breakfast. “I promise I’ll find out why Snowflake Corp seems involved. I will find out the truth. I have every intention of returning home and demanding answers. I want to know why you’re the way you are and if there’s a way to help you...before it’s too late—”

“Before it’s too late?” I hunted her across the floor on my hands and knees, each palm leaving scorched handprints.

“You asked me...” She gulped, continuing her journey away from me. “You asked me why I’m unfazed by your...oddness? Why I’m not afraid of you even though you’re definitely not...normal?”

I never looked away from her as her entire body jolted. She shook her head as if forcing herself to stay awake. “It’s because...it’s because I’ve seen worse.”

The red beneath my skin brightened, glowing hotter, angrier.

“Snowflake Corp might be known for renewable energy,” she said, panicking at my silence. “But...that’s just to bring money in. That’s the easy part—the legitimate part that’s traded and has a board full of directors. A board that all answer to me...” She added the last bit very quietly as if hoping I wouldn’t notice.

“But...there’s another part. A lab that isn’t regulated or traded. A lab where my parents used all their resources to tamper with biology. Their life’s work was finding a pill for immortality—that foolish quest ultimately killed them—but before they died...they almost succeeded.”

She shuddered, making herself as small as possible. “Do you want me to continue?”

“Would you rather tell me when I’m dead?” I continued to stalk her—the slowest chase in history. “Speak.”

“I-I’ve seen fish breathe air and swim in the sky.” She squeezed her eyes tight, riding out her body’s limitations. When she opened them again, a glowing white circle ringed her pupils before dissolving. “I’ve seen birds inhale water and fly in the sea. I’ve seen mice that can suddenly change colours like a chameleon.” She shuddered as if the creatures she’d mentioned had just as much as a miserable existence as I did.

Sucking in the biggest breath as if fearing she’d never take another one, she said, “If Snowflake Corp did somehow alter you...like they did with those poor creatures. If I’m not completely crazy and jumping to ridiculous conclusions then...you probably don’t have much time left.”

“What?”

Her words struck a match inside me, setting fire to all my fears.

So I was breaking.

I was dying.

But...

I didn’t want to.

Not now.

Not yet.

She cowered a little, crawling backward as if unable to fight her natural response to get away from me. “The fact that you’re failing so fast. That you’re getting so much worse...” She broke off, swallowing hard. “Every altered test subject I’ve ever seen follows the same pattern. There’s the initial agony of fighting evolution. The struggle of stabilisation. The speed of escalation. And then...”

I buckled beneath another inferno wave. “And then?”

“Collapse,” she whispered. “Bodies can’t sustain something so much greater than what they’re designed for. Cells start cannibalising themselves. Organs fail. Hearts give out.”

I stared at her, the fire coiling like a whip around my bones. “So you’re saying there’s no hope for me?”

“I’m saying my parents sought to eradicate death.” Tears spilled down her cheeks as she continued to inch across the floor. “They tried to force life to continue, through whatever means necessary. But...it can’t be done.”

My vision fractured, sparks bursting behind my eyes as my heartbeat staggered and slammed, staggered and slammed—each one feeling like it might be my last.

I wanted her to take everything back.

To never tell me.

I wanted her to be wrong.

A morbid chuckle tore out of my chest as the fire surged, almost dropping me to my elbows. I rolled my eyes at the irony of surviving Marcus for twenty years, only for my own system to forsake me.

But what she said rang true.

My body was no longer my own. I didn’t feel like flesh and bone anymore but fire and brimstone. And if I didn’t stand a chance. If my future was just a grave, then...

What did I have to lose?

“Thank you.” I closed the distance between us until I was close enough to trail my fingertips over her foot.

A soft noise caught in her throat as her skin flashed white beneath my touch. She shivered as I slowly wrapped smoky fingers around her icy ankle.

Unlike every other time I’d touched her, I got no reprieve, no relief.

Heat flared so violently my vision went red. My muscles seized as if rending themselves off my bones. It felt as if the fire was moments away from tearing through my skin.

“It seems I truly have run out of time.” Tightening my grip on her ankle, I yanked her into me. She cried out as she skimmed over the floor, flying to a stop beneath me.

“But if I’m going to die...I don’t want to do it alone.” Looking down at her—black hair haloed out on the floor and her eyes aching with her own pain—I tried to imprint everything about her.

Dropping to my elbows, I caged her in. “Help me...”

A ripping in my heart as if something had torn free.

I coughed, wet and deep.

Dark Ashfall blood splattered across her chin and lips.

For one suspended, horrified second, neither of us moved.

But then, she utterly destroyed me.

Swiping her tongue over her bottom lip, she cleaned up the scarlet droplets as if her pain was so bad, she’d willingly accept any help from me—even if it was my final breaths.

The sight of her accepting me.

Choosing me.

My mouth crashed onto hers, feral and desperate, blood and heat and madness tangling us into an inescapable war.

I kissed her like a dead man.

A man clawing to survive—

Her cold surged into me, slamming with violent waves, ice and snow, frost and sleet.

I kissed her harder—rewarded with another blizzard. A blizzard that bought me a few more minutes.

Maybe she could stop this.

Perhaps she was the final key to saving me.

“Make it stop,” I groaned. “I need you to make it stop. I don’t want to die. Not yet.”

She kissed me back, her fingers digging into my lower back and pulling me deeper between her spread legs.

I lost myself for a moment. Drowning in her taste, living in a fantasy where I wouldn’t die if I just kept kissing her.

And if kissing could buy me time, perhaps other things would cure me completely.

My right hand strayed to her breast, squeezing her soft flesh and running my thumb over her nipple.

She moaned and arched into my hold, a polar wind erupting from her.

I tore my mouth from hers. “Remember what I said when we escaped Cinderkeep?”

She trembled, her breath hitching as I continued to fondle.

“If I don’t want you to die, you won’t die.” I pressed a kiss to the tip of her arctic nose.

Her eyes widened, fresh tears pouring down her cheeks. “I remember.”

“I will never let you die, Rook, because I will never stop wanting you.”

Tears poured faster as she winced with pain. “Lucien—”

“But you have to make a choice. Right now.”

“W-What choice?”

“Whether or not you want me.” I rubbed away the chilled droplets leaking down her cheeks. “Because if you want me, Rook...don’t let me die.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

I GROANED AS HE KISSED ME AGAIN.

I wanted to help him.

God, I wanted to help him so, so badly.

If only I could.

If only I was better, stronger—

Lucien’s mouth crushed mine, his tongue licking me deep.

I licked him back.

If this was my fault. If the same scientists who’d worked alongside my parents had had something to do with harming him—

Frigid energy sheared through my nerves, flash-freezing my thoughts until they shattered. Pain detonated behind my eyes, bright and blinding, like staring at snow under a blazing sun.

Lucien kissed me again—slower this time, deeper—almost as if he could sense me slipping. His lips lingered, stealing what little I had left.

I whimpered against his mouth.

I wanted to help him with every fibre of my being, but...I wouldn’t be able to stay awake much longer.

Everything was too much.

He was too much.

He was everything.

And I couldn’t stop him.

Couldn’t save him.

I hated myself.

I tasted smoke as he erupted with unbearable heat, his hands clawing at my hair, his own pain making him wild. I pressed my palms flat against his chest. His heat was petrifying.

Iciness billowed through me, answering him—

He coughed again, wet and racking.

He turned his head to spit fresh blood onto the floor but—

I grabbed his cheeks and kissed him.

I forced him to give me the only painkiller that worked—begging him to help me so I could help find a way to help him.

A primal roar grumbled in his chest as I swallowed his coppery-ashy taste.

I wished he would give me more. To keep me awake. To stop my pain.

My heart clawed against my ribs as I poured everything I had into the kiss—willing that strange iciness to rise, for those icicles and snowstorms to gather and help him.

As if it’d been waiting for me to ask, chilliness shot through me, too cold, too fast, too much. My vision swam as polar winds screamed through my veins, freezing my blood and stabbing me with arctic daggers.

I broke the kiss with a strangled gasp.

Air wouldn’t come.

I-I can’t breathe—

Can’t breathe!

Scrambling on my heels and hands, I tried to escape his imprisonment.

But Lucien followed me, his mouth finding mine again and kissing me exquisitely hard.

He kissed me as if he was moments away from death and I did my best not to die with him.

I kept scrambling backward, needing air. His lips bruised mine as he hunted me across the floor.

My back struck something solid.

A carved pillar prevented me from going any further. Panic shot down my spine as Lucien tore away from me. Pushing me aside, he leaned against the pillar, his long legs shooting outward as he slid his hands beneath my arms and lifted me as if I weighed nothing—hauling me across his lap as if I was both precious and poisonous.

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.

Orange-gilded flames broke free, swallowing me whole.

I touched extinction.

I felt the end.

An utterly inhuman roar escaped me as my insides turned to ash.

Grabbing Whisper by his scruff, I dragged him close and pressed the fiercest kiss on his forehead. “I love you.” Pointing at Rook, I pushed him away from me. “Guard her. Don’t leave her side. Ever. You belong to her now, got it?”

And then, I ran—