Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen

IT WASN’T WORKING.

Why isn’t it working?!

I was burning. Burning. Burning.

The cold water did nothing.

It crashed over me in a brutal torrent, soaking my bandages, stinging the stitched wounds beneath.

I’d ripped off my trousers and angled my face into the spray, but even standing naked in the coldest water available, my skin continued to steam.

Heat roared through me, incinerating my insides, making my bones blaze with fire.

I braced both hands against the daisy-tiled wall, bowing my head as the spray hit the back of my neck. Steam curled over my arms and shoulders, refusing to be snuffed out.

The bathroom fogged as if I ran hot water, not cold. The mirror clouded and obscured me as I balled my fists against the tiles and begged for it to stop.

What the hell is happening?

Was it because I’d kissed her?

Because I’d used her to test if the vitalsync core was broken by pushing up my heartrate as much as I could?

I’d kissed her with one goal in mind—to prove I was finally free—but somewhere along the line of my little experiment, I’d lost all reason.

I’d wanted her.

Needed her.

I’d kept my promise never to give in while trapped in Cinderkeep but...we weren’t there anymore. I could fuck her against the wall, and it wouldn’t go against any of my strict rules. I could finally, finally know what it would feel like to sink inside her, even if we still teetered on the edge of disaster.

Which was lunacy.

Stupidity.

We had to run—

“Fuck.”

Flames chewed through my body as if they agreed—burning me alive for my lack of priorities.

Maybe this was repentance for such lust.

Punishment for being such an imbecile.

I groaned as another wave of fire worked through me.

I recognised the flames.

I’d lived with the charring heat all my life.

Yet...it’d never been this potent before. Never been this wild and untamed and violent.

I cranked the tap harder, opening the pipes to full force as wintry water pounded my back with needles that ought to have bordered on agony yet felt utterly useless.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my forehead to the tiles.

Stop it.

Stop burning.

Stop—

I groaned as another blast of heat detonated from my heart. Heat that I’d felt so many times—just before the vitalsync core knocked me out.

I waited to pass out like usual.

I actually looked forward to oblivion if it meant all of this would end.

But...no dose arrived. No pain. No suffering. No unconsciousness.

I just kept burning.

Hotter and hotter until the tap started to melt.

Bracing against the wall, my right hand strayed to the metal disc over my heart.

At least this gave me definitive proof.

The vitalsync core was dead.

It would’ve knocked me out by now if it wasn’t.

It no longer had any power over me which filled me with bone-breaking relief but also mind-twisting horror that perhaps...it hadn’t been the vitalsync core hurting me, after all.

Perhaps it had been doing me a favour. Putting me down before I could burn alive.

Had I always been like this?

Had Marcus known and kept the full extent of my madness away from me?

The charred wall filled my head, making my heart trip in fear.

I didn’t want to believe I’d started that fire. Couldn’t believe I’d had the power to do something so inhuman, but...what other answer was there?

Another wave of blistering hotness tore through me.

The tap continued to blister and deform.

I missed the ice pool at Cinderkeep with a vicious, aching intensity.

I would’ve given anything to sink inside it. To drown beneath the surface and brace against the biting cold. To surrender to the frost that always helped.

Frost.

My eyes flew wide as the answer stared me right in the fucking face.

Rook.

Each time I was near her, it was like a hoarfrost worked its way over my smoking soul. She soothed me far better than anything else. And I’d stupidly run away from her.

Wrenching off the water, my fist turned the fire-softened tap into a misshapen hunk of metal. Staggering away from yet more property damage, I tripped from the shower and snatched a towel from the rack.

With shaking hands, I did my best to soak up the water from the bandages and slipped back into my old trousers. That was the extent of my dressing, seeing as I had no shirt after the doctors cut off my old bloody one.

Breathing hard, I swiped a hand over the steamy mirror—

I reared back as a glowing red circlet illuminated my pupils.

My heart rate exploded.

I leaned in for a closer look—

The mirror cracked.

A spiderweb fractured across my reflection, radiating from the centre where I stared, almost as if the mirror couldn’t withstand the embers glowing in my stare.

“Fuck.” Bracing my palms on either side of the sink, I bowed my head and breathed.

Deep and low. Slow and steady.

Detach. Let go. Fade away.

I couldn’t go out looking like this.

Looking this unhinged and manic.

She’d be petrified of me.

I was petrified of me.

I had no fucking idea what was going on.

Raising my chin, I looked past the fractured mirror and caught my fire-rimmed eyes.

The sickly sensation of power throbbed beneath my ribs. It whispered in my ear, promising it could burn the world to ash if I wanted.

With a snarl, I locked it all down.

I balled my hands, clenched every muscle, and through sheer dumb willpower, I harnessed the wildfire tearing through my body, sucking it back into my heart.

It fought me.

I struggled.

I dripped with sweat and steam and—

A sudden high-pitched noise came from the bedroom.

Rook.

I hurled myself toward the door.

Chapter Eighteen

THE BATHROOM DOOR SLAMMED OPEN SO hard, it bounced off the wall.

Lucien stumbled out like he’d escaped a burning building—shirtless, soaked, and steam curling from his skin as if the heat inside him had turned into an inferno. Wet bandages clung to his lean torso, revealing the black stitches where I’d stabbed him. Water beaded along the sharp lines of his stomach, soaking into the waistband of his black trousers.

His chest heaved as he dragged in air like it wasn’t enough. Like it hurt.

The moment his gaze locked onto me, something snapped. He crossed the room in three powerful strides just as my phone rang again.

My fingers fumbled to turn off the volume, but I was too slow. He towered over me, snatched the vibrating device out of my grip, and tossed it over his shoulder. It smashed against the legs of the desk where he’d been operated on, thudding to the floor.

“No—” I scrambled off the bed, but he just planted the heel of his palm between my breasts and shoved me back down.

I sprawled backward, bouncing on my elbows. “Lucien. What are you—?” I gasped as he fell forward, smothering me with his scolding weight.

I scooted away, only for him to crawl after me, pinning me down with his hips. He sucked in a breath as he gave me every searing inch. Pressing his forehead to mine, his breath burned my lips as he panted.

For one suspended second, he just breathed me in.

He shuddered above me and didn’t seem to notice how vulnerable I was beneath him. How he’d overpowered me and caged me, his hips between my legs, his heart thundering and entire body taking me hostage.

Grinding his forehead on mine, he growled, “It has to work. It has to.”

“What has to work?”

His eyes flashed open as if only just realising it was me beneath him and not some medicine he’d come seeking. His nose nuzzled me softly and then...he kissed me.

His lips weren’t gentle or careful—they were raw and desperate as he collapsed completely over me and gave me everything.

I cried out as he once again set fire to my soul.

On the floor, my phone rang—shrill and snippy and full of impatience.

But Lucien didn’t stop.

His hands were suddenly everywhere—gripping my waist, stroking my sides, searching and memorising, claiming and caressing. He groaned as he cupped my breast. His thumb found my nipple, and he squeezed me hard enough to make me whimper.

He shuddered as he swallowed my weak protest, licking my tongue as I fought for air. My fists pummelled his shoulders—

With a guttural grunt, he rolled off me, dragging me with him until I lay on top of him. I turned dizzy as his hands skated up my spine and dove into my hair, yanking me down to kiss him again, hard and deep.

The phone rang for the fourth time.

Too loud. Too urgent.

I tried to speak into his kiss. “The guards...” His tongue hunted mine. “They’ll hear—” He smothered my words, thrusting up from beneath me and making every single thought disintegrate.

“You have to stop it,” he groaned, his tongue slick and far too hot. “I’m burning up.” His breath caught as if he was moments away from losing all control. Rearing up from beneath me, he punished me with yet another wicked kiss just as his hands slid from my hair and followed my curves, down and down until he palmed my bottom.

Grabbing two fistfuls of flesh, he drew me against him until I could feel just how hungry he was. How hard and aching and hot.

I gasped as my dress rode higher, his grip forcing me to rock over him, following an age-old rhythm of sex.

The world narrowed to heat and breath.

My core tingled, tightening and spindling with pleasure.

God, he was going to make me come—make me shatter while grinding against each other like two horny teenagers.

My phone rang again, full of reprimand.

“Lucien,” I moaned. “I need—”

“I know.” A low throaty sound rumbled in his chest as he rocked up, pressing himself harder against me. “Me too.”

“No, I mean my phone—”

“Make it stop.” His voice cracked as he pulled my hips down. “You have to make it stop.”

I didn’t think he was talking about the racket my phone was making.

God, if I wasn’t wearing underwear and he didn’t have his trousers on, he’d be inside me by now. He would’ve stolen the final thing that made me innocent and corrupted me entirely.

My phone didn’t give up, screeching with another call.

He sucked my bottom lip as if he was trying to drink my soul. His hips surged up, hitting that perfect, sensitive spot between my legs.

I forgot about the damn phone.

My body arched without permission as an orgasm went from barely there to barrelling through me. I cried out as waves upon waves of pure pleasure made me writhe over him.

“Oh God.”

He shattered my world. My worries scattered like petals. Every part of me exploded with frost and fire and—

A galaxy of cold tore open inside me, vast and endless and white. Heat vanished. Sound vanished. It felt like falling through the heart of a frozen star, power roaring through my veins with perfect, impossible vastness.

His whole body jerked as if he felt what I did. As if he tasted the same chill, the same endless ice. Steam blasted from his skin as if the cold bled straight through him.

He groaned my name, his voice rough, his grip tightening on my hips as he reached the same edge I had. His entire body went taut as a sharp breath punched from his lungs. He thrust up and came with a bed-shaking shudder.

Pain echoed behind my eyes as the waves of his orgasm faded.

For the longest moment, we didn’t move or breathe, both shocked at how this escalated, but then he sagged beneath me and sucked in a grateful breath.

His hands splayed over my lower back and I went boneless, burrowing my face in the crook of his neck, trying to tame my galloping heart.

His fingers trailed along the beads of my spine, heavenly gentle after being so rough. “Who are you?” he murmured, barely louder than a whisper. “How can you stop me from burning when nothing else can?”

Gritting my teeth, I went to push off him—to find the strength to continue with our escape but the pain grew stronger, stealing the glow of my orgasm.

God, what I would give to feel healthy for once? To feel strong instead of fragile. “You’re still hurting?” I asked softly, my heart reacting to his issues instead of mine.

“Not anymore. Not when I’m touching you.”

My phone erupted with yet another shriek, warning that the person on the other end of it was at their limit.

I pushed upward, only for Lucien to wrap his strong arms around me and snap me back down again. “Did I say you could leave?”

My heart skipped a few beats as I waved at my dancing phone on the carpet. “I need to get that.”

I tried to scramble off, only for him to growl. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“But—”

“Whisper,” Lucien commanded quietly. “Bring it here.”

The panther appeared from the bathroom—no doubt relieving himself like I said he could—before padding toward the caterwauling device. He picked it up with his sharp teeth, brought it to us, and dropped it onto the bed like a dead mouse.

Lucien still didn’t let go of me. “I tried using that back in Cinderkeep when I went through your things. It didn’t work.”

“I know.” I pushed against his chest, avoiding the metal disc and his stitches the best I could. “There wasn’t reception there. But here there is.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”

I wrinkled my nose. “If you want an in-depth explanation of how the mobile network operates, I’m afraid you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

“No.” He frowned. “About the fact that I just admitted I went through your belongings.” Letting me sit upright, but not letting me get off him, he kept his hands planted on my hips as I turned the volume off just in time for yet another call to illuminate the screen. “Don’t you care?”

The way he watched me made guilt flare.

Which was crazy because I had nothing to be guilty about.

Unlike him, I had a life out here.

People.

People who’d panicked when I’d vanished without a trace.

People who deserved an explanation.

“No, I don’t care,” I held his eyes, marvelling at the slight scarlet hue around his pupils. “It’s just stuff. I’m not attached.”

He studied me for a moment as if I perplexed him, but then shutters came down and he asked, “Can you make calls as well as receive them?” He sat upright, keeping me trapped on his lap with a possessive arm.

“Of course.”

“In that case, I need to use it.”

“Wait.” My eyes widened. “You do?”

Who the hell would he know to call?

How did he even know what a cellphone was after being locked up for so long?

But I didn’t get a chance to ask as his gaze locked onto the screen as yet another call buzzed.

The screen flashed obnoxiously with one name: Dillon, Dillon, Dillon.

Lucien growled under his breath, sounding eerily panther-like.

I lowered my head and groaned.

Crap. This was going to be bad. Very, very bad.

Not because Lucien seemed to have a minor problem of possession, but because he’d had me all to himself for weeks. He’d revealed enough of his prickly personality that if he knew I was close to another man...

Yep, he’s going to kill me.

My bodyguard was supposed to protect my life, not be the cause of ending it.

The screen illuminated Dillon’s name even brighter, announcing I’d missed over two hundred calls from him since I’d gone missing.

Lucien went very, very still and very, very hot.

His gorgeous face turned to blackened stone as he snarled very, very quietly. “And just who the fuck is Dillon?”

Chapter Nineteen

LUCIEN TENSED UNTIL EVERY RIDGE OF his abdominals stood out.

So helpful of him not to put on a shirt. So, so nice of him to distract me with a sudden orgasm when I didn’t stand a hope in hell of surviving this.

I ignored the call, trying to figure out how not to die. “Dillon is—”

Immediately, the phone flashed with another attempt.

Dillon wouldn’t stop.

I knew that from prior experience. Whenever I’d gone offline and forced him to track me down using my sporadic use of my credit cards, I’d get a painful scolding whenever he caught me.

Usually, I’d accept his call, put it on speaker, and tuck the phone under a pillow, so I didn’t have to subject myself to the full volume of my bodyguard’s wrath.

Technically I was his boss, yet somehow, I always came away feeling like his little sister. A badly behaved, runaway little sister who had to grovel to a very angry, very big brother so he wouldn’t maim her.

Exhaling heavily, I held up my phone and showed it to Lucien. “This is a cellphone.”

“I know what a goddamn cellphone is! What I want to know is why a man named Dillon is calling you incessantly on it. Is there something you haven’t told me?” Fury sparked in his abyssally dark eyes. “Are you with someone?”

There were a lot of things I hadn’t told him.

Only a few hours ago, we’d been in Cinderkeep and keeping my secrets was easy. Not that they were secrets but...how had this unravelled so fast?

Tossing me off his lap, he shot to his feet and raked both hands through his hair. “Who the fuck is Dillon?!”

“Keep your voice down.” I threw a look at the door just as my phone vibrated and shivered, becoming as angry as Lucien.

My chest ached as I tried to salvage the meagre trust he’d finally given me. “Dillon is...my bodyguard.”

“Your bodyguard?” His eyes widened as he dropped his hands in disbelief. “Since when do you have a bodyguard?”

I stayed as calm as I could. “Since I was born.”

“What?”

“Dillon is my third bodyguard since I was a child. My parents—”

“Why?” He cut me off with a growl. “Why would you need a bodyguard?”

I frowned, not understanding the question. Why else did someone pay to be watched and stalked all the time? “To protect me, of course.” I shrugged, flinching as the call dropped off only for a new one to begin. God, how many times would Dillon try and how badly would he make me pay when I finally answered?

“To protect you?” Lucien went fatally still. “What...from me?” His eyes smouldered, burning through the faint scarlet ringing his normally black pupils. “Because of what I just did? Because I somehow set the wall on fire and melted the tap?”

“Tap? What tap?”

He choked on a snarl. “Do you need protecting because there’s something about me that’s...wrong?”

His tone, his fear...it launched me to my feet.

Everything inside me wanted to hug him. To prove that regardless if it was him or a freak accident, I wasn’t afraid of him. I might not know his favourite colour or food or song but...I knew him.

I knew he wouldn’t hurt me...or at least, not intentionally.

“Dillon has guarded me since I was twelve. He’s trying to get hold of me because I’ve been missing for almost seven weeks and his literal job description is to keep me safe. I’ve done a terrible job in the past of letting him do that, so that’s why he’s calling so much. He won’t stop until I answer but...he’s just a friend and nothing more. You don’t have to—”

“Tell him you’re mine.” The snarl tore out of him, dousing me in goosebumps. “Tell him you’re not going anywhere. I forbid it.”

“W-What?”

Beneath his explosive fury, raw misery lurked. His chest heaved. His fists shook. He looked as if he’d gone from finally letting down his guard, to thinking everything about me was yet another trap.

“It’s okay,” I murmured, unable to stand the betrayal in his eyes. “I’m still the same person. I’m still on your side.”

“My side?” he chuckled blackly. “And what side is that?”

“The right side,” I blurted. “The good side.”

“You think I’m good? How many women have I killed again?”

“Fine. I meant the bad side. I’m firmly on the bad side.”

“Ah...” He smiled thinly. “So I’m the villain now?”

“No, of course not. Stop twisting my—”

“I’m an idiot. All this time I thought you understood my need for revenge, but you’ve been secretly trying to get away from me.” He balled his hands. “You lied to me.”

My phone kept on ringing. My head kept on pounding. “I never lied to you. Not once.”

“Then tell me how you really feel!” he hissed. “Give me the truth.”

“The truth about what?”

“Are you on my side or not?”

“I just told you. Yes, I’m on your side. Besides, how can you even ask that?” Hurt pinched my heart. “Especially after everything—”

“Answer the fucking question, Rook!”

“I just did!”

“Then why do I feel like you’re about to betray me like everyone else?”

Whisper shot to his feet and went to his master, wrapping his long tail around Lucien as if holding him back from attacking me.

My heart skipped as I clutched my buzzing phone and tried to give him what he needed to hear. “I will never betray you, Lucien. I will always be on your side.” I licked my lips and added an important caveat. “As long as you don’t hurt innocent people and don’t harm me, then I will never stop being on your side. You have my full support to seek vengeance on those who did this to you and your family.”

His fury faded a little as his shoulders sagged. His hand landed on Whisper’s head, his fingers fumbling with the panther’s ears. He looked so unsure and in such pain, he reached into my chest and ruined me.

I moved to go to him, but his chin tipped up and he sighed heavily. “Are you sure? Are you sure you can even stand to look at me after what happened here tonight?”

My gaze flickered to the barbecued wall.

He followed my stare, shuddering just once. “What if I lose control again? What if I turn out to be a worse monster than them?”

My phone kept buzzing and I didn’t know what to say.

“What if I’m exactly what all those women said I am?” he whispered. “That my very existence is an apocalypse waiting to happen...will you still love me then?”

Love him?

He choked.

We both froze.

That frightening little word fell to the floor and exploded around our feet. A word that came with so much danger and depth...

But...it seemed like I did, didn’t it?

How else did I explain how I felt about him?

How else could I ever go this far or accept so many unexplainable things?

“Lucien, I—”

“Don’t,” he hissed, cutting me off with a swipe of his hand. “Don’t say anything.”

The urge to tell him how I felt came strong, but a dam formed in my throat. An obstruction made of fear and shyness. He was the first and only person I’d cared about since losing my parents. I would do absolutely anything in my power to keep him safe, all while knowing I was absolutely useless.

Especially now I knew how different he was.

How valuable he was to the men who wanted him.

“If I didn’t have feelings for you...how else could I have self-medicated with your blood while you were in the shower? How else could I bring myself to drink your very life-force if I didn’t feel connected to you above everyone?”

His body heat buffeted me like a fallen comet. “What?”

“I drank what you gave me this morning.”

He stiffened as if my admission that I’d willingly ingested his blood—the very blood he’d had to force down my throat before—affected him on a primordial level.

“So you see...I trust you, even after what happened,” I said softly. “I’m not afraid of you and I’m not going to betray you—”

“You were in pain?” he cut in, his voice full of gravel and smoke.

“I was but...now, I’m not. Thanks to you.”

His shirtless chest came alive with patches of heat as if the subject of the conversation turned into molten magma in his veins.

I couldn’t look away as his eyes gleamed, embers replacing his pupils. The longer we stared, the more the air arced with electricity. I could almost taste power bleeding off him, feathering out to lick across my skin and rattle the windows in their frames.

Whisper whipped to look at the windows, baring his teeth at the shivering glass.

“Eh, Lucien...?” I trembled as another wash of ridiculously hot energy blasted from him.

The curtains quivered.

Red shadows danced over his chest—

Whisper snarled, looking back to Lucien and nipping his arm. Lucien coughed and stumbled backward as Whisper bit a little too sharp.

The spell broke.

The windows stopped rattling and the air temperature returned to normal instead of blistering like the sun.

God, now what?

What the hell just happened?

Who the hell is he?

And why wasn’t I running like I should?

“Are you...” I swallowed hard, trying so hard to pretend all of this was normal. “Are you okay?”

Raking both hands over his face, his shoulders sagged. Dropping his arms, he caught my eyes and slowly shook his head.

“You’re not okay?”

He shrugged.

“You don’t know?” I whispered.

His fingers strayed to the vitalsync core that was dull and dead over his heart.

My phone hurled itself around in my hand, reaching its furious crescendo.

Lucien’s gaze locked on it and everything he was feeling shut down. His unreadable mask slipped back into place as he crossed his arms, and ordered, “Answer it.”