Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Chapter Twenty

FAT LOT OF GOOD MY ORGASM did me.

My body was on a damn roller coaster—burning alive in the bathroom only to find solace in Rook’s arms. I hadn’t planned on having my second ever release while still wearing my goddamn pants but...it’d happened.

Again.

And I couldn’t even care about the damp discomfort left behind because all that ashy, violent heat just went away. She didn’t just calm me physically, she calmed me emotionally—dousing me in ice and cocooning me in snow, allowing me to breathe without setting fire to the bed.

For a few grateful moments, I found a pocket of existence that didn’t come with suffering but then...him.

“Well?” I hissed. “Are you going to answer it?”

Rook clung to that hated little device as if it might detonate in her palm and reveal everything she didn’t want me to know.

Back in Cinderkeep, I didn’t care who she was in the outside world.

I had no way of imagining her life before me or what she got up to outside my walls. I’d become so insular—so cut off from the rest of humanity—that I couldn’t picture what life looked like out there, so I literally had no drive to ask.

But now?

Now I wanted to know everything.

I wanted to tear her history wide open and rifle through every interaction, relationship, and secret.

“Do it,” I seethed, making Whisper chuff as if reminding me to contain my temper. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop ringing until you do.”

Her gaze landed on mine, her lips thinning with determination. “Just remember...Dillon is like an older brother to me.”

So what?

He was still a man and she was mine.

I would happily slit his throat if he thought he could take her away from me—related or not.

My hands balled as heat flooded through my veins. Instinct urged me to go to her. To touch her. Kiss her. To bind myself to her so she could keep me cool enough that I didn’t burn the bed and breakfast down.

“Oh God, here we go...” Sucking in a deep breath, she stabbed her finger onto the green symbol and tossed it onto the mattress as if it was a live grenade.

She cringed away as if it truly was about to erupt—

“ELARA SNOWFLAKE! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?!”

Whisper growled, not liking another male’s voice bouncing off the walls.

Me and him both.

Groaning, Rook buried her face into her hands. “Ugh, not you, too! Why must you insist on using my pseudonym when I’m in trouble?”

“Because that’s what I’ll inscribe on your headstone if I ever get my hands on you! Here lies the runaway heiress Elara fucking Snowflake. Murdered by her long-suffering bodyguard.”

What?!

My hands balled as flames licked hotter, cutting through Rook’s power over me.

I might quickly be learning how dependent on her I was to stay sane, but right now, I wanted to become the apocalypse everyone feared because he’d threatened her. He had the audacity to talk about murdering the one person I needed, and if he was here, he’d be the one needing a fucking tombstone.

Stepping toward the bed, I fully intended to destroy the phone, but Whisper chirped, wrenching me to a stop.

I glowered at the cat.

“You’re so dramatic,” Rook muttered.

“I’ll show you dramatic, you frustrating, annoying pain in my ass!” he shouted back, making my teeth grind to dust.

“Jeez. I’m still alive, okay? Calm down. No need to give yourself a heart attack—”

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Elara Snowflake,” he barked. “Not after what you just put me through. Are you hurt? Where are you? What happened?”

My eyes narrowed.

That was the third time he’d called her that.

So she had lied to me.

Rook Snowdon wasn’t her real—

“My name really is Rook,” she rushed, her eyes widening on mine as little curls of heat evaporated from my shoulders. Once again, she read my thoughts—not that they would be hard to follow. “Elara Snowflake is just a company address.”

Snowflake...

I frowned, trying to recall why that sounded vaguely familiar.

She froze, her face going white.

“What?” I asked tersely. “Why are you looking at me as if waiting for me to recognise that name?”

“Do you?” She gulped. “Have you...have you heard of Snowflake Corp before?”

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Her bodyguard cut in. “I haven’t been trying to call you for the past seven weeks just for you to have a conversation with someone else, you know!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Tearing her gaze from mine, leaving me slightly unsettled at how wary she’d become, she added, “And I didn’t mean to leave you hanging for so long. I was in a place with no reception and—”

“That’s no excuse!” he shouted. “How am I supposed to keep you safe when you don’t tell me where you’re damn well going?!”

“I’ve learned my lesson. Believe me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean...let’s start over. Shall we?” Straightening her spine, she forced a bright smile. “Hi, Dil.”

“Don’t you dare ‘Hi Dil’ me! Where are you? Your last ping location was by some massive estate that I couldn’t breach no matter how hard I tried. Are you still there? Were you ever there? What the fuck is going on?”

I ground my teeth together, my temper building, building.

Whisper scratched at my trousers, trying to remind me to stay calm. Crossing my arms, I glowered at Rook, but she refused to look at me.

“Yeah, about that,” she said. “There’s quite a lot to explain and we’re really kinda pressed for time—”

“I don’t care. I’m coming to get you right now. You’re coming home with me and I’m never letting you out of my—”

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” I spat, shutting the bastard up. “She belongs to me now.”

“Oh no.” Rook groaned. “Now you’ve done it.”

The phone went silent for less than a second before an icy snarl hissed, “Listen here, whoever the fuck you are—”

Rook rushed to turn down the volume, throwing a worried look at the door.

“—she doesn’t belong to anyone, got it? She’s worth far more than you can imagine and you will let her go. What did you do to her? Where have you been keeping her? Rook?” He paused for a moment. “Rook...are you safe?” His tone turned squirrelly and sly. “Have you eaten today or are you fasting?”

I scowled at the odd question, but Rook just shook her head and spoke to me. “It’s code to see if I’m in a hostage situation.”

“You. Shut it,” the man growled.

She never looked away from me, keeping my heat at bay through eye contact alone. “If you’d kidnapped me, I would say I’m fasting but because you didn’t, I’ll say...I’ve eaten.” Looking at the phone, she repeated. “I’ve eaten, Dil, alright?”

His heavy exhale echoed in the room, his anger taming just a little. “Thank the old gods for that.”

Rook gave me a gentle smile. “That just means I’m safe and he doesn’t need to worry.”

“Oh, I worry,” the man grumbled. “You’ve given me an ulcer with how much I worry.”

I reached my limit.

The fact that this man cared for her. That he worried about her. That he thought he could snatch her from me and take her far away. Stepping toward Rook, I towered over her on the bed and bared my teeth at the phone. “I’ve already told you. You’re not taking her anywhere.”

“Listen here—”

“No, you fucking listen.” I bent over and planted my fists on either side of Rook’s thighs. Our noses almost touched. Her beautiful dark eyes widened at how possessively I crowded her but the longer I was so close, the more she affected me.

The gentlest current of cold.

The coolest feathering of ice.

My temperature dropped a fraction, and I no longer felt like I could rip him into pieces with my bare hands. “I won’t kill you on the account of your past with Rook but...if you try to take her away from me, I will not fucking hesitate.”

“He won’t.” Rook tried to appease me. “He’s my bodyguard, not my jailer. Dil. Tell him. Tell him who you are.”

“I’m your worst nightmare if you’ve hurt her,” the asshole hissed.

“Not helping.” Rook rolled her eyes. “That’s an order. Tell him who you are.”

“Fine.” The bastard sniffed. “My name is Dillon Brooks. I’m assigned solely for Miss Snowdon’s protection. However, she’s not always accommodating of this fact and makes it her life mission to keep me on an endless goose chase. I’m also tracking her phone this very moment. The moment she turned it back on again, I got an alert and I’m on my way—”

“How committed are you to ensuring her safety?” I cut in, pushing off the bed and standing over Rook.

Dillon answered immediately. “Extremely.”

“Would you kill to protect her?”

“I’m the type of person who acts first and questions a corpse later.”

“Good.” I smiled tightly, my heart burning with fresh heat just being this far from my antidote. “Come find her then. You have a couple of hours at the most. You better hurry.”

Snatching her phone, I stabbed the red hang-up button.

She stared at me, her mouth hitting the floor. “Eh...what was that?”

Bending over again, I cupped her face and ran my thumb along the sweep of her cheekbone. Ignoring her question, I pressed my lips to hers in a quick, fierce kiss before marching to the couch by the window. “I need to borrow your phone. Take a nap so you won’t pass out later.”

“Why? Why would I pass out?” She glanced at Whisper with worried eyes. “What are you plotting now?”

“Go to sleep. That’s an order.”

“Tell me. Don’t keep me in the dark like last time.”

“Sleep, Rook.” Blocking her curses out, I sat down and prepared to contact the second key that I’d been waiting to use for two decades.

Rook might’ve been the first.

But now it was time to turn the one my father had put in place over twenty years ago.

And hopefully get the hell out of here.

Chapter Twenty-One

I HAD TO THANK MARCUS FOR something.

At least with him using the latest technology to monitor me in Cinderkeep, I had a decent enough understanding of how this very new, very noisy, very different existence operated.

Of course, I also had childhood memories.

Memories of playing with my father’s huge brick-of-a-phone as he parked me in his office while dealing with his underlings. I even recalled stealing his phone a few times as I ran around Ashfall Cliff and hid in the Burning Phoenix caves where no one could ever find me.

So I wasn’t completely inept—or at least not as hopeless as Rook seemed to think I was.

“You actually know how to use one of those things?” she asked from where she sat cross-legged on the bed, disobeying my order to nap.

I made the mistake of looking at her.

At the way her inky black hair needed a brush thanks to my hungry fingers; how her black dress gathered between her lotus-crossed legs. How stunningly perfect she was as she smiled at Whisper—the panther leaping onto the bed and folding himself around her like a fanged shadow.

She leaned against his bulk with a contented sigh. “Least you’re not keeping things from me, hey, tiny tabby.”

My breath faltered.

I didn’t like how much I had to rely on her to keep me from burning. I didn’t like how easily my temper cooled or how quickly my thoughts turned feral at the thought of her leaving.

For the first time in my life, I felt anxious.

Fearful of the moment she would abandon me.

Because why wouldn’t she?

Why would she stay when she had other people who wanted her? Especially after everything that I’d done?

My gaze strayed to the blackened wall again.

If I kept losing control, it was only a matter of time before she’d had enough, and now that we were out of Cinderkeep, there were no walls or guns keeping her by my side.

“Go to sleep,” I snapped. “You might not get another chance any time soon.”

“Sleep?” Her eyebrows arched. “How on earth can I sleep? We need to run. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.” Her gaze flicked to the door. “At least Dillon is coming. Wait.” She shot upright. “I need my phone back. I need to tell him to bring reinforcements. He can’t take on all those guards on his own.”

“He won’t be on his own.”

“What?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Go. To. Sleep.” I made another mistake of catching her stare and drowning. “Use the cat as a pillow and do what you do best.”

“Are you calling me lazy?”

“I’m telling you I need you strong for the next part because if you aren’t, I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself. And this thing...” I pressed my fingers to the dead vitalsync core. “This thing might’ve actually been helping me instead of hurting me so...do what I say and rest.”

Silence fell as I fiddled with her phone, trying to figure out how to bring up the keypad. She didn’t speak until I finally got it and hovered my fingers over the numbers.

“You’re in worse pain than you were with the pacemaker...aren’t you?” she murmured hesitantly as if afraid of my answer. “You’re burning more than you were before.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m fine.”

“Do you regret destroying it?” Yawning, she slid onto her side and used Whisper as a cosy bolster. The panther puffed up with pride, turning to lick her like she was his very own kitten.

Tucking her hands beneath her cheek on his pelt, she never took her eyes off me. “If you could fix it...would you?”

I blew out a slow, uneven breath.

Twenty years of agony burned behind my eyes—two fucking decades where the vitalsync core had crippled me, crushed me, and knocked me out far too many times to count.

I hated it.

I would slaughter all the men responsible for putting it inside me, yet...what if it hadn’t been punishing me but preventing me from punishing them? What if I’d always been able to burn like this? How quickly could I have learned to master the flames and razed everything to the ground, including them?

“No, I wouldn’t fix it.” The words were sharp in my throat. “Nothing in this world would make me accept that level of control again. I’d rather burn alive. Besides...” I looked up, heat smouldering in my bones as I looked at my two favourite things, cuddled together as if they were trying to break me. “I’m not in pain when I’m around you. I’m just...hot.”

She sucked in a breath.

The air went electric.

I fisted her phone so hard the casing creaked as I fought the urge to replace Whisper with myself. To finish what we started. To slip between her legs again, only this time with no clothes between us.

Fuck—

“But how?” she whispered, interrupting my quick descent into debauchery. “How do I help—”

“No idea.” I cut her off, wrenching my eyes away. “Stop being so noisy and rest. Don’t talk to me again.”

She sighed heavily before mumbling around a yawn. “Hear that, huge sleeping tablet? I’ve been told to nap, so do your worst.”

I looked up again as Whisper nuzzled her then rested his head on his paws. Rook closed her eyes and snuggled closer, making jealousy pinch.

My fingers shimmered with warmth, making the phone screen waver.

Gritting my teeth, I yanked the heat back and input the number my father had forced me to remember ever since I was five years old.

Bringing the phone to my ear, I waited for the number to connect. It rang for so long, I panicked that I’d remembered it wrong or it was no longer valid—

“Welcome to Sovereign Retrieval. This is an automated message. Unless you are a client and have your thirteen-digit key, you will not be connected. Please enter your number or hang up.”

My pulse increased as I typed in the numbers that had lurked in every nightmarish day since that day.

And nothing happened.

I glowered at the device. Was it broken? Had I inputted it wrong—?

“Hello, Lucien Ashfall. Also known as Yunhui Luxin. Son of Jin and Meilin Ashfall. Last surviving member of the Yunhui Dynasty. Please state your request along with your current physical condition.”

A shudder shot down my spine hearing my given name after so long.

“Are you there?” the man on the other end pressed. “If you cannot talk due to your life being in jeopardy, please press any button and we will arrange extraction at your current location.”

“I’m here.” I cleared my throat, keeping my voice down just in case Rook had managed to fall asleep. “I’m Lucien Ashfall and request immediate assistance.”

“Please state what you require.”

“I have no passport, documents, or money, but I need to return to Ashfall Cliff in the Gaoligong Mountains immediately.”

“No problem. Extraction just for you?”

“No.” My eyes locked onto the girl cuddling my beast. My heart seared so hot, it threatened to turn to ash. “For three. One being an adult male panther.”

I tensed to be told Whisper couldn’t come. For this stranger to say such a thing would be impossible, which would mean I’d have to come up with another way because no fucking way would I leave him—

“As long as he’s non-violent toward the Sovereign Retrieval team, that’s fine.”

I let out a breath.

What the hell was this company and how had my father saved my life, all while rotting in his grave?

“He won’t hurt them.” I glanced at Whisper snoring quietly under Rook. “You have my word.”

“Good. I’ve activated your retrieval. The team is mobilising now.”

I couldn’t catch a breath.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

This had to be another trick—a sick and twisted game where nothing was how it seemed. Because if it wasn’t...no wonder Marcus never allowed me to access a phone.

If he knew I had this sort of help at my fingertips?

Fuck.

“Help will be there in precisely one hour. I apologise it’s slightly longer than our usual timeframe but you’re in a rural part of England.”

My eyes widened at the efficiency. “You’re tracking the phone I’m calling on?”

“I am. I’ve also arranged a private jet at the closest airstrip. You won’t require passports or documentation. As for money, the funds that have been held on your behalf have been automatically released the moment you input your keycode. They’re accessible anytime through your private account.”

My heart picked up its pace. “My father put aside a rainy-day fund?”

“I’d call it more of a flood fund,” the man chuckled. “There is currently an excess of one billion United States dollars ready for your use.”

I almost dropped the phone.

Marcus had always lorded my lack of stolen wealth over me—using it as yet another leash that even if I did manage to escape, I’d have nothing. No way of fighting him or extracting my revenge.

Turned out...he didn’t know nearly as much as he thought he did.

“I’ve taken the liberty of depositing ten million into the account linked to the phone you’re calling from. However, the current balance is over four hundred million, so you might not require it.”

Wait. What?!

I shot to my feet.

My gaze locked onto Rook and all those feelings she’d caused ignited.

My walls came up.

My doubt returned.

Who the hell was this woman?

First she had a bodyguard and now she was loaded?!

“A team of twenty men are on their way to fetch you; they’ll escort you to the airport from there.”

I heard what he said but I couldn’t stop looking at Rook.

I turned molten; the fire in my bones threatening to lose control.

My rage came from a lifetime of living like a caged animal, so used to biting first instead of suffering later. I wanted to shake her awake and demand she tell me everything. I needed her to prove I was safe to fall, all while she kept proving otherwise.

“Your current location shows you’re staying in the Misty Meadows Bed and Breakfast. Don’t move. Thank you for using Sovereign Retrieval. You have a lifetime package with us so if you require our services again, please don’t hesitate to call. Goodbye.”

He hung up.

A blast of heat ricocheted out of me, singeing the carpet beneath my bare feet with the acrid stench of burning polyester.

Rook shifted in her sleep, smelling smoke.

And Whisper opened his golden-orb eyes, glowering at me as if he knew.

He knew our lives were about to drastically change and things were about to get very interesting.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I WOKE TO WHISPER SNARLING, HIS WARM body vibrating against me.

“Easy, tiny kitty.” I patted his shoulder, sleep sticking to my thoughts. “Did you have a bad dream?”

He hissed in answer, launching to his feet and dislodging me as he leapt to the floor.

Back in Cinderkeep, Whisper had been top of the food chain and very comfortable in that position, but right now...he acted as if something was about to eat him instead.

I sat up as the panther stalked toward Lucien who stood silhouetted in silvery gloom. His hands clutched the window frame as he looked through the iron-trapped glass.

“Everything okay?” I scrambled off the bed, brushing down my rumpled dress and giving up on my tangled hair. “How long was I asleep?”

“Less than an hour.” He didn’t turn to face me. Shirtless and cast in moonlight, he looked otherworldly—like a marble-skinned vampire deciding what nightmares to reap.

Padding toward him, I swallowed the dryness in my throat. What would I give for a nice icy jar of apple-blossom wine? My stomach rumbled, hinting I’d also missed breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Whisper suddenly hissed, shooting upright and resting his paws on the windowsill, his tail whipping left and right.

My heart pitter-pattered as a quiet pop sounded, followed by another and another. A masculine grunt cut short; a cry muffled as quickly as it appeared.

Squeezing between the two of them, I looked down into the quaint garden complete with mismatched bird baths, garish gnomes, and one truly offensive squirrel sculpture.

Everything seemed hushed, sleepy, and quaint until...it wasn’t.

Shadows moved where shadows shouldn’t, gliding between hedgerows and along the Tudor cladding with unnatural precision.

Another soft pop whispered through the night.

A Cinderkeep guard standing beside the old stone wall slumped bonelessly against the rose trellis, his body caught and eased to the ground before it could thud. A second man was dragged backward into darkness, his gasp smothered by a gloved hand.

Lucien’s fingers tightened on the window frame.

One of the masked men below paused mid-step and lifted his head. Raising his gun, he looked through the scope directly at us. The metallic weapon caught the moonlight as it angled upward, its muzzle settling squarely on Lucien’s bare chest.

My heart stopped as he went to fire.

I threw my weight against Lucien’s shoulder, instinct flaring to save him. “Get down—”

He stumbled against the curtains, grabbing onto them for balance just as the man stiffened below and touched his ear as if someone communicated through an earpiece.

Slowly, he lowered his arms, angling the gun to point at the grass.

He tipped his chin and Lucien resumed his place beside me, inclining his head just once.

Questions erupted inside me. “What’s going on? Who’s that?”

What exactly happened in the short hour I’d been asleep?

I’d missed something. Something huge.

“Here.” Lucien tossed me my phone.

I caught it on instinct, still utterly gobsmacked at what was happening below. The unmoving bodies of multiple men became extra garden art, cluttering up the lawn.

“Grab your bag,” he added almost as an afterthought, still watching the midnight show. The man who’d aimed the gun at him ran directly for the back door. As he vanished inside, more human-shaped shadows bled from every corner of the bed and breakfast, pouring from the night as if they were ghouls from a graveyard.

When I just kept staring, he snapped his fingers in front of my face. “What’s going on with you? Are you sleepwalking?”

Whisper headbutted me, making me trip into his master.

Sucking in a breath, Lucien caught me, wrapping his arms around my waist and jerking me close.

The moment his body connected with mine, the world tilted.

A hot crackle shot through us, sharp enough to sting. Heat flared along my entire body—from him or me, I couldn’t tell. My blood reacted to his—recognising its mirroring piece. Heart of my heart. Soul of my soul...

Only for ice to violently smother it.

A headache slammed into me; I staggered against him.

He stiffened as if he’d felt the unexplainable rush of coldness, followed by my miserable pain. His knuckles pressed beneath my chin, nudging my head up until my eyes met his.

His stare dove into me, hunting everything I couldn’t say and all the pains I couldn’t survive. Without a word, his fingers curled around my nape. “Are you trying to pass out on me again?”

God, how was I supposed to survive this man?

Heat rolled off him as his temperature spiked; the single floor lamp across the room flickered as if it struggled to stay on.

For a second, my heart didn’t fight against his, it fell into his, adopting his every beat, falling into perfect sync—

“If you’re not going to pass out, we have to leave.” Letting me go, he shook out his hands as if he felt the same otherworldly sensation I did and stalked toward the door. “Come along.”

“Wait.” I blinked. “What’s going on? What the hell have you been up to while I dozed?”

“Keep Whisper beside you.” He completely ignored me as his hand hovered over the door handle. Looking at me over his bare shoulder, his back muscles tensed. “I don’t expect you to stab me this time, Rook, but I do expect you to stay awake, do you hear me?”

He flicked the lock and wrenched the door open.

I scurried to his side, peering around him as the two guards who’d tried to stop the doctors from leaving leapt to their feet. A few candy wrappers littered the floor from where they’d been relaxing against the corridor walls.

“What the—?” The guards shared a worried look. “Why are you—?”

“We’re leaving.” Lucien smirked that savage little smirk I was so used to seeing just before he killed someone. “I suggest you get out of my way.”

“How are you even standing, let alone walking?” The guard with both arms tattooed yanked a pistol from the holster on his hip. “We were told you lost enough blood to keep you unconscious for days.”

“Yes, well...” Lucien stepped over the threshold. Whisper stalked to his side, revealing sharp teeth. “I suggest you stop asking pointless questions and move.”

The second guard aimed his gun at the useless piece of metal in Lucien’s chest. “Look, sir. We have orders to keep you safe.”

“Good, then let me go.”

“Please return to the room or—”

“In the time it will take you to decide to shoot me—after going over the pros and cons of what will happen if you go against Marcus’s orders—your intestines will already be steaming on the floor.”

Whisper roared, looking positively peckish.

“See?” Lucien arched his chin at the panther. “He’s hungry.”

The two guards gulped and backed up. The taller, tatted one grabbed the radio fastened to his shirt pocket. “Tell that beast to get away from us or I’ll call for backup.”

“Again. In the time it takes for you to press that little button, your spinal cord will be torn out and used as a chew toy.”

The guard gulped.

He pressed the button—

Whisper crouched to pounce.

But the softest pop, pop, and the guard’s eyes suddenly rolled into the back of his head. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

The other guard leapt sideways, bashing into the wall and rattling a few decorative plates off their hooks, only to end up comatose beside his colleague.

“What a shame.” Lucien shrugged at Whisper. “Guess you won’t get a snack after all.”

“How...how did you do that?” I asked. “How did you knock them out without moving?”

True fear flared.

Was he getting worse?

Was his unnatural heat just the start?

“It wasn’t me.” He ruffled the panther’s scruff, his mood prickly and tight—just like it had been before he’d ordered me to kill him.

I didn’t like that. At all.

My head pounded as my vision greyed around the edges. “What do you mean, it wasn’t you?” My gaze shot down the corridor just as four black-clad assassins bled from the darkness.

“It was them,” Lucien murmured coldly.

“Mr. Ashfall?” The men didn’t lower their weapons. “Please state your thirteen-digit passcode.”

“1886-348-413-888.” Lucien pointed at Whisper. “The cat is not to be hurt.”

How was he so casual about all of this?

What the hell is happening?!

“Understood.” The man who’d come closer—a mask covering his entire face apart from his eyes—lowered his gun and waved at his colleagues to do the same. “We’ve put down twenty-two guards. Are there more? Is there any danger you can foresee that might hinder your safety if we take you out of this room?”

Lucien shrugged. “No idea. Marcus is thorough but today happened quickly. He’s away until morning I believe, trying to get the upper hand again.”

“In that case, we should move immediately.” The man backed up, allowing another masked shadow to come forward. “Please put on the bulletproof vest.”

Lucien’s eyebrows arched as a black duffel bag was tossed at his feet. Dropping to his haunches, he unzipped it and pulled out a black knit sweater, along with a stiff-looking vest. Glancing at me over his shoulder, he quickly shrugged into the sweater—kindly hiding his distractingly gorgeous body—before snatching the vest and tossing it at me.

“Put it on,” he said flatly.

I fumbled with the weight of it, almost dropping my phone. “What?”

“Mr. Ashfall,” the man muttered. “It’s your safety we need to prioritise. You need to wear—”

“Put it on, Rook.” He ignored the man and stepped toward me. Grabbing the huge, heavy thing, he slung it around my shoulders and yanked my arms through the sides like I was a stubborn child.

The men wisely didn’t say a word.

“But what if you get hurt?” I argued as he zipped me up and velcroed the sides so tight I could barely breathe.

“Doesn’t matter.” His heat scorched me as he stepped back and inspected me.

I probably looked horrendous with my rain-crinkled black dress and matching Kevlar, but the way he studied me sent a wave of fire directly between my legs. “Of course it matters—”

“No. It doesn’t,” he cut me off. “We both know I’m...unusual. I seem to heal faster than most, but you? You don’t.”

“How do you know I don’t?” My hackles rose a little. “I could be like you. I could—”

“You could.” His gaze locked onto mine, fierce and unblinking. “But I’m not willing to take that chance.”

My throat tightened.

Did he mean to sound so threatening or so scarily...romantic?

Because it was working.

“I can’t let you get hurt. You’re the only thing keeping me from burning alive.” His jaw flexed as his gaze locked onto my mouth. “Without you, I might not survive long enough to get my revenge so...you’re never leaving my sight, and if that means I have to strap you into a hundred ballistic vests and toss you into an armoured box to keep you safe, I’ll do it.”