“Lucien, are you—?”
He choked on a snarl, pushing off the door and clawing at his coat. “I can’t...I can’t take it anymore.” Smoke erupted from his back with thick, choking plumes. His shirt singed and crisped beneath his hands.
He glowered at me with blazing eyes. Incandescent eyes. “You’re in my bedroom. In my family home. You’re the only one who will ever visit Ashfall Cliff and before I pass out—which I seriously hope I do—you’re going to tell meeverything.”
“R-Right now?”
Tripping toward me, he grabbed my shoulders and squeezed me ever so hard. “Right now. Let’s start with the fact that you think you’re my greatest enemy.” His forehead dropped to mine, his breath scorching my lips. “Because I think I might be running out of time and you’re the only thing standing between me and death.”
Letting me go, he glowered at me like a fire-licked devil straight from hell. “Prove to me, Rook. Prove to me, right here. Right now.Showme that you aren’t like them. Convince me that you won’t betray me. Prove to me that I cantrustyou. That you won’t fucking ruin me any more than you already have.”
My lungs seized as if I’d inhaled winter itself. Ice crystals formed in my eyes, my blood, my heart. The world rimmed with white and silver.
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Frost sealed my throat shut, freezing my vocal cords and making them useless.
Lucien’s nostrils flared. “Say something.”
I shook my head, tapping my frozen neck, my breath coming out in foggy bursts.
What was happening?
Why was he affecting me so badly?
How—
“SPEAK!” he roared.
His voice ripped through me like an avalanche.
My legs gave out—
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.
