Why wasn’t he here?
Where did he go?!
The tether in my heart yanked violently. The connection between us went blinding. Fire so hot it burned my blood. Frost so thick it turned the room white.
Prehistoric cold threatened to shatter my spine, answering the breaking in Lucien.
It wanted me to break with him.
It wanted...me.
Throwing the blankets off, I flung myself out of bed. A giant snowflake appeared beneath my feet as the temperature plummeted. The air glittered with extinction—
A great cloud of roaring fire. No longer human. Just power. The mountain trembled and sky split.
“LUCIEN!”
The bond jerked—
thendetonated.
Winter swarmed me. The rafters groaned as lightning forked inside.
He tipped his head to the sky. The fire didn’t consume him...it crowned him. His wrath turned tectonic—
A shockwave of his hate punched through me, shattering the ice’s hold. Gasping, I flung myself toward the wardrobe, hauled on the closest clothes, and fled.
Chapter Sixty-Five
SUMMONING HELL WAS AS EASY AS breathing.
The fire stole everything, delivering catastrophic power in return. I choked on blood as my organs turned to ash. I suffocated on air as my body broke beneath the weight of pure anarchy.
All the rage I’d nursed since I was nine years old. Every wish for vengeance. Every promise of revenge. It fed the fire until there was nothing left.
I would never be able to undo this.
Never be able to stop the flames feeding off my feelings—growing stronger with every surge of horror and terror andhate.
I screamed as a concussive blast shot out of me in a perfect sphere of incandescent force. Air ignited. Stone exploded. The cavern’s ceiling blew apart with a shower of molten debris. Flames punched through solid rock, carving a chimney straight to the surface.
My heart caved in with guilt.
Rook.
I didn’t know if leaving her had triggered this breaking or if this was always my fate.
Was she okay?
I’d thought—when she said we might be the key to our survival—that we’d be fine as long as we both existed...but what if it was a proximity thing?
What if I’d just condemned her to—
The guards opened fire.
Turning my back on them, I cradled the little girl in my arms, protecting her from the bullets. Sharp pain tore through my back but...my flesh switched to smoke, allowing pure metal to soar through.
Bullets thudded into the little girl instead.
