Dragging Rook into me, I wrapped my arm around her perfectly icy waist and held her tight.
I stood on the brink of death and all I wanted to do was protect her after I failed at protecting so many others.
Marcus stepped a little closer, wrinkling his nose at the corpses. “You owe me for this, Lucien. Do you know how long it’s taken me to even comecloseto what lives in your veins?”
I gritted my teeth and stayed silent.
His eyes narrowed. “Twenty years I’ve been trying. Twenty years of injecting your blood into them, watching so many of them die, only to have a scant few survive and even fewer show any signs of replicating the Requiem gene.”
Rook tensed in my hold. She opened her mouth to ask questions, but I squeezed her.
He wanted us to talk. He was baiting us to ask.
And...I didn’t fucking care.
The fire in me was growing weaker. It’d burned through every inch that was edible, spluttering on the dregs left behind.
I had one shot.
A single chance to slaughter him before my heart stopped beating.
“Tell me.” Marcus arched his chin at the warped piece of metal in my chest, taking another step toward us. “Did you figure out what you could do before or after you destroyed the vitalsync core?”
My skin crawled. Whisper hissed.
“Not talking, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “I must say, you’re far more powerful than anyone expected.” His face darkened as he came to a stop. “How are you even alive? I was told you’d die if that little tool we implanted in your heart gave out.”
I refused to give him a single word.
I just glowered at him, gathering as much strength as I could.
He sighed dramatically but then his gaze shifted to Rook. “It has something to do with you, doesn’t it?” He grinned as if he’d finally figured out life’s greatest secret. “So thereishope. I was beginning to wonder. But you’re proof that there is a way to keep the power stable. How?” He looked her up and down. “How are you keeping him breathing? Are you like him and at the mercy of fire or are you...” He stepped closer, dragging his disgusting eyes over her. His gaze locked on the twinkling frost over her chest. “Ice...”
I lost my ability at holding my tongue as I snatched her hand and positioned her behind me. “You don’t get to look at her. You don’t get to even breathe the sameairas her.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You always were dramatic.”
“Fuck you.”
“No,fuck you!” His decorum broke. “Look at the mess you caused!” Waving at the pile of corpses, he hissed, “Do you know how long this has taken me? How much effort it’s taken to get this far?” Flinging his arms wide, he kicked another cadaver. “The dregs of power they offered wasnothingcompared to you, yet I kept trying. Kept hoping. I sacrificed litres and litres of your blood to make them stronger. Blood I could’ve drunk myself—”
“WHAT?!” Fire erupted over my skin, granting false power. “You didwhatwith my blood?”
“Oh, come now, don’t get offended. You should be grateful. Grateful that a single cupful of your blood gave me strength that lasted months compared to the pittance that these idiots offered me.”
Idiots.
He called the men, women, and children he’d torturedidiots.
Fire wrapped around my throat.
I couldn’t speak past my fury.
I burned and burned and—
Rook stupidly shifted to my side, letting him see the gorgeous constellations of snowflakes stamping all over her skin.
Marcus sucked in a breath as sleet flurried around us, reacting to her rage just like the fire reacted to mine.
