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 fellintohis, 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.
