Page 392 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Lachlan looks at Lee. ‘Did you build what he asked for?’

‘I built it on the back of his funding, but I never gave it to him.’

‘Good, then that means this isn’t—’

‘But a month after I had completed it, my base was broken into, and everything was stolen.’

‘Was it him?’

‘His people, yes.’

‘Is this how he saved Roman?’ he whispers, looking sick.

‘My machine can suspend growth and halt ageing. It can preserve a living body, but it cannot bring people back from the dead.’

‘Then it stands to reason he’s using your machine to preserve his…’ Riley slightly rolls his eyes. ‘Knot body.’

Cole snorts into his fist. ‘Sorry.’

‘Possibly, yes, but he would need to end the old bond before starting a new one.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He would need to kill himself and transfer the death to that body, removing his connection. He would want to do this as close as possible to the other bonding ritual, as it would leave him greatly exposed. Therefore we will need to go before. Hours before. The moment darkness falls.’

‘What time is moonrise?’ Kade asks.

Finn types. ‘Eleven eleven tonight.’

Kade smiles faintly at Riley. ‘That’s your birthday.’

Lachlan says, ‘Yours too.’ He then shakes his head, dragging a hand over his face. ‘It’s far too risky.’

‘I know the layout of the sublevels,’ Lee tells him. ‘I know very well where he would store my machine. My girls and I can get in unseen, unlike the Front.’

‘This is fucking crazy.’

‘We can do this,’ Kade tells him, heart pounding. ‘We can confirm it from the journals Vasily gave us.’

‘If the body’s not there—’

‘He’ll be near to it, he has to be.’

‘And what if this doesn’t work? I know you,’ Lachlan says, dark grey eyes blazing. ‘You’ll offer yourself up to get near him.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Swear to me.’

‘I… it won’t come to that.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I know this can work.’

‘It can and it will,’ Riley says. ‘Lee takes a team, we lock up and defend ourselves from a high place. It’s a good plan.’

Lachlan doesn’t seem to hear him.