Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Rook gasped, her fingers locking around my wrists. “Don’t do what?”
I snarled as another shadow coiled around her neck, turning her skin translucent. Her hair floated on a non-existent breeze...swirling away into dust.
“No—” I hugged her until I bruised her, holding all her pieces together even as she kept breaking apart.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t watch her die in my arms again.
I can’t!
“Stay with me!” My voice cracked, grief so sharp it carved out what was left of my soul. “We promised neither of us would leave. I fixed it. I fixed everything!”
Pulling back in my embrace, she searched my eyes. “Lucien...what’s happening? I-I feel...strange.”
“It’s fine. Everything will be fine.” Crushing my mouth to hers in a desperate kiss, I poured every ounce of power and love into her heart. “We survived the ascension. I rewrote destiny so we could be together. This is just madness. I’m going mad. Tell me I’m going mad and you’re okay. Tell me!” I shook her, and a cloud of silver dust erupted from her skin.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
Please, please don’t go.
A guttural, animalistic roar ripped from my throat.
Not again.
Please, not again.
Her hands glowed with hairline fractures as she cupped my cheeks, wiping away my scalding tears. “You’re burning.” She smiled with grief as crippling as mine. “You’ve always been burning, Lucien...it’s time to stop. Before it’s too late.”
“Stop? Stop what?”
Her voice turned achingly sad. The playful, insatiable woman who’d shared my bed burst into tears as truth flared in her eyes. Truth I wasn’t strong enough to see. Truth I’d give anything to ignore. “You’ve burned your soul to stay here with me, Lucien...and now...now you’re about to die.”
“You’re lying.”
“I love you, but...you have to stop.”
“No—” I hugged her tighter, burying my face in her neck, breathing in frost and honey and her. “Don’t say that. You’re real. You have to be real.”
Her body turned hazy as the shadows blotted everything else.
It was just us.
Me and her.
Surrounded by darkness.
She suddenly jerked in my arms. “Lucien?” Her voice switched from calm acceptance to sharp panic. “What’s happening? It hurts. It hurts so much. Make it stop. Please make it stop.”
Fuck.
She was killing me.
I roared at the universe as I rocked her in my arms. “Don’t go. I’m begging you, Rook, I can’t do this without you.”
I didn’t care if I’d made all of this up. I didn’t care she wasn’t real. I didn’t care I’d been making love to a ghost or living in a dream because I couldn’t exist in a world where she was gone.
This was all I had.
I didn’t want anything else.
I just wanted her.
A whip of black wrapped itself around Rook’s waist, wrenching her out of my hold.
“NO!”
“Lucien!” She tore at the darkness, reaching for me. “Don’t let it take me. I want to stay here, with you!”
Flinging myself toward her, I caught her hand—just as a shadow caught me.
Two tendrils wrapped tight around my wrists, wrenching my arms back and keeping me pinned. “Rook!”
Her body fragmented, glowing with inner light as more shadows wrapped around her legs and arms. Her frost ignited, ice flinging out in all directions. But the shadows looped around her neck, strangling—
“Stop it!” I thrashed and fought, kicked and smashed, but I couldn’t get free.
Ashfall Cliff broke apart into a million pieces.
With a loud boom, everything detonated, leaving us in an empty void with no sky, no ground, no light.
Rook screamed as the shadows reached her mouth.
“I’m here,” I yelled. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”
The darkness crawled over my own body, sucking me further and further away from her.
I couldn’t go.
Couldn’t save her.
“FUCK!” I turned feral, bucking and kicking, punching and slashing.
And the shadows just thickened.
Fire shot from my flesh, casting the void in golden power.
Darkness just snatched it.
I couldn’t win.
Couldn’t fix this.
Rook caught my eyes as the rest of her dissolved piece by piece, her beautiful skin fracturing into snowflakes. Her voice changed again from pleading to sorrow. “I need you to wake up, Lucien. Please wake up. Before it’s too late.” Her eyes blazed completely silver as her power erupted with icy daggers. “Wake up, Lucien. Wake up. You have to wake up. Wake up and let me go.”
“Never!” I lunged for her. “I will never leave you!”
“Wake up.” Her arms flung wide as shadows poured down her throat.
Silver dust and black frost detonated.
She turned into a galaxy, a blackhole, a firework full of every memory and moment we’d ever shared.
I dropped to my knees, screaming.
The weight of loneliness turned me into a monster.
I didn’t care anymore.
Couldn’t fight anymore.
You win.
The darkness lit up with blinding gold as my power went supernova.
The fire detonated with mindless, apocalyptic fury.
A cataclysmic inferno.
A destruction of hellfire.
Burning, burning, burning.
Burning until there was nothing left.
Burning until death took me.
Burning so I could find her again—
Chapter Thirty-Nine
MY EYES STUNG AS WE STOOD ON THE EDGE of disaster.