Chapter 110
Sebastian
The crackle of the bug in my ear sharpened into voices—her voice, soft in a way I'd never heard before, speaking to Elwin with a tenderness that made my fingers tighten around the medical scanner until the plastic casing cracked.
"Just hold still. I know it hurts, but I need to clean this properly."
Marcus glanced up from adjusting my IV drip, his expression carefully neutral, though I caught the flicker of sympathy in his eyes.
"Does it hurt badly?" Her question came through tinged with genuine worry, and something hot and vicious twisted in my chest.
"It's... manageable, Miss Lirael." The boy's voice was young, strained with pain but trying to sound brave. "You don't need to—"
"Don't be ridiculous. You got hurt because of me."
Because of you. The phrase echoed in my skull, and suddenly the medical equipment monitoring my failing heart seemed very far away. That tone—protective, almost maternal—suggested something far more dangerous than simple alliance.
She cared about him.
The scanner in my hand splintered completely, sharp edges biting into my palm. Marcus jerked back as I hurled the broken pieces across the room where they shattered against the far wall.
"Sir—" Marcus started, reaching for my wrist, but I shoved him away.
"Get me a location," I snarled, already ripping the monitoring leads from my chest. The machines screamed their protests, flatline alarms shrieking as I swung my legs off the bed. The room tilted sideways but I gripped the bedframe and forced myself upright. "Now, Marcus. I want her coordinates in the next ten minutes or I'll feed you to the fucking wolves myself."
"You're in no condition—"
"Now."
He fled. Smart man.
I stood there swaying, one hand braced against cold metal, the other pressed to my chest where my heart was doing its level best to stop beating entirely. The poison had progressed faster than anticipated—my lips were going numb, my vision blurring at the edges—but none of that mattered because somewhere out there, my escaped property was playing nurse to some boy she spoke to like he was precious, and the jealousy burning through my veins was more toxic than any lunar venom.
Who is he to her? A lover? The idea made my jaw clench hard enough to taste blood, though logic argued against it—she'd been locked in Eden for three years. Family, then? Possible, given the elven features I'd glimpsed before they'd fled, but her tone suggested something more complex than simple blood relation.
A protégé. Someone she'd taken under her wing, sworn to protect. The kind of emotional investment that made people do catastrophically stupid things.
Like refuse to abandon them even when freedom beckoned.
Like come back for a dying man because guilt was a chain more binding than any collar.
My mouth curved into something that probably resembled a smile but felt more like a snarl. So that was her weakness, laid bare in the gentle cadence of her voice. Not money, not power, not even her own survival—but the safety of those she'd claimed as hers.
Perfect. And mine to exploit.
Marcus returned within eight minutes, breathless and pale, tablet thrust forward like a shield. "Location locked, sir. Riverside Inn, forty-seven miles northeast in Millbrook. It's a—"
"Cheap motel that rents by the hour and doesn't ask questions." I took the tablet, studying the blinking red dot with predatory focus. Forty-seven miles. She'd made excellent time, probably swam the estate's reservoir and hiked through wilderness to reach that backwater town. "Prep the helicopter. I want her back within the hour."
"Sir." Marcus's voice carried the careful neutrality of a man delivering bad news to someone actively dying. "Your father has been asking questions about the antidote. If we deploy the helicopter, if there's any significant movement of assets, he'll know something's happening. He'll want to know what."
I froze, one hand already reaching for my jacket. Father. Victor Blackwood, head of the family, keeper of secrets, the man currently convinced that only my escaped "experiment" held the key to saving my life. If he caught wind that I'd located her, that I was well enough to mount a retrieval operation, he'd start asking questions I couldn't afford to answer.
Questions like why I'd let her go in the first place. Why I'd poisoned myself with her weapon instead of simply breaking her. Why I seemed more interested in recapturing one specific runaway elf than in securing the antidote.
Fuck. I set the tablet down with deliberate care. The helicopter was out—too visible, too loud, too likely to draw Father's attention. Which meant ground transport, discreet vehicles, a small team.
"Change of plans," I said, my voice steady despite the poison making my extremities go numb. "No helicopter. Take one of the unmarked SUVs from the secondary garage, the ones without GPS tracking. Assemble a team—three men, maximum, all from my personal guard. Tell them we're conducting surveillance on a potential Genesis asset, nothing more."
"And if your father asks—"
"Tell him I'm resting comfortably and the medical team is monitoring my condition." I pulled on my jacket, ignoring the way my hands shook slightly. "Which is technically true. I am resting. Just not here."
Marcus opened his mouth, probably to deliver another well-meaning objection about my imminent cardiac failure, then thought better of it. "The team will be ready in fifteen minutes, sir."
"Make it ten." I checked the audio feed one more time, listening to Lirael's voice murmur something soothing to the boy, and felt that vicious possessiveness surge again. "And Marcus? Tell them to bring restraints. The kind that won't damage delicate elven skin but will absolutely prevent escape attempts."
"Understood, sir." He paused at the door.
"And Marcus? Make sure the restraints for the boy are visible. Uncomfortable. The kind that make a point."
His expression flickered with something that might have been distaste, quickly suppressed. "As you wish, sir."
Alone again, I returned my attention to the audio feed. The boy was asking about someone named Sophia—the real Sophia, not my little impostor—and I filed that detail away for later interrogation. But what caught my attention, what made my pulse quicken despite the poison slowly stopping my heart, was the way Lirael's voice changed when she made her promise.
"I'll help you find proof. Evidence of what Victor did. Not just to Sophia, but to all of them."
All of them. Meaning the elves my father had hunted, captured, experimented on over the decades. And she was promising this boy—this child—that she'd bring Father down, as if that were something achievable rather than a suicide mission dressed up as heroism.
The rage I felt shifted, transmuting into something colder and infinitely more dangerous. She wasn't just running from me anymore. She was planning something, building alliances, preparing for war against my family. Against me, by extension, because there was no universe in which I'd allow her to harm Father, no matter how many elves he'd killed.
You foolish, brilliant, suicidal little thing. I wanted to reach through the audio feed and shake her, make her understand that there were some battles you didn't fight, some enemies you survived by avoiding. Father wasn't just powerful—he was ancient, ruthless in ways that made my own cruelty look like childish tantrums. If she came at him, she'd die. Slowly. Painfully.
Unless I got to her first.
The SUV was waiting when I emerged from the medical wing, Marcus behind the wheel and three of my most trusted guards in the back. I climbed into the passenger seat, ignoring their poorly concealed concern—pale skin, purple-tinged lips, the slight tremor in my hands.
"Drive," I said simply, and Marcus obeyed.
Forty-seven miles had never seemed so far.
I spent the journey listening to Lirael's voice through the bug, tracking her movements through the motel room—the rustle of plastic bags, running water, footsteps crossing from bed to bathroom and back. Every sound painted a picture, and I found myself reconstructing her actions with obsessive detail.
Smart girl. But not smart enough, because she'd made one critical error: she'd assumed I'd wait for her to come back on her own terms, that I'd sit in my sterile medical room counting down the hours until my heart stopped, passive and pathetic and hoping she'd choose to save me.
She'd forgotten that I was a hunter first. And hunters didn't wait for prey to come to them.
"ETA twelve minutes, sir," Marcus said quietly.
"Good." I leaned back, closing my eyes and focusing on the steady rhythm of the audio feed. Lirael was in the bathroom now, water running, and I imagined her standing at that cracked sink, staring at her reflection, trying to convince herself that she'd made the right choice by leaving me to die.
You haven't, little one. You've only delayed the inevitable.
Because when I found her—and I would find her, soon—I was going to make absolutely certain she understood that freedom was an illusion, that every choice she thought she was making had been orchestrated by me from the start, and that the only place she truly belonged was exactly where I could see her, touch her, own her.
Even if I had to drag her back by that beautiful silver hair.
Even if it killed us both.