Chapter 122
Lirael
I closed my eyes as the boat picked up speed.
Unbidden, an image surfaced—Sebastian during the worst of the transformation, amber eyes flickering between beast and man, and in that brief moment of clarity, something that might have been regret. Apology. Recognition of what he was doing to me.
I bit down hard on my lip and forced the image away.
"Ava," I muttered under my breath. "What a common name. Just another wolf noble bred for political marriage. A perfect little tool for Victor's dynasty building."
"What was that?" Selene asked.
"Nothing." I opened my eyes, focusing on the horizon. "How long until we reach the safe house?"
"Three hours, give or take."
Three hours. Then I could collapse. Could stop pretending I was holding it together.
Could stop feeling the phantom echo of Sebastian's heartbeat through the blood bond that shouldn't exist but did, steady and strong and impossible to ignore no matter how far I ran.
We're even now, I'd told him.
But the mark on my throat burned, and deep in my chest, something ached that had nothing to do with physical pain.
I wrapped my arms around myself and watched the lighthouse disappear into the distance, taking with it the last remnants of whatever twisted thing had existed between Sebastian Blackwood and me.
It was over.
It had to be over.
So why did it feel like I'd left something vital behind in that cold stone cell?
"Lirael?" Selene's hand touched my shoulder. "You're shaking."
"I'm fine," I lied. "Just cold."
She didn't believe me—I could see it in her eyes—but she didn't push. Just wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and stayed close as the boat carried us away from the island, away from him, toward whatever uncertain future waited on the mainland.
Behind us, the helicopter lifted off, carrying Sebastian back to his father's estate. Back to his world of power and violence and carefully orchestrated breeding programs.
Back to Ava, who would be everything I refused to be—a proper Alpha mate, politically advantageous, capable of giving him strong wolf heirs without the complication of being prey.
Good, I told myself firmly. She can have him. She can deal with Victor's expectations and the weight of being the perfect Blackwood bride.
I'm done.
But my hand crept up to touch the bandage on my throat, and the lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
The speedboat cut through the grey morning waters, each wave taking us further from the lighthouse. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, refusing to look back, refusing to acknowledge the pull I felt through the blood bond—that damnable connection that whispered of his heartbeat, steady now, alive because of what I'd given him.
The helicopter was just a black dot against the sky now, carrying Sebastian away to his proper life with his proper mate. Carrying him away from the monster he'd made of me in that cell, from the terrible intimacy we'd shared, from the blood and pain that had saved his life and shattered something inside me.
I touched the bandage on my throat one more time, then forced my hand down.
---
Sebastian
I woke to wrongness.
The weight in my arms was all wrong—too light, too rough, smelling of nothing but stale cotton and my own sweat. My mind supplied the phantom sensation of silver hair spilling across my chest, the impossible softness of skin that carried moonlight in its very cells, but reality crashed through the fantasy like a wrecking ball.
It was a fucking blanket.
The rage came before conscious thought. I hurled the thing across the cell hard enough that it hit the stone wall with a satisfying thud, and I was on my feet with my Glock drawn before the blanket hit the floor, finger on the trigger, every instinct screaming threat.
A figure stood by the mirror, backlit by weak morning sun. Female. Wrong height. Wrong scent. Wrong everything.
"Good morning," Ava said, her voice carrying that particular blend of practiced warmth and calculated deference that marked her as Victor's creature through and through. "I hope you slept—"
"Don't. Move." The gun didn't waver.
She froze, hands rising in a placating gesture that just made me want to pull the trigger more. "I received an encrypted message indicating someone here required extraction. When I arrived, you were unconscious and—"
"And you thought you'd make yourself useful by tidying up?" My eyes went to the mirror behind her. Blood writing, smeared half away. I could make out fragments: From now on, we owe nothing. Goodbye forever.
Something cold and vicious coiled in my chest.
"I was trying to help," Ava said carefully. "There was quite a mess, and I thought perhaps—"
The blanket at my feet still held her scent. I bent and grabbed it, bringing the fabric to my face, and there it was—that maddening combination of moonlight and growing things that had haunted me for weeks, overlaid now with blood and pain and something else, something that made my pupils blow wide and my breath catch.
She'd been here. In my arms. And then she'd left.
I looked at Ava, at her perfectly styled auburn hair and her expensive evening gown that was completely ridiculous for a rescue mission, and I understood. Victor had sent his latest project to check on me, to assess the situation, and she'd taken it upon herself to clean up the evidence of exactly what had happened in this cell.
"You wiped the mirror," I said, voice flat and deadly quiet.
"I—yes, I thought you'd want—"
I fired.
The bullet took the mirror dead center, and the whole thing exploded into a thousand glittering fragments. Ava jerked back with a startled curse, and I had the grim satisfaction of seeing genuine fear flash across her face before she bolted for the door.
Good. Run back to Victor and tell him his chosen bride nearly got her skull ventilated. See how that played with the old man's dynasty plans.
I turned back to the ruined mirror, my fractured reflection staring back from a dozen jagged pieces. The writing was completely destroyed now, but I didn't need to see it. The words were already burned into my brain, along with the ghost of her touch and the phantom weight of her in my arms.
We're even now.
Like hell we were.