My mind raced with sourcing him the best possible meal. I would call the best possible vets. And do my very fucking best to protect what Rook and Lucien had left behind.
I meant what I’d said down in the lab. I would protect him for the rest of his life if he would let me. I would never let anything bad happen to him. I would give him everything he ever wanted—trying to ease my guilt over failing my little employer and giving her soul some peace of mind, knowing that the cat she’d fallen in love with was safe.
Frank groaned as he settled into the front seat. His frostbitten fingers fumbled with his seatbelt, trying to buckle himself in. “I’m glad you talked me out of bringing the team of construction workers. You were right. Not just about checking out how safe the site was but...I don’t want anyone digging up anything. The lab is gone. It’s going to stay that way. Let them rest in peace.”
“It should stay buried.” I climbed into the driver’s seat, buckling in and looking over my shoulder at Whisper. The panther raised his head off his paws and looked directly at me. I felt his stare deep in my heart. Felt him judging me, condemning me, but also accepting me.
It made me sit a little taller, eager to redeem myself and not drown in agonising grief.
“Let’s get you treated and fed, huh?”
Whisper rolled his eyes and dropped his chin back onto his legs.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Straightening up, I turned the key and slipped the vehicle into drive.
As we drove through the icy wilderness, leaving Rook and Lucien behind, Frank murmured, “Maybe one day we’ll see them again.”
I glanced at the old man out of the corner of my eye and held my tongue.
I believed in powers beyond this world. I came from a family who respected forces and unexplainable things, but...even I couldn’t believe that they’d survived something no one else ever had.
They were gone.
If reincarnation existed, they were already living a new life elsewhere.
I just hoped it was happier than this one.
Forcing a smile, I patted his hand and just said, “Yeah, maybe. One day...”
Chapter Forty
One year...
Chapter Forty-One
Three years...
Chapter Forty-Two
Ten years...
Chapter Forty-Three
Twenty years...
“MY FATHER WAS NOT A PERFECT MAN.”
I held onto Whisper’s velvety ear as Frank’s eldest son gave the eulogy at his father’s funeral. The same glacier that’d become Rook and Lucien’s tomb two decades ago now became the home of Frank’s ashes as his entire family came to say goodbye.
His wife had died a few months before, and I had no doubt Frank died of a broken heart. He’d worked tirelessly in Snowflake Corp for the last twenty years—systematically erasing any lab work or scientific advancements that’d been done in secret in the arctic tundra.
The renewable energy that Snowflake Corp provided increased in revenue and became the largest energy provider in the world after Brimstone Industries shut down.
I’d followed the news and political excuses of why Lucien’s company failed, but nothing was ever mentioned in the media that the reactors needed Ashfall blood to operate, and...the last Ashfall was now dead.
I had no idea what happened to his assets or income.
And I didn’t care.
