Where was he?
Shouldn’t he be here by now?
He could get us to Iceland—
“Dillon?” Lucien frowned, picking up on my thoughts. “How the hell would he be here? He was shot.”
“That won’t stop him from chasing after me.”
“He’s good at hunting you down, Rook, but he’s not that good.” Pulling me away from the smouldering ruins, we headed down the driveway.
“He tagged me.” I caught his eyes. “He put a GPS on me.”
“He didwhat?”
“Don’t act all territorial. He did it to keep me safe.”
“How didn’t I know about this?”
“I didn’t either. Roy Swift found a tracker on my ankle last night. I guessed the only one who either had access to me or threatened to do such a thing was Dil. Roy smashed it the moment he found it, but that doesn’t matter. If Dillon isn’t on death’s door, he’ll be on his way. Might even already be here for all I know.”
“In that case, we better not disappoint him.” Lucien tugged me faster toward the road in the distance. Looking over his shoulder, he narrowed his eyes at the ash pile behind us. A flare of dark satisfaction and heady relief bled through our link. “It took a couple of decades but...I finally got my revenge.”
I wanted to ask him what he planned to do, now Brimstone was finally in his control. I wanted to discuss our future—where we would go, what we would do, but...
I already had the answer.
We’re dying...
We wouldn’t have the luxury of growing old together or having a nice, normal life.
“You know I can feel what you’re thinking,” he whispered, our bodies bumping against each other as if we were drunks leaving a party that’d lasted all night. “Please stop. Have faith that we’ll find a cure, and all of this wasn’t for nothing.”
I wished I could be more positive, but every step sent deeper aches through my bones.
We stopped in front of the estate’s wrought iron gates. A stag head waited proudly in the centre, his antlers branching out likevines.
Lucien pressed a button on the concrete post, activating the gate opener. We didn’t speak as the antlers cracked down the centre, swinging the stag’s silhouette wide, nor did we look back as we stepped out of the Swift home and onto the main road.
My heart skipped a few beats as we looked left and right, studying the stone walls snaking down the long expanse of a pretty country lane. Dense oak trees dappled us with shadows, and a squirrel darted past, kicking up leaves in the ditch.
No Dillon.
And the thought of walking...
Pasting on a smile, I turned to Lucien, hoping he couldn’t sense just how cold I was, how tired and sick and dizzy. “We’ll walk to the closest house and ask to use their phone. We’ll call Sovereign Retrieval to pick us up.”
Neither of us mentioned how fast time was running out.
We didn’t say a word.
He merely clutched my hand and dragged me down the road.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE THOUGHT OF WALKING FOR MILES to the closest house or pub made me want to punch something.
Rook visibly faded beside me.
