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Couldn’t move.
I screamed.
No one heard me.
I tried to climb.
I fell back down.
I begged Sully not to leave me.
Only darkness replied.
Chapter Ten
DARKNESS HAD DESCENDED BEFORE I gained consciousness.
I woke on the Oriental silk rug that my father had bought in Taiwan after buying the copyrights to an anti-aging serum made of rhino horn—one I obliterated from my pharmaceuticals the moment I took power.
Lights had come on automatically and snow fell softly outside—worlds away from my crystal sand and swaying palms.
No birds flew, making my heart pang for two parrots that’d been a part of my life for so many years.
That hurt.
So fucking much.
I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to Pika or Skittles. I wouldn’t be able to explain to them why I never came home.
Home.
I had no heirs. No one to bequeath my islands and fortunes to.
I struggled into a slouched sitting position, careful not to twinge my leg.
My gaze fell on Eleanor. She lay across the room in a foetal pose. Her arms wrapped tight around her knees as if she dreamed of horrors. Her hair covered her shoulders like a coffee blanket, tendrils hiding her nipples and cleavage.
Her.
She was my heir.
She and Cal would inherit it all because they were the purest people I knew.
My to-do list before death had just increased.
Time is running out.
If you want her one last time…you better hurry.
Looking past Eleanor to Drake, I curled my fists. Still locked in the illusion, he sat stiff on the couch he’d tied Eleanor too. Sweat ran in rivulets off him, staining the embroidered settee with wetness. His skin was so white, his veins stood out like the wiring of a machine, criss-crossing blue veins and red arteries.
He panted short, tight breaths as if he fully believed he had no lungs to inflate.
He moaned and thrashed, his eyes tightly closed.
Blood trickled from his nose and ears, symptoms of his brain suffering aneurysms from what I’d done to him inside our shared hallucination.
Seeing him whole after watching his avatar be devoured made my need to hurt him billow again. I might have torn apart his mind. I might have turned him into a vegetable that he’d always mocked and reduced him to something I could uproot from my gardens in Lebah, but his body was still whole.
No bones had been broken; no physical punishment delivered.
Had I done enough? Or should I hurt his body as well as his soul?
A knock sounded, wrenching my head to the closed double doors. “Mr. Sinclair…Sullivan, not Drake. You alive?”
“Ye—” I choked and coughed, my voice returning to that of a mortal man instead of a fanged monster. “Yes, I’m alive. It’s done. I require your services.”
The door cracked open, and the leader of the mercenaries, hired from a firm I’d used in the past, entered. His black hair was slicked back, his goatee trim and precise, just like his aim. “What can we do?”
Two men trailed after him, staying back for commands.
Still on the floor, not willing to risk passing out again, I pointed past the Euphoria boxes to the defib on the couch beside Drake. “Do you know how to use one of those?”
The leader stepped closer, holstering his weapon when he saw Drake weaving and moaning, another trickle of blood seeping from his ears.
His lips twisted in disgust, a quick flicker of wariness at me for what I’d done, before he glanced at the medical bag and nodded. “The travel defibrillator. Yes, I was in the Army as a medic. I’m aware of how they work.”
“Good.” Holding out my hand, I barked, “Help me up.”
The leader marched to me, gritting his teeth against my proximity as he hauled me up onto one leg and passed me the cane from the floor. He shot a look at naked Eleanor sleeping on the carpet and back to nude Drake drooling with the occasional hiccupping sob. “What happened?”
“Nothing that didn’t need to happen.” Curling my hand around the smooth ball of the cane, I ordered, “Hook him up to the defib. Have one of your men sit beside him. The moment he shows signs of falling asleep, zap him. I want him to stay awake until I say so, got it?”
The leader nodded respectfully with a fair dose of wariness. “Consider it done.”
With the help of my cane, I limped toward Eleanor. Her skin puckered with goosebumps, and even in a drugged sleep, she shivered.
Unlike her nakedness, I still wore my clothing, fully aware that we weren’t in the tropics and even a heated house was not warm enough for long stints of nudity.
She needs a bed and covers.
Now.
Drake let out a guttural groan.
I narrowed my gaze, looking his way as he swayed and jerked as if something gnawed his bones. The mercenaries swallowed hard as more blood gushed from his ears, staining the sides of his face with crimson.
