Chapter 145
Lysander’s pov
The red glow of the estate’s perimeter wards didn’t burn me as I slipped through the iron gate, but it felt like a branding iron scraping over my soul.
It was four in the morning. The rain had softened into a thin, freezing mist that clung to the dark pines and hung heavy over the stone courtyard.
The house stood towering and quiet against the black sky, its massive glass windows reflecting nothing but fog and the distant, dying moonlight.
My boots made no sound against the wet grass as I kept to the shadows along the eastern wall. Every muscle in my body was screaming. The drugs were entirely gone now, leaving behind a deep, hollow ache in my limbs, a sour metallic taste in my throat, and a raw, sickening terror that made my breath come in ragged, silent hitches.
I reached the service door beneath the north terrace.
My fingers were so stiff from the cold that typing the five-digit override code took three agonizing attempts. The keypad chimed softly, the heavy steel door disengaging with a quiet, dull click.
I slid inside, pulling the door closed until the latch caught.
The warmth of the house hit me instantly, smelling of cedar, polished wood, and the faint, underlying ozone of Drake’s presence. It felt like walking into a trap. I stood frozen in the dark service corridor for a full minute, my head tilted, straining my ears toward the upper floors.
Drake wasn’t downstairs. The guards weren’t pacing the hallway.
I took off my soaked, mud-caked boots, leaving them hidden behind a stack of unused wooden crates in the storage alcove. I stripped off my drenched hoodie, holding it by the edges like it was covered in acid. It smelled of rainwater, ditch mud, and the sickly-sweet cherry tobacco that belonged to Darius.
I shoved the hoodie deep into the bottom of an empty canvas laundry bag, hiding it beneath a pile of drop cloths.
In my thin, damp t-shirt and socks, I moved like a shadow up the back staircase.
My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I was terrified the house sensors would pick up the rhythm. Every floorboard felt like a landmine. Every shadow cast by the low nightlights looked like a figure standing in wait.
When I reached the top floor, the master bedroom door was standing half-open.
I held my breath, peeking through the narrow gap. The massive bed was unmade, the dark sheets tossed back, but the room was empty. Drake wasn’t there. His heavy coat wasn’t on the chair, and the air in the room lacked that sharp, electric static that always settled over the space when he was present.
He was still in the city. The Council meeting was keeping him.
A ragged, shuddering breath escaped my throat, my hand flying up to cover my mouth as tears blurred my vision. A reprieve. A few precious minutes to erase the evidence before he walked through the front door and looked at me with those unyielding crimson eyes.
I slipped into the master bathroom, pulling the heavy frosted glass door shut and locking it from the inside.
The bathroom was massive, lined with dark grey slate and warm teak wood. I didn’t turn on the overhead lights. The faint, ambient LED strips beneath the vanity provided just enough pale white light to see.
I walked straight to the glass-enclosed walk-in shower.
My hands were shaking violently as I turned the brass fixture all the way to hot. The pipes hummed, and within seconds, steam began to rise, clouding the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I stripped off the rest of my damp clothes, tossing them onto the bench, and stepped directly under the torrent of scalding water.
It burned, stinging the raw, scrubbed patches on my jaw and wrists, but I didn’t back away. I stood right under the showerhead, letting the hot water slam against my face, my chest, and my shoulders, closing my eyes as the steam filled my lungs.
I grabbed the heavy bar of cedar-and-sandalwood soap—Drake’s soap, the scent that filled this entire house—and began to scrub.
I lathered my hands, my arms, my neck, and my chest, rubbing the rough bar directly against my skin until the surface turned bright, angry red. I washed my hair twice, three times, using half the bottle of scented oil, working it into a thick lather, digging my fingernails into my scalp until it throbbed.
Clean it off, my mind shrieked over the roar of the water. Scrub it until there’s nothing left.
I lathered my throat, tracing the faint, tender ring where the iron suppressant collar had sat. The skin there was bruised, a pale yellow-purple mark that looked like a shadow in the dim light. I rubbed soap over it until it burned, trying to drown out the lingering ghost of Darius’s cold fingers.
It clung to clothes, to skin, to the very air around someone they had dominated. My hybrid nose was sensitive, but Drake’s senses were ancient. If a single molecule of Darius’s scent remained on my skin, Drake would know the second he crossed the threshold. He would smell the rain, the dirt, the dark magic, and the absolute ruin inside me.
"Please," I whispered to the roaring water, my chest heaving, my forearms resting flat against the hot slate wall as I bowed my head. "Please, just let it be clean..."
I stayed under the scalding spray until the water began to turn tepid, until my skin was raw, pruned, and burning.
Finally, I turned off the tap.
The sudden silence in the bathroom was terrifying. I stood dripping on the dark slate, the steam slowly dissipating around me, my chest rising and falling in short, rapid hitches.
I grabbed a thick, dark towel, wrapping it tightly around my waist, and stepped over to the vanity.
I wiped a circle into the fogged mirror with the palm of my hand, forcing myself to look at my reflection.
My face was flushed red from the heat, my hair dripping wet and plastered to my neck. The raw spots on my jaw were inflamed, but the mud and ink were gone. The skin on my neck was bare, save for the faint, pale bruise beneath my collarbone—something I could easily hide under the high neck of a sweater.
My eyes were still bloodshot, the dark circles deep and bruised, but the blown-wide look from the drugs had entirely receded. I looked exhausted. I looked like someone who hadn’t slept in three days—which wasn’t a lie.
I took three deep, slow breaths, forcing my shoulders to drop, forcing my jaw to unclench.
Act normal, I told my reflection, my voice a silent, desperate command in my head. You were in bed. You had a nightmare. You took a hot shower to calm down. That’s all this is.
I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped back into the quiet bedroom.
I pulled a heavy, charcoal-grey wool sweater from the closet, one with a thick rolled collar that completely covered my neck and a pair of soft lounge pants. I pulled them on, the soft fabric feeling like a shield against the cold air of the room. I dried my hair with a towel until it was just damp, tossing the wet towel into the hamper.
I walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, looking out into the foggy courtyard.
The sky in the east was just beginning to turn a pale, bruised violet. Dawn was twenty minutes away.
Down on the winding driveway, the heavy iron gates slid open smoothly with a faint, distant hum. Two bright halogen headlights cut through the thick mountain mist as a sleek black SUV glided up the drive.
My heart stopped dead in my chest.
Drake was home.
I stepped back from the window, my hands shoving deep into the pockets of my sweater to hide their violent tremor. I forced my posture to relax, leaning against the wooden bedpost, closing my eyes as I listened to the quiet, heavy thud of the SUV doors closing in the courtyard below.
The front door opened downstairs.