“I’m asking you to do it as your friend. I want her to be happy, Ash.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on the desk. “Let me take her pain as well as mine. I’d rather carry that burden than forget a single second we spent together.”
Ash sat absolutely motionless for a moment. Hugh couldn’t guess what was going on behind the Phoenix’s impenetrable eyes.
“I must warn you that the loss does not get better,” Ash said at last, softly. “The grief does not pass.”
He held the Phoenix’s gaze, unflinching. “If it hurts for the rest of my life…it will still have been worth it.”
An unexpected, heartfelt, and utterly obscene curse from the hallway made them both turn. A second later, Chase slunk sheepishly into view.
“Sorry,” he said. “The door was, uh, destroyed. I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“Indeed,” Ash said, his tone notably cooler. “Perhaps that would have been more easily avoided if you had been at your assigned post.”
Chase winced, but stayed put. “I need to talk to Hugh. I should have done it earlier, I should have called you—damn it, I should never have told her in the first place! But she was so insistent, so certain it would help you, and I thought you couldn’t still feel the mate-connection since you weren’t a shifter anymore, so it truly seemed best—oh, I’m an idiot. An utter idiot. You’re going to want to break every bone in my body. You should break every bone in my body.”
“Chase,” Hugh said, finally managing to insert a word into the torrent of remorse. “What are you babbling about?”
“Ivy was here earlier. But she didn’t come to see Ash. She came to see me.” Chase scrubbed a hand over his face, looking sickened. “And I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Chapter 29
Rear cell block, top floor, third window from the right.
That was what Chase had told her. Perched in an old oak tree outside the prison walls, Ivy narrowed her eyes. Despite the distance and the darkening evening, her keen wyvern vision easily picked out the right cell. Now she just had to wait.
She was only going to get one shot at this.
This prison wasn’t a top-security facility, but she had no doubt that she’d trip some sort of alarm the instant she flew over the high concrete outer wall. She’d only have a few minutes at best.
But a few minutes were all she needed. The cell block walls were steel-reinforced and designed to withstand even a dragon…but nothing was stronger than wyvern acid. One blast at the barred window, and she’d be inside.
And then she’d help Hugh the only way she could.
Tell me where the police are holding Gaze, she’d said to Chase. And you’ll never have to see me again.
She hadn’t dared explain much more than that. After she was caught—and she would be caught—she didn’t want anyone to be able to accuse the pegasus shifter of colluding with her.
Still, Chase was no fool. She’d known from the way that his simmering hostility had turned to unease that he’d worked out what she intended to do with the information. He already thought of her as a dangerous assassin, after all.
But, as she’d hoped, his fierce loyalty and protectiveness had worked in her favor for once. He wanted to help Hugh nearly as much as she herself did. Add in the fact that it also meant that Chase would be rid of her for once and for all, and it was just too good a bargain for him to turn down.
Chase had told her where to come. Now she just had to wait for the right moment to strike.
Yes, her wyvern hissed in bloodthirsty approval. Spit. Strike. Kill. Destroy all threats to our mate!
For once she didn’t attempt to hold back her beast’s murderous instincts. Acid burned at the base of her throat, more potent and concentrated than ever before. With one act, one breath, she would forever silence Gaze. Hugh’s secret would be safe.
And he would be safe. Not just from potential hunters, but from a far more dangerous threat.
Herself.
She had to be locked up, to protect him. She wasn’t strong enough to just leave him. Plus, there was always the risk that Hugh might track her down—even after the terrible things she’d said.
The only way to be absolutely sure that he’d be safe, that he’d never come into contact with her venom, was to put impenetrable walls between them. Walls that neither of them would be able to breach, even if one or both of them was tempted.
She wouldn’t be locked up in a pleasant, airy prison like this one, open to the wind and sky. No, she would be put away in a maximum-security facility, deep underground, like her own mother. Monsters belonged in dungeons.
I’m sorry, Hope.