Snatching my suitcase, I hauled it to the bed and unzipped it. Every garment and item were in disarray. When Daniel ordered me to pack, folding wasn’t a top priority.

Tossing clothes that didn’t have weapons sewn inside to the floor, I hurriedly selected the fleece jacket with a scalpel hidden in the collar and the leggings with a pair of delicate scissors smuggled in the waistband.

Daniel wanted me to have a shower?

Fine. I would shower.

I would prepare.

And I would go to war when he returned.

ECONOMY CLASS.

Public airline.

The worst possible environment for a man like me.

I huddled in my seat, gritting my jaw; doing my best to remember the exercises I’d been taught.

Focus on my own thoughts.

Concentrate on inner pain. Pinch, slice, do whatever it takes to put that barrier up.

Fixate on mundane influences: reading, looking at nature.

I swallowed a groan.

None of it worked.

Glancing around the plane, my condition picked up on homesickness, regret, excitement, loss, and fear. Every person had their own thoughts and those thoughts flew kamikaze in the small space.

Squeezing my eyes, I focused on my ice. Cut had done one thing right raising me. He’d taught me how to focus on hatred and selfishness, shutting everyone out—even their pain.

The lesson hadn’t been easy. If I slipped or didn’t succeed, Jasmine bore the brunt. Cut understood that the pain of those I loved affected me triply hard. In a way, forcing me to listen to his emotions of discipline and control, while blocking out my sister’s agony and unhappiness, gave me the strength to combat the influx of paralyzing emotions from others.

Even while she was hurt right in front of me.

I could stomach my own pain, but when it came to hers…

Just like I can’t stand Nila’s now I love her.

Forcing those memories away, I did my best to relapse into the capsule of snow, but even as the tendrils of ice made their way around my heart, one person centred in my thoughts.

Jasmine.

Because of me, she would never walk again. And that was another reason why I couldn’t abandon her when Nila begged me to leave last night in the stables. Why I owed Kes and Jaz everything because, without them, I would’ve died years ago.

Maybe I should’ve died years ago.

Maybe Nila would’ve remained safe, and Kes wouldn’t be fighting for his life.

Kes would’ve been next in line. If Cut followed the Debt Inheritance rules—without turning into the power hungry bastard he’d become—with the firstborn dead, the contract couldn’t be fulfilled and both Kes and Nila would’ve been free. Nila would’ve married someone far away from the Hawks and would’ve given birth to a daughter as beautiful as her.

Only to be ruined a generation later.

The ice I tried to cultivate thawed, leaving me wretched.

It wasn’t the thought of future debts, but the thought of Nila married and happy with another that flayed me alive.

She was mine. I was hers. We were meant to fall in love and finish this. Just like Owen, my doomed ancestor, and his love, Elisa, never could.

Fuck, Nila.

What had she lived through in the hours we’d been apart? What had they done to her since I’d failed her?

“Juice?”

I opened my eyes, glaring at the stewardess. Her emotions bounced between job satisfaction and claustrophobia. She loved to travel but hated to wait on passengers. If I listened harder, I would’ve learned most of her secrets and guessed a lot about her life.

“No.” I looked out the window. “Thank you.”

The darkness of the sky illuminated every few seconds with a red flash from the wing tip, keeping time with my ragged heartbeat.

I hadn’t calmed since Jasmine’s phone call.

After galloping to the garage, I’d left Wings to find his way back to the stables and traded him for a different kind of horse-power. My Harley snarled in the afternoon sun, hurling me down our driveway and to the airport.

I didn’t think to seek out Flaw. I didn’t have time to tell my sister my plan.

All I focused on was getting to the airport and a charter.

However, I should’ve used my brain rather than my fearful heart. There were no charters or private planes available that late in the day. No pilots on call. No one to bribe to fly.

I had no choice but to hurtle to Heathrow and board the next available flight to South Africa. Getting to the airport, buying a ticket, and arguing over the fastest service had all cost valuable time.

Time I didn’t have.

No quick routes. No private planes.

My only option had been a cramped, overbooked flight with three stops before reaching my destination. Even if I’d waited for twenty-four hours and hired a private jet, the long haul commercial flight would’ve been faster.

So I bought a ticket.

I sent Nila a text:

Kite007: I’m coming. Hang on. Do whatever it takes to stay alive. I love you so fucking much.

She hadn’t replied. If she had been able to take her cell phone, she wouldn’t have reception in the sky. And if Cut had stolen it from her, I would have no way to warn her of my arrival.

Yet another problem in my problem-riddled future.

Flying while fearing for the life of a loved one was bad enough. But flying with an empathetic condition and a healing gunshot wound was a hundred times fucking worse.

Every takeoff and landing, every airport and taxi, I lost more of my humanity and focused on bloodlust, plotting what I would do to Cut and Daniel when I arrived.