Goodbye, My Mate

Chapter 207

Finn's POV

Cole hesitated, his eyes darting to the room behind me before he spoke. "The lab called. There's… a situation. Gean didn't explain much over the phone, but it sounds bad."

My stomach dropped at the mention of the lab. "What happened?"

Cole lowered his voice, as if afraid someone might overhear. "The lab's on fire. The girl who was with Lucas—she attacked him. Injured him pretty badly, then ran into the fire. They're searching for her body now."

I held up a hand, silencing him, and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind me. Lycidas didn't need to hear this. Not yet. I motioned for Cole to follow me to the garage, where we could speak without prying ears.

Once we were in the car, I turned to him, my expression hard. "What happened?"

Cole took a deep breath, his hands gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline. "Gean said Lucas is with Dr. Jafar. The girl… she forced him to accept her refusal, then stabbed him in the chest. After that, she ran into the fire. They've put it out, but they haven't found her body."

I stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror, the corners of my lips stained with something dark. I wiped it away with a tissue, my movements cold and deliberate. "They won't find her," I said, crumpling the tissue and tossing it into the trash.

Cole frowned, confusion etched across his face. "Why not?"

"Because Lycans don't die," I said, my voice flat. "They just keep living, causing more trouble than they're worth."

I opened the car door and stepped out, Cole scrambling to follow. "Alpha, aren't you going back?" he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

"Tell Gean to come see me this afternoon," I said, not looking back. "We'll need to rebuild the lab. And send a message to Jalin. Tell him that I need to meet up with Lucian first thing tomorrow morning."

Cole nodded quickly. "Yes, Alpha."

He hesitated for a moment, then added, "About Lucas… he's still alive. The girl went for his heart, but…"

I stopped walking, my back still to him. "Are you joking? How can you say someone is still alive if he doesn't have a heart?"

Cole didn't answer. I didn't expect him to. As I was about to walk away, Cole followed me up and said, "Alpha... I'm very confused. He's your half-brother. He's the only family that you've got..."

I stopped, my voice dropping to a whisper. "You have a brother, don't you? What's his name? Rory?"

"Yes, Alpha," Cole swallowed hard.

"He's His Majesty's head of security at the Court. What would you do if he was in danger?"

Cole's face paled, but he didn't falter. "It's different, Alpha. He cut ties with me. He doesn't care if I live or die. He hates me. But you love your brother. That's why you made all the efforts to save him from prison!"

I smiled, a cold, mirthless smile."The only reason I saved him from prison was I wanted to use him to get all the contacts of rebels."

Cole's voice was trembling. "But he's the only family that you've got now."

I leaned in closer, my breath brushing his ear. "Yes, indeed. You can't cut off blood, Cole. It's in your veins. Written there. You can pretend to ignore it, but it's always there. Like branding, or a curse."

And with that, I walked away, leaving Cole standing there, his face a mask of fear.

His words did strike a cord in me.

The weight of blood was a heavy burden, one I couldn't escape. But then again, neither could Lucas.

And neither could Leah.

-

I sat in the presidential suite, the blaze of Los Angeles still burning outside my window. The city was a pyre, its flames licking the night sky, and I couldn't shake the illusion that the world might crumble before the fire ever died. My office was a fortress of glass and steel, but the chaos outside made it feel like a cage. I lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around me like a shroud, and waited. The call came earlier than I expected.

When the phone rang, I didn't need to look at the number to know it was Jalin. I took a long drag before answering, my voice calm, almost mocking. "Jalin, how are you doing?"

"Cut the crap," he snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. "What the hell did you do?"

I exhaled slowly, watching the smoke dissipate into the air. "I was just about to ask you. A lab in Mediland burned down. Do you know who set the fire?"

His silence was telling. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, the way they always did when he was calculating his next move. Finally, he spoke, his tone colder than ice. "If you talk like this, I'll hang up."

I smiled, leaning back in my chair. "If you hang up now, you won't be able to get through next time."

He didn't bite. Instead, he shifted the conversation, his voice dripping with venom. "I've turned a blind eye to you all these years. I've never asked about the dirty things you instructed Leo to do in the lab. Aren't you satisfied with that?"

I chuckled. "Wow. His Highness Leonard is a Lycan Prince. He does whatever he wants to do and I can never instruct him to do anything. We never can force the Lycans to do things that they didn't want to do in the first place, right?"

Jalin remained silent.

I chuckled, tapping the ash from my cigarette. "I don't know what Leo is doing. But now that you're talking about it, I suddenly have a guess. Maybe you knew Leo's experiment would never succeed, so you let him continue with the enhancement project. Maybe you have tampered with the material used in the experiment. Maybe there's something wrong with the supply..."

"Stop talking nonsense," he growled. "What do you want from Lucian?"