Chapter 1084
They made it to the helipad where Sylvia’s seaplane was waiting, bobbing against the rig in the rough swell.
“Get him in!” Alistair roared, hauling Lucian into the cargo bay.
They scrambled aboard. The pilot gunned the engines before the door had even closed. The plane bucked over the waves and lifted into the dark sky, leaving the burning Trident Platform shrinking behind them.
Inside the cabin, the scene was grim. Lucian lay stretched out on the floor, his skin ashen, his breathing shallow and wet.
“He’s lost too much blood,” Alistair said, pressing both hands against Lucian’s chest. His hands — usually so steady — were trembling. “He’s going into shock. We won’t make it back to the mainland.”
“We need a transfusion,” Skye said, tearing open the plane’s emergency medical kit. It was well-stocked — Sylvia Stone traveled prepared — but it was not a hospital. “Do we have blood bags?”
“Two bags,” Gabriel shouted over the engine noise, tossing them across. “But he needs volume. Whole blood. His pressure is tanking.”
“I’m O-negative,” Skye said. She shrugged off her sequined blazer and bared her arm. “Universal donor. Hook us up.”
“Skye, no.” Alistair looked up, his face streaked with soot. “This isn’t a sterile environment. It’s dangerous. You’re exhausted.”
“He died for us!” Skye’s voice cracked. “He let them torture him to protect the keys — to protect us. I am not letting him die over a pint of blood.”
She grabbed the tubing and the large-bore needle, then looked at Gabriel. “Do it.”
Alistair held her gaze. He saw the fire in her eyes and knew there was nothing he could say.
“Gabriel,” he said quietly, and nodded.
Gabriel found a vein in Skye’s arm and slid the needle home. He connected the line to Lucian.
Gravity did the rest.
Skye watched her blood move through the clear plastic tube — dark and rich — and disappear into Lucian’s body.
“Stay with me, Lucian,” she whispered, wrapping her free hand around his cold fingers. “Don’t you dare leave me alone with Alistair. He’s terrible at paperwork.”
Lucian’s eyelids fluttered. A faint squeeze of her hand.
“He is…” Lucian mumbled. “Terrible… at everything.”
Alistair let out a choked sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He sat back on his heels, watching the two people he loved most in the world bound together by a thin line of blood.
The cold crept into Skye’s limbs slowly, steadily. Dizziness rolled over her in waves.
“Skye?” Alistair’s voice sounded very far away.
“I’m okay,” she slurred. “Just… tired.”
The world went black.
Skye woke to the smell of antiseptic and the steady beep of a monitor. White walls. White sheets.
She blinked. She was in a hospital room — or rather, a private medical suite. Through the window, the familiar skyline of Sea City stretched across a pale sky. They were back.
She turned her head. In the bed beside her, Lucian was sleeping. He looked pale, bandaged heavily, but the monitor above him traced a steady, rhythmic heartbeat.