<h4>Chapter 361: Lucian And Rafe</h4>


    <strong>Lucian’s POV</strong>


    Rafe still hadn’t returned, even though it waste.


    I should have been with Eira tonight as well. I wasn’t done with her. But worry for that bastard had clouded my mind.


    She needed rest, so I didn’t stop her when she went to Kael’s room. She had missed her time with Raven as well.


    When I went to the security in charge, he informed me that the guards who had apanied Rafe to handover that bitch Sophia had already returned. Rafe had dismissed them midway and left on his own.


    Frustration boiled inside me.


    As expected of that bastard. I could never count on spending a single peaceful night when he was around.


    I returned inside, put on my jacket, grabbed the car keys, and headed out to get him.


    "Has he not returned yet?" Jason asked as he stepped out of his room, probably worried for Rafe too.


    I shook my head, keeping my irritation under control. "He disappeared somewhere again."


    "Must have gone hunting," Jason said calmly. "He likes to hunt for blood once in a while."


    "Maybe," I replied, though I doubted it. I knew him better than that.


    "I aming with you," Jason offered.


    I shook my head. "Just keep checking with security. I’ll get him. Don’t worry."


    He didn’t insist.


    I got into my car and drove fast as if I couldn’t wait to get to him.


    His phone was switched off, hiding his location. But I could guess the one ce he he could have gone to, the ce he preferred when he wished to be alone.


    It took me half an hour to reach the dense road where I had to park outside the boundary and continue on foot. I used my speed to run through the trees, unable to ignore the restless feeling tightening in my chest.


    And I swear I didn’t have a good feeling about it.


    I wasn’t sure how, but I could just sense it about him. That’s how I could always catch him before he did something reckless.


    Or maybe it was simply because I had known him for years and understood his ways too well.


    Finally, I reached the clearing.


    It was a semi-circr patch of empty grasnd hidden within the woods. Beyond it stood a cliff overlooking a vast river below.


    This was his ce.


    The ce he came to be alone. The ce where he sometimes brought his targets and gave them cruel deaths while his little friends, the vultures feasted afterward.


    As expected, he was there, sitting near the cliff, his back facing me.


    Relief settled in my mind when I saw him safe. But something else tightened in my chest.


    Watching him sit there alone, facing the dark sky, made him look... lonely. Lost.


    Maybe it was just my imagination.


    I walked toward him quietly, making sure he wouldn’t sense me. After spending so many years together, we had learned how to mask our presence from one another when it’s needed.


    As I strode forward, something caught my eye.


    My steps faltered for a fraction of a second before my fists clenched at my sides, knuckles whitening, my jaw locking so tightly. Anger surged through my veins, hot and blinding.


    <i>I should have known better.</i>


    In the next heartbeat, I moved like a gust of wind, closing the distance between us and snatching the object from his hand.


    He stared at his now empty palm, then lifted his gaze to me. Shock flickered across his features before hardening into irritation. "What the fuck are you doing here?"


    "I should be the one asking you that," I shot back, my voice sharp as steel.


    His eyes dropped to the t box clutched in my hand. "And you have your answer."


    I tightened my grip on it, my fingers digging into the edges as though I could crush it into dust.


    He sprang to his feet at once, his voice cold and full of warning, "Don’t you dare destroy this one. If you do..."


    I did not let him finish.


    With a single, deliberate motion, I hurled the box over the edge of the cliff.


    For a heartbeat, the world stood still.


    The calm mask he wore shattered. Fury ignited in his eyes.


    I kept my calm, "You said not to destroy it... Rafe... Bastard..."


    Before thest word fully left my mouth, he hadunched himself off the cliff, diving headlong toward the churning water below, chasing after the box I had thrown away.


    "Fuck!"


    I leapt after him without another thought.


    <i>I am not going to let him have it. I am not letting him kill himself. </i>Fuck! My heart pained with just the thought of it.


    The fall felt endless. The rush of air roared in my ears, tearing at my clothes, stealing the breath from my lungs. When my body finally struck the water, the impact was brutal, the cold slicing through me like a thousand des.


    It was fucking deep from the mountain cliff.


    Even as I plunged several feet beneath the water surface, disoriented by the force of the fall, my mind clung to one thought only. <i>Where is that bastard? Did he get the box?</i>


    I forced my limbs to move and pushed upward in cold water. When I came to the surface, dragging in a ragged breath, my gaze searched frantically for him.


    <i>There.</i>


    He was already swimming toward the shore, strong strokes cutting through the water. This river was nothing new to him, used to swimming in it like a part of it.


    And, the box was in his hands.


    <i>Damn it. I underestimated him.</i>


    The lightweight box must have floated, and he had caught it before it could drift away.


    I swam after him with everything I had, ignoring the burn in my muscles and the cold that seeped into my bones.


    He was not getting that drug. Not under my watch. Not as long as I was alive.


    I did not know how or from where he had gotten it this time. Every time I destroyed one source, another surfaced. It was like hydra heads. Cut one off and two more grew in its ce.


    Was I such a failure that I could not eliminate them all?


    By the time I reached the shore, he had already hauled himself out of the water. And I followed.


    We stood there, soaked to the skin, chests heaving, breaths ragged from the punishing fall and the long swim across what felt like an endless stretch of water.


    The box was still in his grasp.


    "Rafe, listen to me."


    This time I forced myself to remain rational, to keep my voice steady despite the storm raging within me.


    "You listen to me, Luke," he snapped, his eyes zing with a fury he rarely allowed anyone to witness. He dragged a hand through his damp hair, pushing it back from his face. "Why the fuck do you have to meddle in my life all the time? Why the fuck can’t you stay away from my matters?"


    Anger did not suit him, yet it made him startlingly real. He had always worn the mask of the careless, unbothered, cool bastard who drifted through life untouched. To see that mask crack unsettled me.


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