Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) - J.R. Ward Page 0,136
to believe that their time was so short.
Today, at around three twenty-one p.m.—not that she was counting—they’d discovered that, yes, it was confirmed, the lung cancer was in his brain, too.
Before long, his quality of life was going to nosedive … because he had turned down treatment. After a team of C.P. Phalen’s doctors had looked at all the scans, and then talked with other experts in the nation, and gotten together a semblance of a plan …
He had said no, thank you.
No chemo. No radiation. Nothing but comfort measures.
She didn’t blame him. Six pretty good months without, nine miserable months with. Why ruin the time he had? The time they had—
“Penny for your thoughts?” he said as he stepped out and slid the door shut behind himself. “Or would you rather keep them private?”
“Just remembering what we did upstairs in the Jacuzzi.”
“Ahhh … I like those thoughts.” He took a sip of his Jack and soda—and as he coughed, he covered it up quick, then talked through the tail end of the fit—as if, as long as he ignored it, it didn’t exist. “I like them very much.”
As he wrapped his arm around and pulled her in close, she molded her body to his and welcomed his kiss. In the lee of the setting sun, and in the pleasant cuddle of the warm spring air, she drank in the eternity they grabbed at every moment they were together.
When he eased back, she ran her hands over his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What for?”
“For bringing the end so damned soon.”
“Oh, my God, like it’s your fault.” She shook her head. “Daniel. It’s not your fault.”
“I just want you to know that the last three weeks have been the best weeks of my life. And whatever time we have ahead of us, it’s more than I could have expected or deserved. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“I feel the same.” When his expression grew remote, she frowned. “What is it?”
Taking her hand, he led her over to an arrangement of wrought iron furniture. It went without saying that they sat together on the love seat. She wanted to be close to him as much as possible, and he felt the same.
Daniel swirled his Jack around in the rocks glass. “There’s something I want to do before I go.”
Lydia took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it. Whatever it is—”
“We’re going to find your family, your people.”
She lifted her brow. “I told you, my grandfather’s passed—”
“Not that family.”
“… oh.”
Daniel took her hand and rubbed the center of her palm with his thumb. “I’m not leaving you alone in this world. There are more of you here. Somewhere. And I have a contact that can help us find—”
“Come on, Daniel. This isn’t a Stephen King novel. What do you think—that there’s, like, a lair of the wolven somewhere in the woods?”
“We’re going to find your people, so you’re not alone. After I’m gone.”
Lydia looked up at the backside of C.P. Phalen’s enormous house. And thought of Candy and Sheriff Eastwind, both of whom had been by regularly as soon as they had heard of Daniel’s cancer.
The story of everything at the WSP was an illusion sold to the press and the state law enforcement officials: Rick had killed Peter, and then himself, over a simple embezzlement scheme miraculously untied to anything that had to do with genetic experiments. Past or present. It had been big news for a short while—after which the nation’s twenty-four-hour shock-information cycle had moved on to something else.
And Lydia was still working at the WSP. At least on paper.
In reality, she hadn’t left C.P.’s estate since she’d been flown in and treated for her gunshot wound. And she wasn’t going to leave. Daniel had been invited to stay for comfort measures and he’d accepted the offer.
So no, they weren’t going anywhere.
“But I thought you said it wasn’t safe for me out there.” She focused on the horizon. “That because of the way things went, your agency was still coming after me. Still coming after C.P.”
With a grim curse, he put his glass aside. “I really can’t leave here … without knowing you’re with people who understand and can protect you.”
She thought of the wolves in the preserve, the way they had come and surrounded them. Protected them. Saved them both.
“That’s why you refused treatment, isn’t it.” She tilted his chin when he looked away. “That’s why.”
“I don’t have a lot of time left, Lydia. And I’ve found someone who I think can help. I used some back channels to get the contact. It’s a woman by the name of Alex Hess. I’ve never met her, but somebody I know and trust has. Word has it, she’s got some familiarity with the experiments on those floppy disks.”
“Did she work at the labs?”
“I don’t know, but my source tells me that she is a gatekeeper. That she will help, if she wants to.”
Lydia shook her head. “Listen, I don’t want to waste what little time we have—”
“Please. This is my last mission. I want to complete … my last mission. For you.”
With a sigh of resignation, she settled down onto his chest and—
“I wish things were different,” he said roughly.
Funny, that was just what she was thinking.
Lydia looked up to his face. “Love is immortal. It survives all things.” She thought of when she had seen him in the veil. And when the same had happened for him. “You’re my future, no matter how little time we have.”
“And you’re my everything.”
They kissed. And kissed again.
“And okay, if it’s that important to you,” she said as she stroked his face some more, “I’ll meet with the woman. But my main focus is on you. You’re all that matters to me right now.”
“It’ll help me … let go, when it’s time.”
Lydia closed her eyes as tears threatened. Over the last couple of weeks, she’d been so careful not to let the dam break—because if she gave in, she was going to sob until there was no breath in her lungs.
And there was going to come a time when she was going to have to breathe for the both of them.
“It’s okay,” Daniel said sadly. “I’m here now. I’m holding you … now—”
There was the sound of the sliding door opening, and then high heels on the terrace.
Lydia took a deep breath and smiled up at C.P. “Well, if it isn’t our hostess with the mostest—” She frowned. “Are you okay?”
C.P. Phalen was not a pacer. She was never hesitant. And she never, ever had to choose her words.
And yet the woman started to walk back and forth in front of the sunset, her profile cast in grim lines.
“Okay,” Daniel said dryly, “I think I’ve proven over the previous weeks that I can handle bad news. Or have you missed all the pathology reports and PET scan results I’ve been getting?”
As C.P. turned to them both, she hesitated some more.
And then she spoke the words that would change everything:
“What if I told you there was another option for you.”
“As opposed to outright croaking?” Daniel drawled as he lifted Lydia’s hand and kissed the back of it. “No offense, but I don’t have a lot of interest in getting stuffed and propped up in the corner—”
C.P.’s eyes locked on Daniel. “What if I could give you … a new life. Through a cure.”
Don’t miss the next installment
of Lydia and Daniel’s love story:
FOREVER
Coming Summer 2022!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WITH SO MANY thanks to the readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood books! This has been a long, marvelous, exciting journey, and I can’t wait to see what happens next in this big world we all love. I’d also like to thank Meg Ruley, Rebecca Scherer and everyone at JRA, and Hannah Braaten, Andrew Nguyen, Jennifer Bergstrom, and the entire family at Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.
Thank you as well to the incredible Robin Covington for all her help and support around Sheriff Eastwind!
To Team Waud, I love you all. Truly. And as always, everything I do is with love to, and adoration for, both my family of origin and of adoption.
Oh, and thank you to Naamah, my Writer Dog II, who works as hard as I do on my books!
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