Page 165 of Eternal Surrender

“Sunaria, please don’t do this.”

Voices carried from outside the door; other guests were deep in conversation, strolling toward their hotel room with no idea of what was unfolding in this one.

It fell quiet again.

Kneeling beside Lucas, I bit into my wrist and rested it against his lips, giving a little blood at first, just enough to heal his gash, before he came round and realized the state he was in.

“Get rid of her,” Sunaria’s tone was scathing.

One wrong move on my part, and Sunaria would slice Ingrid’s throat.

“The London Eye is over four hundred feet high,” I said. “It’s an observation wheel on the Thames.” I glanced down at Lucas who was clutching my wrist to his mouth, sucking furiously.

“So?” asked Sunaria.

“I want to show it to you,” I said, easing my arm away from Lucas and ruffling his hair with affection.

Sunaria caught my tenderness toward Lucas and threw me a disapproving look.

I knelt in close to Lucas’s ear and whispered, “You always did prefer Piccadilly.”

He squeezed my hand that he’d understood.

I headed for the door and opened it.

Ingrid tumbled forward, burying her face in her hands, and though I didn’t wait to see her cry, I knew she would.

As Sunaria and I left, I wrapped my arm around her waist and said, “I hear the view from the London Eye is spectacular.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When we reached the London Eye, it was closed to the public for a private event. Undeterred, I led Sunaria into the crowd of thirty late-night partygoers before we were guided through to the landing zone. The gigantic Ferris wheel loomed over the River Thames from Parliament Square, situated between Hungerford Bridge and Westminster. What might once have been considered a modern day monstrosity had become a beloved city landmark.

And this was the first time Sunaria had seen it.

Cursing myself for choosing this location so hastily, I hoped that Lucas and Ingrid were faring better back at the hotel.

Still, this felt like a reasonable solution in the chaos. Sunaria and I stepped into our own private pod and sat upon the central wooden seat. We took off effortlessly, gliding upward in its seamless rotation, its glass panels allowing a magnificent, if not terrifying, panoramic view.

Just beyond this small closed-in space, life was suspended, if only for a while.

Both of us were awed by the dramatic nightscape that unfolded beneath us, brilliantly showing off Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Bridge, and then reaching out farther, unveiling all the way to the vast dark horizon.

“You’d have told me anything to have gotten me out of there,” she said.

“What you did to Lucas was despicable,” I told her the truth.

With a turn of her head, she brushed off my statement.

I wondered if anything good could come from this meeting, questioning my judgment for locking myself in here with her.

“Well, you saved him, didn’t you?” She faced me, her silhouette lit brilliantly by the city lights.

“How can it be fair that Orpheus is lost to me?”

“That’s not exactly true.”

“You’re moving on.” She caressed her hands, full of angst.