CHAPTER 21
Third Person POV
The silence that followed Marcus's departure was heavier than the mist. Lucian didn't move for a long time.
He stood like a statue of salt, his back to the tree, his chest still heaving with the effort of fighting off the holy-burn.
The command he had used on Marcus had cost him; exerting that level of mental authority while his physical body was failing made the marks on his neck—the handprints from his own attempt to strangle Isabella—begin to blacken.
Behind the tree, Isabella felt the air return to her lungs. She stepped out of her hiding place, watching him warily.
"Who was that?" she whispered. "He called you 'Sire.' Isn't that... like a King?" Lucian whirled around so fast she didn't see him move.
He grabbed her by the front of her hoodie, dragging her fully from behind the trunk. His eyes were blown wide, the pupils swallowing the irises.
"You," he spat. "If you ever make a sound like that again while I am speaking to my kin, I will rip your tongue out myself."
Isabella didn't flinch. She had hit that wall where exhaustion turns into numb defiance. She looked at him, really looked at him, and her eyes caught his throat.
"Hey!" she shouted, her hands moving instinctively toward his neck.
Lucian flinched back as if her fingers were made of silver, swiping her hands away with a snarl. "Do not touch me!"
Isabella ignored the threat, her mouth falling open as she stared at the darkening bruises on his pale skin. The marks were unmistakable: they were a perfect imprint of a pair of hands. His own hands.
"Those... those are from you," she whispered, the horror of it dawning on her. "When you were squeezing my throat... you were hurting yourself. That's why you couldn't kill me. You're literally your own worst enemy. That's... actually kind of hilarious."
Lucian's jaw tightened until the bone clicked. He looked at her with a mixture of loathing and something that looked terrifyingly like shame.
Isabella figured it all out, the mark on her neck was a two-way street. He couldn't kill her because every ounce of pain he inflicted on her was being fed back into his own nervous system with double the intensity.
Truly, what a wonderful discovery. To think she had been trying to convince this monster to be merciful, not realizing that his own biology was acting as her permanent restraining order.
Acting as her bodyguard!
"It is a curse," Lucian rasped, his hand going to touch the hurting wound on his neck. "A flaw in the blood. You are a parasite. You have latched onto my very existence, and now my own body treats me as the enemy."
"Oh, poor you," Isabella shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Knowing now that this thing couldn't touch her without wounding himself made her feel victorious for the first time in her life.
"I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for you to bite me, and I definitely didn't ask for a front-row seat to your mid-life crisis in this frozen hell."
"And yet, here we are." Lucian stepped into her space, his shadow towering over her. "Tied together by a mistake that is currently bleeding me dry. If you think those marks mean I won't find a way to end you, you are mistaken. I have lived for centuries, abomination. I can endure more pain than your small mind can imagine."
He grabbed her wrist—not her throat this time—and began to march into the dark. "Where are we going?" she almost tripped behind him, her legs feeling like lead weights. "To a dungeon? Or do you have a 'No Abominations Allowed' guest room?"
Anger gritted at Lucian's chest. He so badly wanted to shut the girl's mouth, but he couldn't without feeling the brunt of it. Instead, he gritted his teeth and replied.
"To the only place where I can hide an abomination while I figure out how to cut it out of me," he said, not looking back.
"And if you value your life, you will pray that Marcus believes my lie about the witch. Because if the Council realizes I have marked a werewolf... they will burn this entire forest down just to see you turn to ash."
Isabella stumbled along the frost-slicked ground. "You keep saying you'll figure it out," she panted. "How? If this bond is as deep as I suspect, how do you plan on cutting it out? Is there an 'Undo' button I don't know about?"
"I will find a witch," Lucian said, his pace never slowing. "One of the Coven-seers. They specialize in blood-rites and the unraveling of ancient mistakes. If there is a way to sever this link without stopping my own heart, they will know it."
Isabella stopped dead. Without stopping his own heart? what about hers? but she didn't even care about that as a sharp burst of laughter escaped her throat.
Lucian whirled around, his eyes flashing with hatred at the sound. "You find our predicament amusing, abomination?"
"Amusing?" Isabella shook her head, her damp hair sticking to her forehead. "No. I find it insane. Did you hit your head too hard on the rocks, or did that holy water burn your brain along with your chest?"
Lucian took a predatory step toward her. "Choose your next words carefully."
"Witches are gone!" Isabella shouted, her voice shaking with disbelief. "They were eradicated centuries ago. The Great Purge? The burning of the covens? Every child in the pack lands grows up hearing how the Moon Goddess and the Shadow King's armies wiped them from the face of the earth. There hasn't been a witch seen in three hundred years. You're looking for a ghost to fix your problems."
Lucian froze. The arrogance in his posture faltered, replaced by a sudden, jarring stillness. He looked at her as if she were speaking a language he didn't recognize.
"Three hundred years?" he repeated. The words sounded hollow, as if they were echoing in an empty tomb.
"Yes!" Isabella stared at him, her brow furrowing. "They're a myth. Bedtime stories used to scare pups. You're talking about finding a ghost to save your life."
A flash of genuine disorientation crossed Lucian's face—a look of a man who had woken up in a world he no longer understood. He quickly masked it with a snarl.
"The world does not change that fast," he growled, though the conviction was gone from his voice.
"It does when you're a monster who clearly hasn't checked the news," she shot back. "So, what's Plan B? Because if you're waiting for a witch, we're both going to be 'stuck' until the end of time."
Lucian's grip on her wrist tightened until the bone almost creaked. He leaned in close, his face a mask of cold, sharp angles.
"If the witches are gone," he whispered, "then you had better start praying to whatever god you have left. Because if I cannot find a way to unravel this bond with magic... I will have to find a way to do it with steel. And I promise you, Isabella, I am far less patient than a seer."
He yanked her forward again, his pace more frantic now, his mind clearly racing to catch up with a reality that had moved on without him.