Chapter 113: Fruit basket

Chapter 113

The sun had risen and fallen again, painting the master suite in shades of amber and bruising violet before finally surrendering to a second night of heavy, suffocating silence.

Isabella was still in the master suite. She hadn’t seen a single glimpse of Lucian since he had walked out of the room twenty-four hours ago.

He hadn’t returned to sleep, hadn’t come to check on her, and hadn’t sent a single word. He was a ghost in his own home, a presence she could only track through the frayed, static-filled edges of the bond.

Clara had been the only intrusion. The witch had come to the room multiple times, her movements stiff and her face a mask of professional boredom.

Sometimes she brought trays of food that Isabella barely touched, and other times she insisted on checking Isabella’s vitals with a coldness, treating her less like a person and more like a patient with a highly contagious, highly volatile disease.

“You are remarkably stable,” Clara had remarked during the last check, her eyes lingering on the red rings in Isabella’s gold irises.

“Your body has adapted to the rift energy with… alarming efficiency.” Isabella didn’t feel sick. In fact, she felt energized more than ever.

The lethargy of the blight had been replaced by a sharp, humming vitality that made her feel like she could run for miles without breaking a sweat.

Her senses were dialled to a dangerous high; she could hear the flutter of moths against the window and the distant, muffled footsteps of Marco three floors down.

She had eventually forced herself out of the bed, the restless heat in her blood making it impossible to stay still.

She had taken a long, scalding bath to try and scrub away the feeling of stagnation, but when it came time to dress, she found herself reaching for another one of Lucian’s shirts—a crisp, dark charcoal silk this time.

It was too big, the sleeves swallowing her hands and the hem falling to her mid-thigh, but it was the only thing that made the silence feel less like a vacuum.

She was currently pacing the length of the room, her bare feet silent against the plush carpet.

Where are you? she thought, the question directed toward the empty air. The shame she had felt from him through the bond the night before had cooled into a distant, icy numbness.

He wasn’t hurting anymore—or at least, he wasn’t letting her feel it. He had retreated behind a mental fortress, leaving her trapped in this gold-and-marble cage.

She stopped at the mirror again, her gold-tipped hair falling over her shoulders. She looked radiant, powerful, and utterly alone.

The fading mark on her neck was even lighter now, a pale shadow of what it used to be. Every hour they spent apart, the bond seemed to stretch thinner, losing its color and its warmth.

A soft knock at the door made her stiffen. She expected Clara with another tray of tasteless broth or another cold stethoscope.

“Come in,” Isabella said, her voice sounding louder and sharper in the quiet room than she intended.

The heavy door creaked open, but it wasn’t Clara. It was Marco. The most loyal servant stood in the doorway, his face grim and his eyes avoiding the sight of Isabella in the King’s clothing.

“I came to check on you.” Isabella stood rooted to the spot, her breath hitching in genuine surprise.

Of all the people to walk through those doors, Marco was the last one she expected. In all the time she had spent in this mansion, through all the chaos and the quiet, they had barely exchanged more than a handful of formal words.

He was Lucian’s shadow, a man of iron and silence who looked at her as if she were a fragile porcelain doll that his King had an inconvenient obsession with.

They hadn’t ever had a real conversation, yet here he was, standing in the threshold of her sanctuary.

She quickly composed herself, pushing a strand of her gold-tipped hair behind her ear. “Marco,” she breathed, her voice softening as she gestured toward the interior of the room.

“Please, come in. I didn’t expect to see you.”

As he stepped fully into the light of the master suite, Isabella’s eyes dropped to his hands, and she couldn’t help the sudden, light chuckle that bubbled up in her throat.

The sight was almost absurd. Marco, a blood sucker who had lived through centuries and seen more blood than she could imagine, was awkwardly clutching a large, beautifully woven fruit basket.

The image of a vampire—a creature who viewed human food as decorative at best and repulsive at worst—actually going out to procure a basket of fresh grapes, apples, and berries was enough to break the heavy tension of the last twenty-four hours.

“A fruit basket?” she asked, her lips still twitching with a faint, amused smile. “I’m not exactly sick, Marco. And I didn’t think you were the type to visit the market for produce.”

Marco’s face remained stoic, though a faint, barely perceptible tightness around his eyes suggested he was just as uncomfortable as he looked.

“It was… suggested that you might find the natural sugars helpful for your stabilization,” he said, his voice deep and formal.

Isabella walked over and took the basket from him, her fingers grazing the wicker. “Thank you. Truly.” She set it down on the bedside table next to Clara’s untouched food, the vibrant colors of the fruit looking strangely out of place in the dim, brooding room.

She sat back down on the edge of the vast bed, the charcoal silk of Lucian’s shirt bunching around her thighs, and gestured to a nearby armchair.

“Sit, please. I feel like I’m being interrogated when you stand like that.” Marco, however, didn’t move toward the chair. He remained perfectly upright near the door, his hands clasped behind his back in a stance.

“I appreciate the offer, Isabella, but I won’t be here for long. I merely wanted to see with my own eyes that your health is returning as Clara reported.”

His eyes finally flickered to hers, and she saw the subtle widening of his pupils as he took in the potent red rings circling her gold irises.

He looked at her not with the clinical curiosity of Clara, but with a wary respect—the way a soldier looks at a new weapon they don’t quite know how to handle.

“You look different,” he noted, his voice dropping an octave. “Stronger. The King spent a great deal of himself to ensure that vitality remained yours.”

The amusement Isabella had felt moments ago vanished, replaced by that familiar, sharp tug of guilt. “I know he did,” she whispered, her fingers curling into the bedsheets. “And now he won’t even look at me. He’s sent you with fruit while he hides in the shadows of this house.”

Marco shifted his weight. “The King is… preoccupied with the fallout of recent events. There are matters of the Council and the security of the estate that require his absolute focus.”

Isabella looked up at him, her gaze piercing. “Is that what he told you to say? Or are you just shielding him because that’s what you’ve done for years?”

The silence that followed was heavy, filled only with the hum of the mansion. Marco didn’t flinch, but the “loyal servant” mask seemed to settle even more firmly over his features

He wasn’t just here to bring fruit; he was here to gauge exactly how much of the “old” Isabella was left, and how much of the rift-born creature was starting to take over.

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