Chapter 123: Morning

Chapter 122

The morning sun pierced through the heavy velvet curtains like a golden blade, slicing across the expansive mattress.

Lucian was the first to wake, though “wake” was a generous term for the state of semi-consciousness he had existed in for the last few hours.

The moment the first ray of light hit the duvet, his eyes snapped open—the crimson now faded to a dull, weary amber. He didn’t move.

Well, he couldn’t. Isabella was still tucked firmly against him, her back pressed into his chest, her head pillowed on his arm.

She was a dead weight of warm silk and soft breathing, her presence the only thing anchoring him to the bed when every nerve in his torso was screaming for him to bolt.

He looked down, his breath hitching. During the night, his body had betrayed his careful facade. The fresh charcoal shirt he had put on in the washroom was no longer pristine. A jagged, dark blossom had spread across the center of his chest, the fabric stiff where the blood had dried against the silk.

Worse, a faint, rust-colored smear had transferred onto the back of the shirt Isabella was wearing—his shirt.

The mark of his secret was literally staining her. Lucian’s jaw tightened, a flash of pure, unadulterated panic surging through him.

If she woke up now and saw the state of the sheets, if she felt the crust of salt and copper against her skin, the “training injury” lie would shatter like glass.

Gently, with a precision that required every ounce of his remaining strength, he began to slide his arm from beneath her neck.

He held his breath, watching the way her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. She moaned softly in her sleep, shifting closer to the warmth of his body, her hand blindly reaching out to grasp the edge of his sleeve.

“Stay…” she murmured, her voice thick with the remnants of dreams. Lucian froze. He looked at her—really looked at her—in the harsh honesty of the daylight.

She looked peaceful, the shadows under her eyes finally beginning to fade, her skin glowing with a health that had cost him a piece of his soul.

He couldn’t leave, but he couldn’t stay like this.

“I’m here,” he whispered, laying paralyzed in the golden light, watching the clock on the mantle.

He had maybe twenty minutes before the household stirred, twenty minutes before Marco or Clara come looking for them and Isabella’s curiosity returned with the sun.

Lucian was still calculating his escape—counting the seconds he had left to scrub the evidence of his failing health from the fine expensive cotton—when the body in his arms shifted.

Isabella turned slightly, the friction of her back sliding against his chest made his vision swim for a fraction of a second, the dried blood on his shirt pulling uncomfortably against the raw skin of his wounds.

He held his breath, praying she would stay in the hazy borderlands of sleep, but then her eyelashes fluttered.

Her eyes opened just a crack, bleary and soft, and found his already fixed on her. The amber of his gaze was dark with a protective, pained intensity that he didn’t have time to fully mask.

Isabella didn’t seem to notice the tension. She was still wrapped in the lingering warmth of their shared sleep, the previous night’s anger dulled by the morning sun.

She stifled a small, dainty yawn, her lips curving into a sleepy, lopsided smile that knocked the breath out of Lucain. “Good morning,” Her voice a honeyed rasp that vibrated against his collarbone.

Lucian felt the panic in his chest subside, replaced by a devastating softness. His expression, usually a mask of unyielding stone, crumbled at the edges.

“Good morning,” he greeted her back, reaching out with his free hand, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw with a tenderness that bordered on reverence.

For a fleeting moment, the blood-soaked shirt and the jagged scars didn’t exist. There was only the gold of the sun on her hair and the fact that she was breathing.

Isabella hummed in response, leaning into his touch like a cat seeking warmth. “You’re still here,” she whispered, her eyes fully opening now, searching his.

“I thought you might have run off to your creepy office while I was sleeping.” Lucian’s lips twitched at her words.

The dry, biting sarcasm—the “foul-mouthed” fire that had always defined her—was still there, flickering beneath her sleepy surface.

It was a relief so profound he felt it in his very marrow. She was still his sharp-tongued Isabella, even after everything.

“I told you I wouldn’t,” Lucian said, the lie about his “training injury” still sitting like a stone in his throat.

He shifted his weight, trying to keep the stained portion of his chest angled away from the direct light, but the movement was stiff.

Isabella’s smile faltered slightly as she felt the rigidity in his frame. She began to sit up, her hand sliding down his arm.

“Lucian? You’re still so stiff. Is the injury worse this morning?” Lucian could feel the cold air of the room hitting the damp patch on his chest, and he knew that if she moved just a few inches to the left, she would see the dark, rust-colored smear on the back of the shirt she was wearing.

“It is merely the morning chill,” he said quickly, his hand dropping from her face to grasp her shoulder, gently keeping her from turning around.

“My muscles haven’t yet adjusted to the day. I should… I should go and tend to it before the council meeting.”

Isabella looked at him, her brow furrowing. She wasn’t dumb; she could see the way his knuckles were white as he gripped the duvet.

But she also saw the desperation in his eyes—a silent plea for her to just let it go, to let them have this one moment of peace before the world came crashing back in.

“Ok,” she murmured, though her eyes remained narrowed with suspicion.

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