Chapter 142: Flames

Chapter 142

The air in the kitchen, once smelling of sweet butter and domestic promise, had curdled into something thick and toxic.

Isabella hadn’t even realized her eyes had slipped shut, her mind drifting into a dangerous, hypnotic haze fueled by the overwhelming proximity of Lucian’s heat and the terrifying vibration of his groans against her skin.

She was floating in a sea of gray and crimson, her logic failing her, her body surrendering to the primal pull of her mate.

Then, a sharp, acidic sting pierced through the trance. It wasn’t a soft scent. It was a chemical intrusion—the heavy, choking smell of scorched protein and melting non-stick coating.

The smoke bloomed from the forgotten pan on the stove in a dense, charcoal-colored cloud that clawed at the back of Isabella’s throat.

Her eyes snapped open. The world was no longer a blur of romantic tension; it was a disaster. Through the veil of Lucian’s long dark hair, she saw orange tongues of flame licking at the edges of the skillet, the eggs transformed into a blackened, bubbling ruin.

The smoke was rising toward the ceiling in thick, oily ribbons, triggering a primal alarm in her chest.

“Lucian!” she tried to gasp, but the word died in her throat. He didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch at the smell of the fire.

To Lucian, the world had narrowed down to the crook of her elbow, to the blue veins beneath her skin that sang of life and restoration.

His grip on her neck had tightened instinctively, his fingers digging into her skin with a strength that was no longer controlled.

He was holding himself to her, but in his starvation, the hold had become a noose. Isabella felt the air being cut off, her lungs burning not just from the smoke, but from the lack of oxygen as he pressed her harder against the marble island.

“Lucian… stop… fire!” she choked out, her hands coming up to his chest to shove him away.

It was like pushing against a mountain of heated marble. He was immovable, his face buried in her arm.

He was vibrating with pure predatory need that seemed to rattle the very bones in her body. The smoke was becoming unbearable. It swirled around them, stinging her eyes until they watered, filling the small space between their bodies.

Isabella’s survival instinct finally overrode her heart. She couldn’t breathe. He was choking her, and the kitchen was catching fire, and he wasn’t himself.

She gathered every ounce of strength she had left and delivered a good blow to his chest, her palms unknowingly slamming against the burning mark on his chest.

The reaction was instant. Lucian recoiled, but as he was ripped away from the source of his sustenance, his fangs—fully extended, were still pressed against the soft skin of her inner elbow.

As Isabella pushed, the sharp points didn’t just graze the skin, they caught and tore. “Ah! Lucian!” An agonizing scream ripped from Isabella’s throat, echoing off the kitchen tiles and cut through the roar of the fire.

The pain was white-hot, a searing line of fire that felt like a brand being pressed into her flesh.

She stumbled back, clutching her arm as blood—real, hot, flowing blood—erupted from the twin punctures. It wasn’t a tiny nick this time.

The crimson liquid spilled over her pale skin, splashing onto the floor in heavy flow. The sound of her scream acted like a bucket of ice water over Lucian’s soul.

He froze. His head snapped up, his crimson eyes wide. He looked at Isabella, who was hunched over, gasping for air in the thick smoke, her eyes wide with a terror that broke something fundamental inside him.

But it was his face that was the true horror. Lucian’s lips were stained a vibrant, wet crimson.

A single drop of her blood clung to his chin, and his fangs, still bared, were coated in the very essence he had sworn to protect.

He looked like the monster from every nightmare she’d ever had—a King of Ruin standing in a burning room, covered in the blood of his mate.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. The shame that flooded him was so suffocating, that it choked the very air from his lungs.

He saw the way she looked at him—not with tenderness, not with teasing mischief, but with the raw, shivering fear of a prey animal.

He had become the “ticking time bomb” Clara had warned him about. He had fed on her. He had hurt her.

Without a single word, without even a glance at the fire he had let start, Lucian turned. In a blur of motion that was too fast for the human eye to track, he vanished.

Isabella was left alone in a room that was rapidly becoming a deathtrap. “Lucian!” she cried out, but the name ended in racking cough.

The smoke was a wall now, a thick, black curtain that made her head spin. Her vision was tunneling, the edges of the room turning dark.

The stove… I have to… Her arm was throbbing with the hot and wet sensation dripping down to her wrist, but the fire was more urgent.

She stumbled toward the stove, her legs feeling like lead. Every breath she took felt like inhaling needles.

The smoke was hot, searing the delicate lining of her throat, making her chest feel as though it were being squeezed by iron bands.

“Move… Isabella… move…” she whispered to herself until she reached for the dial of the stove, her hand trembling so violently she could barely grip the plastic.

The heat from the pan was so intense, she reached out, the metal of the skillet shifted, and a splash of boiling, blackened oil hit the back of her hand.

She hissed in pain, another tear escaping her stinging eyes, but she didn’t stop. With a final, desperate twist, she clicked the burner off.

The flames died down, but the smoke continued to billow from the charred ruin of the eggs. She turned away, leaning her weight against the counter for a second as the room tilted dangerously. She was dizzy—not just from the smoke, but from the blood loss and the sheer, crushing weight of the trauma.

Lucian had bitten her. Her mate had looked at her with eyes that didn’t recognize her.

“Lucian…” she whimpered the name like a sob.

She began to crawl—or at least, it felt like crawling. Her feet moved over the hardwood of the hallway, but she had no sense of direction.

The kitchen, once so grand and beautiful, now felt like a sprawling, empty tomb. The silence of the house was deafening, broken only by her own wet coughs.

She reached the hallway leading to the grand staircase, the air here slightly clearer, but her body was giving up.

The adrenaline that had kept her moving to the stove was draining away, replaced by a numbing exhaustion.

Her knees buckled. She collapsed against the wall, sliding down the expensive wallpaper until she hit the floor.

Her arm was still bleeding, the red staining the floorboards, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She curled into a ball, her head resting against the cool wood, her chest heaving as she fought for every scrap of oxygen.

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