Chapter 145: Take it

“Lucian…” Isabella whispered, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with a horror that surpassed anything she had felt in the kitchen.

These marks hadn’t been there. “What… what is this?” she breathed. “When did this happen? Is this why you’ve been so distant? Is this why the bond…”

Isabella gestured wildly at the three glowing, angry trenches in his chest. The fire within the wounds seemed to pulse harder in response to her distress.

“Every time I touched you… every time I leaned on you and you flinched… it wasn’t because you were tired of me? It was this.”

“Who did this to you, Lucian?” she demanded, her voice rising. “What kind of ’training’ leaves marks that glow like they’re still burning? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe I was the problem?”

The scent of her blood was still a siren song to the rot in his chest. Isabella didn’t wait for his permission.

She forgot about the sting of the glass in her feet; she forgot about the throbbing burn on her palm. “Let me see,” Her hand reaching out to trace the edge of the highest scar.

He practically threw himself toward the other side of the ensuite, his boots slipping on the flooded marble.

“Do not touch them, Isabella,” he choked out, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Was it Elena? Caleb?” Lucian closed his eyes, the irony was a blade in his gut. She was demanding the name of a monster, and he was the only one in the room who knew that the ’monster’ was currently standing three feet away from him, wearing a soot-stained cloth and looking at him with eyes full of stubbornness.

He turned his head just enough to look at her through the wet curtain of his hair. His eyes were no longer gray; they were a muddy, swirling abyss of red and black.

Isabella halted, her hand still hovering in the empty air where he had been a second before. The confusion in her head was roaring now. A debt? A life he chose to save?

Nothing made sense. If he had saved a life, why was he being punished for it? And why was he so afraid of her touch when her touch was the only thing she had to give?

She took another step, slow and deliberate this time, her eyes locked on the weeping gold of his wounds.

“Help me?” he repeated, “You want to help me, Isabella? Then get out. Walk out of this room, walk down those stairs, and do not stop until you are so far away that I can no longer hear the rhythm of your pulse.”

Isabella stood her ground, the cold water soaking into the hem of her fabric, her mind racing at a speed that defied the physical trauma she had just endured.

Her gaze dropped to the way the his eyes were occasionally drawn toward the tracks of her wounds. And then she looked at the bite on her own arm, still weeping slowly.

“The marks… they aren’t just ’not healing,’ are they?” Isabella stepped closer, ignoring the way he recoiled.

“Isabella, stop,” Lucian warned. His knuckles were white, his entire body bowed as if he were trying to physically contain an explosion.

Isabella didn’t answer immediately. Her breath hitched, once. Her eyes dropped to the wound on her arm, to the blood that still welled from the punctures he had left behind.

For a second—just one—fear rooted her in place. He could do it again. Worse this time. Her fingers trembled. She took a deep breath, slowly lifting her gaze back to him.

“I know what you can do to me,” she continued, taking a step forward despite the way his entire body recoiled in response

Another step. “You think I don’t understand the risk?” she went on, her voice gaining strength, not softness.

Not pity. Not fear. Resolve. “You’re not the only one making a choice here, Lucian.” Silence crashed between them.

“I trust you,” she cut in, not loudly, but with a force that stopped him anyway. Her fingers didn’t falter this time. “I’m not a ’hollow shell,’” Her voice was low, unwavering now. “I’m your mate.”

She lifted her chin, meeting his unstable, fractured gaze head-on, fear still there, but no longer in control.

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