Chapter 149: Taunt.

Chapter 149

The water in this guest ensuite was different from the torrents that had defined the master suite.

It was polite, steady, and entirely devoid of the violent roar that had echoed through the halls during the storm of their shared collapse.

It cascaded over Isabella’s trembling shoulders in gentle mist, providing a stark contrast to the soul-shredding storm she had just stepped out of.

She stood beneath the lukewarm spray with her eyes clamped shut so tightly that patterns danced behind her lids, leaning her forehead against the cool, cream-colored porcelain wall.

She was trying, with every fiber of her being, to find the exact point where that intoxicating “Sovereign high” finally ended and her own tattered soul began.

She was alone now, the silence of the room pressing against her ears that felt heavier than the water.

Lucian had carried her here, his touch so excruciatingly careful and distant it was as if he feared she were made of thin, spun glass that had already begun to spider-web with irreparable cracks.

He had deposited her in this untouched wing of the mansion, a sanctuary of sterile luxury and lavender-scented air, before retreating back into the shadows of the hallway. He had gone back to the wreckage of the master suite, back to the shattered mirrors and the shredded silk curtains, to deal with the physical manifestations of the madness that had nearly consumed them both.

But even with the door locked and the steam rising in sluggish, grey curls to coat the vanity mirrors, Isabella couldn’t escape the sensation of his skin against hers.

It was a lingering heat that seemed to simmer just beneath her surface. Her fingers, still trembling, rose to trace the sensitive side of her neck.

She pressed down hard, her nails digging slightly into the flesh, half-expecting to feel the mark forming back or the dry crust of a scab or the tender throb of a deep bruise.

There was nothing. The skin beneath her fingertips was impossibly smooth, flawless, and cool—as if the violence of his feeding and the frantic desperation of their embrace in the shower had been nothing more than a vivid, shared hallucination.

“I knit you back together without even realizing I was doing it.” His words echoed in her mind, she slid her hand down to her forearm, then to her palm, tracing the invisible maps where the debris of the blast and the kitchen encounter should have left permanent, weeping marks.

She remembered the scene from Clara’s old cabin—the way he had kissed her cheek, the way he had spoken of his own healing properties as if they were a heavy curse he was forced to carry for eternity.

Shaking her head to clear the encroaching fog, Isabella turned her face upward, letting the water hit her directly in the mouth and eyes, desperate for the temperature to douse the simmer beneath her surface.

Lucian had called it an “artificial fever.” He had been so certain in his rejection, insisting that she wasn’t in her right mind and that she was merely a biological vessel reacting to a sudden influx of his ancient power.

But as the water slicked her hair back and ran in long rivulets down the curves of her body, her mind stubbornly, almost defiantly, replayed the friction.

She remembered the weight of her hands moving toward the zipper of his wet trousers; she remembered the heavy, aching, and undeniable weight of him against her palm.

She remembered the way her bare breasts had crushed against his scarred, heaving chest until she honestly thought her heart would fuse with his.

If she was truly out of her mind, why did the memory of that hunger feel like the only honest thing she had ever experienced in this mansion?

Isabella groaned out in frustration, her strength finally deserting her. She slid down the marble wall, her skin squeaking against the wet tile, until she was sitting on the floor of the shower with her knees pulled tightly to her chest.

The water continued to fall, but it offered no more answers. He had been right, in a way that made her want to scream at the ceiling.

He had been noble. He had stood there, vibrating with a lust that threatened to incinerate his very soul, and he had pushed her away to save her from a choice he thought she wasn’t capable of making with a clear head.

A bitter, shaky laugh escaped her lips, swallowed instantly by the constant sound of the draining water.

Lucian, the King of the Damned, the man who had just dismantled a room with his bare hands in a fit of rage was worried about her agency.

It was the most beautiful and infuriating thing she had ever encountered. She leaned her head back against the tile, looking up at the showerhead through the thick, white vapor.

He said he had healed her through his blood, that the transfer was an accident of the bond, but why did it feel like something else had happened too?

Why did she feel a strange weight in her chest that hadn’t been there before? It was as if a thread had been sewn through her heart, tugging her toward the room he occupied.

Isabella sluggishly reached for the soap, her body tingling with a pins-and-needles sensation now that the supernatural adrenaline was beginning to dissipate.

When she finally stepped out of the shower, the cool air of the guest room pressed in on her like a shroud.

She wrapped herself in a thick, oversized robe that smelled of lavender and cedar, lacking the scent of him. She felt like an imposter in her own skin, polished and perfect on the outside, but a chaotic mess of doubt on the inside.

The room was silent, bathed in the soft glow of a single bedside lamp. Isabella walked to the window, staring out at the grounds of the mansion.

The incoming afternoon sun was beginning to slant across the ground, a reminder that the world had kept turning, oblivious to the fact that their private eclipse had nearly destroyed them.

That soft click of the door being unlocked made her freeze. She didn’t turn around, but she knew the silhouette that now occupied the doorway. The air in the room shifted instantly, the temperature dropping just enough to let her know the Sovereign had arrived.

Lucian stepped into the room, his movements silent and graceful despite the weariness in his frame.

He had changed into a fresh, dark silk shirt, but he hadn’t fully buttoned it, his eyes were still carrying a faint, haunted glow of red around the edges of those piercing amber irises.

He stopped several feet behind her, the space between them vibrating with the unspoken words of the bathroom encounter.

“The master suite is clean,” Lucian stated, his voice resonating directly to Isabella’s chest. “The damage has been… managed. You won’t have to see the mess.”

Isabella finally turned away from the window, her hands clutching the thick lapels of her borrowed robe as if it were a shield against the sheer presence of him.

She looked at him, her breath getting caught in her throat as her eyes drifted to the dark, silk fabric of his fresh shirt.

Her gaze snagged on the collar. For weeks—ever since the night those three jagged claw wounds—Lucian had been meticulously, almost obsessively, covered.

He had buttoned his shirts to the very top, the fabric acting as a fortress to hide the marks of his vulnerability and the slow, agonizing nature of his struggle.

He had kept that part of himself locked away from her, a secret written in silver scar tissue that refused to heal. But now, the top three buttons were left undone.

The dark fabric fell away to reveal the broad, muscular expanse of his collarbone and the center of his chest.

Isabella stared, her heart giving a strange, fluttery thud against her ribs. The skin there was smooth. The angry welts that had once looked like lightning frozen in flesh were gone, replaced by three new, faint scars.

They didn’t disappear like the other wounds she had seen on Lucian; they remained as thin, ghostly reminders of whatever had happened to him, but the inflammation was clearly gone.

He wasn’t hiding anymore. Seeing him so exposed, so unburdened by the agonizing scars of his injuries, made the air in the room feel electrically thin.

“You look… look good,” she whispered, her voice sounding far away and fragile to her own ears.

Lucian took a single, slow step closer, his shoes silent on the plush carpet. He looked at her with an intensity that made her feel as though she were the only person left in the world.

He reached out, his hand hovering near her face before he seemed to catch himself, his fingers curling into a fist. He looked at her robe, then at the bed, and finally back to her eyes.

“Let’s get you changed,” Lucian murmured, his voice dropping into that velvet growl that always seemed to vibrate specifically in the small of Isabella’s back.

Isabella nodded, her throat suddenly too tight to offer a verbal response. She was unable to find the words to explain how handsomely, devastatingly good he looked—how the lack of those three buttons unbuttoned made him look less like a cursed king and more like a god carved from diamonds.

Her eyes lingered on the hollow of his throat, watching the steady beat of his pulse against his skin. It was a taunt. A silent reminder of the heat she had been pressing her lips against only an hour before.

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