Chapter 35: Your turn

Chapter 35

“Your turn” The word wasn’t a request. It was a low vibration that seemed to travel through the floorboards and up Isabella’s spine.

Lucian stood up from the coffee table, his towering frame casting a long shadow over her as she sat on the edge of the couch.

He didn’t look like a man who had just been torn apart by silver. He looked like a predator who had been handed back his teeth—and was deciding what to do with them.

He stepped closer. Heat rolled off his bare chest, clashing violently with the unnatural chill soaking her clothes, the obsidian water clinging to her skin like a curse that refused to let go.

Isabella’s mind raced, latching onto the worst possible thought at the worst possible time.

Of course.

She felt like hell, looked worse, and now she had to strip in front of a stupidly handsome immortal king who could feel her pulse from across the room.

She was already feeling like trash. “I… I can do it,” she said, though her voice cracked halfway through betraying her.

She reached for the hem of her hoodie. Her fingers were slick with his blood, and the fabric resisted her, already stiffening into something cold and heavy—less clothing, more punishment.

“You’re shaking,” Lucian observed. His voice was softer now, but it held a dangerous edge of possessiveness.

He reached out, his fingers ghosting near the glass shard still buried in her cheek. Through the bond, Isabella felt a sudden, sharp spike of his intent.

It wasn’t just about the glass anymore. He was hyper-aware of every inch of her—the way her heart was thundering against her ribs, the way her breath hitched as he leaned in.

“The water is sealing,” he murmured, his crimson eyes locking onto hers. “I can feel it pulling at your skin. I can feel the glass shifting every time your heart beats.”

His jaw clenched. “I am not enduring this pain any longer. Either you remove your clothes yourself”—his gaze sharpened—”or I will.”

Shit. Isabella swallowed hard, her amber eyes wide. The room felt like it was shrinking.

Behind them, by the hearth, Clara let out another wet, rattling cough, a reminder that they were still in a house of madness.

“Wow,” Isabella muttered faintly, her mind finally catching up to her that she was going half naked.

She turned her back to him before he could comment and reached up, slowly pulling the soaked hoodie over her head.

Every inch of movement burned, it was like an exercise in agony and embarrassment.

The stiff fabric scraped against the shard in her cheek, sending a sharp flare of pain through her skull…..and through him.

They flinched in perfect, miserable unison.

“Sorry,” she muttered, though she wasn’t sure who it was for.

The hoodie finally came free and dropped to the floor with a dull thud, leaving her in a thin and damp tank top.

She silently thanked every higher power listening that she hadn’t been stupid enough to go without one.

She kept her back to him, her shoulders hunched as if she could hide the scars of her past—and the fresh wounds of the present—from his gaze.

But there was no hiding. Through the bond, Lucian wasn’t just seeing her; he was sensing the exact map of her injuries.

“The shards in your shoulder and the ones in your back. They are deep. If you try to reach them yourself, you’ll only snap the glass.”

Isabella felt the couch dip as he sat behind her. The heat radiating from his bare chest was a stark contrast to the drafty, shadow-filled room.

She felt his hands—large, cool, and now terrifyingly steady—settle on her bare waist to hold her in place.

“Don’t,” Isabella could not hold in the small moan at the touch, she didn’t even know how that came out.

Her eyes fluttered shut. “I can… I can handle it.” The room felt smaller, tighter, like the walls were leaning in to watch.

“Mm.” His thumbs pressed lightly against her sides. “Liars are rarely convincing when their pulse is drumming against my thumbs,” he rasped, his voice sounding closer than before.

His touch was firm, grounding her despite the chaos of her thoughts. “Hold the cushion. If you scream, let it out into the velvet. I’m starting with the one near your spine.”

Isabella gripped the sofa cushions until her knuckles turned white, her body tingling with strange sensation.

As Lucain fingers brushed the skin of her upper back, a jolt of pure, unadulterated electricity shot through the bond.

It wasn’t just pain, it was a sensory overload of him. His focus, his dark power, and that strange, new protectiveness he was trying so hard to mask.

“One… two…”

Isabella didn’t wait for three as she snapped. “Fucking go on with it.” As soon as she said that Lucain yanked the first shard from her back.

Isabella’s back arched, “Fucking hell!” A strangled gasp escaped her lips as she felt the cold slide of the silver leaving her muscle, and simultaneously, she felt Lucian’s own back muscles cord in a reflex reaction.

He let out a low, pained grunt into the nape of her neck, his forehead momentarily resting against her bare skin as he absorbed the shock.

“Damn it,” he hissed, his breath hot against her shoulder. “It’s worse coming out than going in.”

“Then freaking stop,” she choked out, her eyes stinging with tears.

“No.” Lucian’s grip on her waist tightened, his fingers digging into her skin just enough to anchor her.

He didn’t pull away; his forehead remained pressed against the curve of her shoulder for a heartbeat longer than necessary, his ragged breath fanning over her damp skin.

“If I stop, the water seals the silver inside you,” he rasped against her skin, his voice vibrating through her own chest. “And I’m not spending eternity feeling your flesh rot because you’re stubborn.”

He sat up straighter, his hands sliding up from her waist to her shoulder blades. Isabella shivered, the cold air hitting her damp tank top, but her skin felt like it was on fire wherever he touched her.

“Two more on the shoulder,” he warned. “Don’t move.”

He moved with grim efficiency. Isabella buried her face into the velvet cushion, her muffled swears lost in the fabric.

The sensation was nauseating, a violent tug followed by a cold, empty ache. Behind her, she heard the clink, clink of the silver glass hitting the floorboards.

She felt every extraction through him too but beneath the pain, a strange, unsettling hunger. She shook it off as another swear tore through her.

By the time he moved to the final shards in her upper back, Isabella was trembling so hard the couch was shaking.

She felt a single drop of blood trail down her spine. “Almost there,” Lucian’s strand voice murmured. His voice had lost its harsh edge, replaced by a focused intensity that made her stomach flip for reasons that had nothing to do with the pain.

He reached for the last fragment near her shoulder blade and that strange, cooling sensation from before flared up.

He paused, his breath hitching. To him, it felt like a sudden wave of ice-water hitting a burn. He stared at his fingertips—the way her blood seemed to hum against his skin—but he shook the thought away. Survival first.

With a quick, decisive snap, the last shard in her back was out. Isabella slumped forward, her forehead resting on the back of the couch, her breath coming in small sobs.

Lucian’s eyes fixed on the red line gliding down her back. He reached out, his thumb catching the drop of blood before it could fall. Instinct screamed at him to do something reckless.

He didn’t.

“Now the face,”

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