Chapter 36: Devoured

Chapter 36

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,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. He stood up and moved back around to the front of the couch, sinking onto his knees between her legs once more.

He reached out, his hand cupping her jaw to tilt her head up. Isabella looked at him—really looked at him even when kneeling he still towered over her sitting on a couch.

Lucian’s thumb hooked under her chin, forcing her gaze to stay locked with his. The air in the room felt thick, charged with the metallic scent of her blood and the dying magic of the cabin.

“Don’t blink,” he whispered as his other hand reached for the shard in her cheek. It was buried deep, the skin around it puckered and pale.

Isabella stared into the abyss of his eyes, seeing the shifting shadows of his hunger. She expected the pain, braced for the violent tug, but when he moved, it was with precision.

He ripped it out and a sharp, electric jolt hissed through the bond, so intense that Isabella’s hands flew up, her fingers digging into Lucian’s bare forearms.

A low groan left her throat, but it was quickly cut off by a gasp. The fresh and heavy bead of blood welled from the puncture in her cheek.

It sat there for a second, a brilliant crimson jewel, before it broke and began to track a slow, hot path down toward her jawline.

Lucian’s eyes didn’t just follow the blood, they hunted it. His grip on her jaw tightened, his fingers digging into her skin with a strength that would have bruised anyone else.

Isabella felt the shift in him, the way his body went stone-cold. Through their connection, she felt his vampire instincts surging, a roar of want that drowned out his regal logic.

The scent of her blood was hitting him like a drug, but he was fighting it. She could see the veins at his temples pulsing, the way his pupils dilated until the crimson of his irises was just a thin, bleeding ring.

“Lucian?” she whispered, her voice trembling.

He didn’t hear her. Before she could pull away, before she could even process the darkness in his stare, Lucian leaned in.

He didn’t use his hands to wipe it away. He tilted his head, his breath hitching, and latched his lips directly over the wound on her cheek.

Isabella froze, her heart stopping for a beat before it began to hammer like a trapped bird.

The sensation was overwhelming—the heat of his mouth, the slight graze of his fangs against her skin, and the sudden pull as he drank the stray drop of blood.

A wave of pure, golden warmth rushed through Isabella, originating from where his lips touched her face.

Lucian was drowning.

For thousand of years, he had been the master of his own shadow. He had walked through massacres without a drop of blood staining his composure. He had once starved himself for decades to prove he had control for blood thirst.

But the second Isabella’s blood hit his tongue, the King was executed. In his mind, he was screaming at himself to stop. She’s an abomination. She’s a child. She’s the thing that stole his freedom.

But his body didn’t care. The taste was wrong. It didn’t taste like the copper-sweet wine of a human or the wild, musky heat of a wolf.

It tasted like sunlight. It tasted like power. It hummed against his fangs, repairing the micro-tears in his own tissue, singing a siren song that demanded he drain her until she was nothing but a beautiful, empty husk.

He felt her hand move. Isabella’s fingers slid from the hard muscle of his shoulder to the side of his face.

Her touch was shaky, stained with the grime of the night, and for a split second, she intended to shove him away.

She wanted to scream, to curse this monster who had spent every waking moment of their bond treating her like an infection, only to latch onto her the moment she bled.

But as her palm pressed against his jaw, the bond didn’t transmit hatred. It transmitted a frantic, terrifying heat.

The golden warmth spreading from her cheek met the cold of his mouth, and something in Isabella snapped.

The embarrassment was gone. The pain was a memory. Without thinking, her fingers curled into his hair, and instead of pushing him back, she guided him.

She dragged his lips away from the wound on her cheek and slammed them against her own.

Lucian didn’t even hesitate.

The moment their lips met, the vampire instinct he’d been fighting turned into a different kind of hunger entirely.

He surged forward, his hands sliding from her jaw to the back of her head, pulling her into a kiss that was less of an embrace and more of a collision.

It was fierce, desperate, and tasted of iron and salt. The bond between them, which had been a frayed wire all night, suddenly surged with a current so strong that the mirrors in the hallway—the ones that hadn’t shattered—audibly cracked.

Lucian’s mind was a storm of static. Mine. Mine. Mine. The word repeated in his head, an ancient, primal claim that had nothing to do with royalty and everything to do with the soul.

“Mine..” he groaned against her mouth, his fangs grazing her bottom lip, dangerously close to drawing more of that intoxicating gold.

“Ugh—gaaaasp!” The sound was sharp, wet, and horrified.

The spell shattered instantly for Isabella, her eyes snapped only to find herself staring directly into the eyes of the woman on the rug.

Clara was awake and was directly staring at Isabella as Lucain devoured her lips.

††

Well well well, what was that kiss about.

Intense or meh?

Thanks for reading.

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