Chapter 43: Hunting

Chapter 43

“Eat,” Clara rasped, her voice lacking its usual bite, sounding instead like dry parchment rubbing together.

She didn’t wait for an invitation. She walked into the room and placed the tray on the small bedside table.

The aroma of the soup hit Isabella, making her stomach cramped painfully in response but she didn’t move. She stayed pressed against the wall, her hands hidden in the long sleeves of Lucian’s coat.

“I’m not hungry.” The lie tasted thin even to her own ears. Clara didn’t flinch. She simply adjusted the spoon on the tray.

“I might not regain my magic anytime soon but I can still detect a liar,” she said softly, her pale gaze flickering to Isabella’s stomach when it gave another traitorous twist, then back to her face.

One brow arched. “Your stomach is screaming loud enough for even my dulled ears to hear. You are starving.”

Isabella said nothing. She wasn’t stupid. Lucian’s warning was still ringing in her ears, and seeing the woman who had just threatened to ’tear her out of his life’ suddenly playing the part of a nurturing host was beyond suspicious.

It set every instinct she had on edge. Danger didn’t always snarl. Sometimes it smiled.

Clara straightened, her dry robe rustling. “I’m guessing our dear King whispered some choice words about me. He probably told you I was a master of manipulation. That I was desperate. That I was a snake in silk.”

She stepped back, giving Isabella space, but her gaze remained fixed. “And perhaps I am. But I am also a pragmatist

. I know you haven’t eaten, and I know he didn’t even care to bring you anything. He took care of the floors, the bed, and his own vanity—but he didn’t even think to bring you bread.”

Isabella narrowed her eyes, remaining silent. She tuned out the witch’s voice, letting the words wash over her like background noise.

She watched the way Clara’s hands trembled slightly, the way she seemed to be calculating her every breath.

Manipulation, Isabella reminded herself. Don’t listen. Just wait for her to leave. “You see,” Clara continued, ignoring Isabella’s cold silence.

“Lucian’s kind doesn’t eat regular food. To him, sustenance is a matter of blood and power. He forgets that you are fragile. He forgets that you are not like him.”

She walked toward the door but stopped, looking back over her shoulder. Her expression wasn’t one of anger anymore; it was something far more unsettling.

It was recognition.

“You think you’re special to him because of that mark on your neck,” Clara said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

“But have you noticed? He hasn’t even asked who you are. He hasn’t asked about your life, your family, or your dreams. He didn’t even ask for your name, did he? He doesn’t know it. I had to hear you introduce yourself to me like a beggar just to know what to call you.”

Isabella felt a cold prickle in her chest. She wanted to snap back that he did know her name, but she realized with a sickening jolt that truly he didn’t.

He hadn’t actually used it nor did he know it. All he ever called her was abomination or wolfless girl. “Believe it or not, little wolf,” Clara murmured, her white eyes shimmering in the candlelight.

“we actually have things in common. We are both just tools in his kit. The only difference is, I’ve known him long enough to know when he’s finished with a wrench.”

Clara turned the latch on the door, her silk robe whispering against the floorboards as she prepared to leave Isabella to her thoughts, silently triumphant.

But She didn’t make it past the threshold because suddenly the witch froze. Her hand flew to her chest, clutching the fabric over her heart with a white-knuckled grip.

Her mouth fell open, a silent gasp escaping her lips as her eyes went wide with a pure terror. Isabella watched her from the wall, her muscles tensed, thinking it was another act.

A dramatic display to draw Isabella closer. She expected the witch to turn around and deliver another biting monologue.

Instead, Clara’s knees buckled. She slammed her shoulder against the doorframe to stay upright, her breath coming in shallow, panicked hitches.

To Isabella’s human eyes, nothing had changed in the air, but the atmosphere in the room dropped until her own breath misted in front of her face.

“No,” Clara choked out, her voice barely a whisper, staring at her own trembling hands as if they had just committed a murder. “No, no..no..”

A faint, shimmering thread that had been wrapped around Clara’s wrist snapped dissolving into thin air. That thread was the last of Clara’s magic, the final leash she had been desperately using to hold back the beast she had summoned earlier.

A loud sound erupted from outside the cabin that made the soup on the tray ripple. It wasn’t a wolf’s howl or a human scream.

It was a deep, guttural growl that vibrated through the very foundation of the house. The windows rattled in their frames, and dust shook loose from the ceiling.

The Sentinel was free. And without Clara’s magic to guide it, the beast no longer had a master—only prey.

Isabella’s hunger was forgotten as soon as the sound came. “What is that?” She demanded immediately, stepping away from the wall.

Clara turned to her, her face as pale as death, the mask of the manipulator completely shattered.

“The hound,” she whispered, her hands trembling as she looked toward to the woods through the open window. “I lost the connection. It’s not hunting on command anymore, Isabella. It’s just… hunting.”

Another growl, closer this time, was followed by the sound of heavy, clawed feet dragging across the wooden porch.

Clara swallowed hard, her eyes locking on Isabella. “And it’s hunting us.”

††

Well well well.

Clara magic is really failing or is it someone else doing?

Thanks for reading my book!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep