Chapter 53: She wasn’t waking up

Chapter 53

The air in Lucian’s private wing felt different from the rest of the mansion—thicker, quieter, as though the walls themselves were holding their breath.

Lucian stood by the expansive floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the Sentinel lying in the foyer below.

He had laid Isabella on his bed—a massive expanse of dark silk he had barely touched since his waking.

She looked painfully small against the deep charcoal sheets, her skin pale, the faint lavender veins along her neck pulsing with a soft light that matched the steady beat of her heart.

He didn’t need to look at her to know she was alive. He could feel her. Even now, in unconsciousness, her mind brushed against his.

…cold…

The thought was so faint it was almost a ghost, but Lucian felt it instantly. He turned and crossed the room, stopping at her side. With careful hands, he pulled the blankets higher, tucking them around her neck.

Outside the heavy double doors, Marco stood as rigid as a statue, hands clasped behind his back.

His red eyes were dark with restless, simmering anxiety. Every few seconds, his gaze flicked from the carved wood of the doors to the woman standing a few steps away.

Marco had watched Lucian leave the mansion the moment the council members departed. He had considered following—but he had known better than to place himself in the path of his sire’s rage.

Despite every instinct screaming at him to turn back, curiosity had won. He needed to see what secrecy his king had been guarding so fiercely. What had put his Lord so sharply on edge.

And when he had finally arrived—when he had seen his kneeling king cradling an unconscious, claimed girl—Marco had been shaken to his core.

Never in his entire life had he imagined he would see the mark of their king on a human.

Clara shifted uncomfortably nearby. She had changed quickly before they left for the mansion, now dressed in a gown of deep emerald silk.

The fabric was soft against her skin—a jarring contrast to the raw terror still vibrating in her chest.

She kept her head lowered, avoiding Marco’s predatory stare.

“He hasn’t left her side in three hours,” Marco said quietly.

Clara didn’t look up. Her thoughts churned, tangled and heavy. What would Lucian think of her when the dust finally settled?

If not for her—if not for the choices she had made—Lucian and her mother would never have collided in the past.

Clara’s gaze remained fixed on the intricate patterns of the marble floor, but her mind was centuries away, reliving the moment her life had fractured.

She had been young then. Too young to recognize manipulation dressed as protection.

She remembered the way her mother, Elena, had looked at her back then—not as a daughter, but as a weapon to be sharpened and aimed.

Elena had been obsessed with the King’s power, sensing a void in his ancient heart that she believed could be occupied by her own bloodline.

The mission had been simple: infiltrate Lucian’s court, weave a web of affection, and get bonded by the Unholy King to the dark coven’s will.

But Elena had underestimated two things: the iron walls around Lucian’s heart and the fragility of her daughter’s loyalty.

Lucian had never looked at Clara with anything but cold, detached pity. There was no romance, no spark, only the bored observation of a high ranking being watching a harmless bird.

Yet, in that indifference, Clara had found a strange kind of freedom. For the first time, she wasn’t being commanded.

She had fallen for him not because of a spell, but because he was the only being powerful enough to stand between her and the woman who birthed her.

When she had finally betrayed Elena, choosing Lucian over the coven, the fallout had been a nightmare of shadows and blood.

She could still hear the sound of the air tearing when Lucian and Elena finally met in combat. Lucian hadn’t fought for love; he had fought out of a grim, kingly sense of protection for a girl who had sought his sanctuary.

He had been a force of nature that night, moving through Elena’s shadows as if they were nothing but mist.

Clara remembered the scream—the high, thin shriek that erupted when Lucian’s clawed fingers had found her mother’s face.

He hadn’t killed her. That would have been too merciful for a King whose peace had been disturbed.

Instead, he had carved the light out of her face, leaving her to wander the dark for eternity.

“I will take from you what you value most,” Elena had hissed as she vanished into the void that night.

“A lifetime of staring into the nothing for me… and a lifetime of watching your heart rot for you.”

Elena had waited. Centuries of patience in the blackness, listening for a crack in the King’s perfect armor.

And Clara, in her foolish attempt to please the king and make him see her value, she had failed with the reversal ritual and it had practically screamed the news into the coven ears.

Signaling to the sightless witch that Lucian finally had a bond which equals a weakness.

A chill ran down Clara’s spine as she realized the depth of the trap. Her mother hadn’t just wanted to kill Isabella; she wanted to see Lucian do exactly what he had done today—kneel in the dirt and bleed for a mortal.

Inside the room, the silence was broken by a soft, sharp intake of air. Lucian’s hand, still resting near the pillow, twitched.

He felt the shift in the bond before he saw the movement of her eyes clenching tightly as if she was in pain. He leaned over her, his long hair draping across the pillow like a protective shroud.

Isabella? He didn’t speak the word aloud. He sent it through the bridge they had built, Under his hand, Isabella’s eyelids flickered violently.

She wasn’t waking up.

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