Chapter 83: Gala.

Chapter 83

The silence of the woods was no longer empty; it was heavy with the presence of a man who had defied the natural order of death itself.

Isabella stayed frozen, her fingers still curled into the fabric of Lucian’s shirt. The contrast was sickening—the scent of the brother who had violated her past self clinging to her skin while the man who had sacrificed his humanity for her stood only a few feet away.

Caleb didn’t move. He looked as though he were afraid that if he reached out, she would shatter like the visions she had just escaped.

His blue eyes searched her face, tracing the lines of her features as if memorizing a map he had lost a lifetime ago.

“My love,” he whispered. Isabella looked down at her hands, then back at him, but a sharp pain flared in her, the blight becoming visible.

It started as a low hum beneath her skin, but within seconds, it escalated into a scorching agony.

Isabella gasped, her body hunching over as if struck by an invisible blow. The veins in her neck and arms turned a sickly, pulsating black, visible even in the dim moonlight.

She clawed at the collar of Lucian’s shirt, her breathing coming in desperate hitches. “It’s… it’s happening again,” she choked out, her knees hitting the damp earth.

The Blight was a parasitic thing. She had spent so long relying on Lucian’s blood to stabilize it, to numb the sensation of her own soul being slowly eaten away.

She didn’t even know how long she had been trapped in that cycle of pain and vision. Was she even eighteen yet?

Caleb was at her side in an instant. He didn’t flinch at the dark energy radiating from her. Instead, he gathered her into his arms, pulling her small, convulsing frame against the solid warmth of his chest.

“Bella, look at me,” he commanded, his voice a steady anchor in the storm of her pain. She couldn’t focus. Her vision was swimming with shadows. The pain in her throat was so intense. She felt as though she were being torn apart from the inside, the mark on her neck burning like a hot coal.

“I can take it away,” Caleb whispered, his hands cupping her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I am the one who gave up his humanity to hold the darkness like this so you wouldn’t have to. Give it to me, Bella. Let it go.”

Isabella locked eyes with him. In the depths of his blue stare, she saw the centuries of waiting, the sacrifice, and a love that was far more powerful than the blood Lucian had been feeding her.

She stopped fighting. She leaned into him, her forehead resting against his, and let out a long, shuddering breath.

Slowly, the sensation changed. The searing heat began to drain away, replaced by a cool, numbing tingle.

She felt a heavy, oily weight lifting from her chest, flowing out of her and into him. It was as if a poison that had been in her blood for a lifetime was finally being drawn out.

The blackened veins receded. The frantic pounding of her heart slowed to a throb. For the first time since that witch, Isabella could breathe without feeling the jagged edges of the blight cutting into her lungs.

She stayed slumped against him for a moment, trembling, before she tentatively moved her hand to her neck.

The skin was smooth. It wasn’t warm. There was no pulsing, no feeling of something alive and malevolent moving beneath her flesh.

The mark was still there, a symbol of the accidental bond with Lucain but she was healed.

“It’s gone,” she breathed, looking up at him in disbelief. “I don’t… I don’t feel it anymore.”

Caleb’s face was pale, the shadows under his eyes deepening as he absorbed the darkness she had carried, but he managed a small, tired smile. “I’m glad.”

Meanwhile, miles away from the quiet sanctuary of the woods, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne, ancient dust, and the metallic tang of blood-wine.

The grand doors of the gala venue swung open. Marco stepped aside, his head bowed in a practiced angle of submission as he held the gilded handle.

“The Sovereign,” Marco announced, his voice carrying through the cavernous space. Lucian stepped into the light.

He was a vision of cold, predatory perfection in a black and red suit, his presence commanding the very oxygen in the room.

In an instant, the chatter of hundreds of vampires died out. As if moved by a single, invisible string, every guest in the hall—from the youngest fledgling to the most ancient aristocrat—dropped into a deep, reverent bow.

The silence was absolute, broken only by the steady click of Lucian’s boots against the polished marble floor.

“Rise,” Lucian commanded, his voice bored yet lethal.

As the sea of bodies straightened, the seven members of the High Council materialized beside him.

They moved like shadows, their faces etched with a mix of awe and calculated flattery. “It is a rare honor for you to grace us with your presence tonight, Sire,” the eldest councilor murmured, leaning in with a serpent-like smile.

“The gala is a triumph. The blood supply is peak, and the alliances—”

“Save the politics for the dawn,” Lucian cut him off, his eyes scanning the room with a restless energy.

He wasn’t listening. His gaze drifted past the crystalline chandeliers and the velvet tapestries, landing instead on the massive, ornate clock embedded in the far wall.

The golden hands were crawling toward the vertical line of the midnight hour.

11:45.

A sudden tug of unease tightened in his chest. It was a sensation he wasn’t used to—a flickering of the bond he shared with Isabella.

He reached up, subconsciously adjusting his cuffs, his mind drifting back to his mansion. In fifteen minutes, Isabella would turn eighteen. The age of maturity.

The age where her blood would reach its full potential and the bond between them would finally fade when she finds her fated.

He should have been triumphant. Instead, he felt a cold sweat prickle at the back of his neck.

“Is something wrong, Sire?” one of the council members asked, noticing the way Lucian’s hand had gone still.

Lucian didn’t answer. He stared at the clock, the ticking sound echoing in his ears like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own.

He had left her in the house to settle the darkness, confident that she would find her mate while she’s locked up to settle the darkness, confident that she would remain until the midnight hour.

“The auspicious hour approaches, Sire,” Cyrus whispered, gesturing toward the grand podium at the far end of the hall.

Lucian forced his gaze away from the clock. He began to walk, the council members flanking him like a pack of wolves in fabric.

They all ascended the marble steps of the podium. Lucian’s eyes narrowed as he saw it. Arranged in a semi-circle were eight high-backed chairs carved from wood.

Lucian stopped dead, “And why,” he began, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register, “are there eight chairs?”

The council members glanced at one another, a flicker of something—defiance or perhaps just deep-seated tradition—crossing their ancient faces.

“For you and us, Sire,” Still it was Cyrus who replied with a smooth, shallow bow. “It has been like this since you fall, sire”

Lucian felt a surge of irritation. They were testing his level of patience. On the most important night he was supposed to watch as his bond fades, they were reminding him that he wasn’t an absolute dictator.

“I do not sit with a council that I did not father,” Lucian wanted to hiss out. The words burned in the back of his throat as he looked at the row of chairs, then at the faces of the men who dared to think themselves his equals.

He could kill them all before the clock struck its next minute, but tonight was not about bloodletting.

He needed the transition to pass quietly; he needed to get back to his mansion in peace and get the day behind him. With a posture so stiff that betrayed none of his inner turmoil, Lucian walked up to the middle seat that Cyrus gestured toward.

He settled into the dark wood, and as if on cue, the seven council members took their places beside him.

Marco took his position immediately at Lucian’s back, a silent, watchful shadow. Below the podium, the ballroom was swirling with silk and grace.

He watched as his blood-suckers moved together—vampires who had lived through centuries.

A maid approached, she was definitely human from both her smell and her trembling movement.

She held a tray with a single crystal goblet filled with a deep crimson. Lucian took it without a word. He brought it to his lips and took a sip.

He nearly gagged. It tasted of copper and ash—stale, thin, and utterly lifeless. It was high-grade blood, he knew, likely taken from a healthy donor in the prime of life, but it felt like drinking mud.

He could feel the seven sets of eyes beside him, the council members watching his every reaction.

He knew what they would say if he spoke. Is something wrong with the vintage, Sire? Is the blood not to your liking?

He knew there was nothing wrong with the drink. The problem was his tongue. Since he had tasted Isabella’s blood he couldn’t take any other.

Every other source had turned to ash in his mouth. He tilted his head back, forcing himself to drown the blood in the goblet as if it were nothing but flavored water.

He set the glass down with a sharp clack and turned his eyes back to the massive clock on the far wall.

It was now 11:56. Four minutes to go.

Suddenly, the grand door opened again and five naked figures but blindfolded figures walked into the ballroom.

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