Chapter 85: Reject

Chapter 85

Isabella felt the world tilt as she was violently yanked from the calm, steady embrace of Caleb.

One moment she was held by a warmth that felt like home, and the next, she was being hauled through the air, her feet barely skimming the grass.

She let out a sharp gasp as she was slammed against a frame. She didn’t need to look up to know who it was, but when she did, her breath hitched in her throat.

Lucian’s eyes were twin vortices of maddening red, burning with a possessive fury that seemed to radiate heat.

His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arms with a bruising strength, as if he were trying to claim.

In that suffocating proximity, the air between them shifted. A thick and intoxicating scent began to roll off Lucian, the heavy aroma of sandalwood and rain-drenched earth, underscored by a sharp, dark sweetness that reminded her of crushed blackberries.

It was a primal, magnetic scent that pulled at her senses, far more potent than the “honey and jasmine” she was projecting.

Lucian’s gaze dropped to her neck, his mind seemingly calming just enough for his pupils to dilate in realization at the mark still resting there.

The possessive snarl on his lips faltered as he inhaled deeply, totally forgetting about the third person present.

“You smell…”

“Sweet,” Isabella finished for him, her voice trembling—not with desire, but with a rising, sickening realization too.

“Mate.” Whispered Lucain, his red eyes searched hers with a terrifying vulnerability. “It’s you,”

“No,” Isabella’s breath hitched, but it wasn’t a sigh of relief. It was a sob of pure rejection.

“No, no! You can’t be.” She gasped, pushing against his chest with every ounce of her strength.

The memories of the Bella sufferings—the blood on her back, the centuries of her own suffering he had orchestrated—flashed through her mind like glass.

The bond between them was intense, it was trying to knit them together, trying to force her to love the monster who had dismantled her life, but her mind screamed against it.

“Isabella,” Lucian stepped closer, his own scent flaring, trying to lull her into submission.

“The bond…”

“No!” Isabella shrieked, the word tearing from her throat, cutting Lucain mid talk. She didn’t feel the pull of a fated lover; she felt the weight of a heavy, rusted chain.

“Not a monster. Not a murderer. Not a rapist!” Lucian face was in shock as he heard those words. Confused, he watched as Isabella spun around and fell into the strangers arms.

He watched his “mate” seek refuge in the arms of the stranger. He lunged forward, his hand outstretched to drag her back, but he stopped dead as his gaze finally settled on the man’s face in the full, celestial light of the grove.

The air in the clearing seemed to freeze. Lucian’s arm dropped to his side, his fingers trembling.

The crimson madness in his eyes flickered, being replaced by a hollow, ghost-white horror. He looked at the man holding Isabella—really looked at him—and the centuries of lives he had built his kingdom on began to crumble.

“Caleb?” Lucian whispered. It wasn’t a question; it was a realization that sounded like a death rattle.

Caleb didn’t stay passive. As Isabella reached him, he didn’t just tuck her behind his back; he stepped forward, his massive frame shielding her entirely from Lucian’s view.

The shadows at his feet rose up like a living wall, his blue eyes burning with a cold, righteous fire that made Lucian’s red gaze look dim.

“Lucian,” Caleb replied. His voice didn’t carry the heat of rage; it carried the weight of a mountain.

It was the voice of the brother who had been betrayed, the prince who had been buried, and the guardian who had finally come to collect.

“You’re dead,” Lucian hissed as he narrowed down at the man he had murdered. His head was a chaotic storm of memories he had spent centuries burying.

He had felt the slice of Caleb’s neck through his own sword; he had watched the light leave those blue eyes.

To see him standing here, solid and radiating a power that felt like the very heart of the abyss, was a nightmare made flesh.

But the sight of Isabella—his mate, his fated half—clinging to the man he had murdered sent a different kind of agony through him.

Isabella was trembling violently, her arms wrapped around Caleb’s waist as she buried her face in the small of his back.

She was in immersed pain; the bond was throbbing with a cruel intensity that felt like a hot iron pressing against her brain.

Every instinct in her wolfless form was screaming to go to Lucian, to submit to the sandalwood and blackberry scent, but her soul was revolting.

“No… no, no, no,” she whispered, her voice hitching as the first signs of a panic attack constricted her lungs. “Caleb… Caleb, please… make it stop.”

The mark on her neck began to pulse with a low, angry light, physically manifesting Lucian’s skyrocketing irritation and heartbreak.

The bond was a two-way street, and right now, it was flooding her with his possessive torment.

“Get away from her!” Lucian roared, his voice cracking as he bagan losing control. He took a step forward, his fangs fully unsheathed.

“Caleb… Caleb, help me,” Isabella choked out, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt. “I hate it… I hate him. Don’t let him… no, no, no…”

Lucian flinched as if she had struck him. To hear the word hate from his fated mate, on the very night she was supposed to be his forever, was a wound no immortal body could heal.

“Isabella, look at me!” Lucian voice was a frantic mixture of authority and desperation. He ignored the ancient, blue-eyed ghost standing before him, focused entirely on the girl attempting to burrow into Caleb’s shadow.

“Isabella, why? Why are you rejecting it. I accept it, Isabella… Isabella”

“Please,” Isabella sobbed, her knees buckling as the panic attack took hold. The air felt thick with Lucian’s sandalwood scent, and the pulsing mark on her neck felt like it was trying to weld her to the ground.

“Please, Caleb… take me away. Please, please, please…” The agony in her voice was the catalyst.

Caleb didn’t wait for Lucian to strike. He didn’t even look back at his brother. “As you wish, my love,” Caleb whispered, his voice a cool balm against her feverish skin.

In an instant, the shadows at Caleb’s feet exploded. “NO!” Lucian roared, lunging forward with his speed, his hand clawing at the air where Isabella’s hair had been a second before.

But his fingers met only cold, swirling soot.

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