Chapter 166

"Isabella." The name left two sets of lips simultaneously, but the weights behind them were worlds apart, colliding in the charged air of the kitchen.

For Lucian, the name was possessive, his baritone dropping from the cold register of a killing machine to that of a territorial guardian.

He spoke it because she should have been safely tucked away within the silk sheets of his bed, shielded from the grit, the blood, and the filth on his grasps he was currently forced to manage.

His red eyes, which had been glowing with a lethal heat, softened instantly as they landed on her, though his pale hand remained a vice around Alaric’s throat, refusing to grant the boy even a sliver of mercy.

For Alaric, the name was a choked sob. He was looking at a ghost. He had spent weeks mourning her, replaying that final, horrific day at the top of the cliff in his mind, but here she was—alive, standing in the heart of a fortress of the damned.

Yet, as his gaze raked over her, the initial relief was swallowed by a sickening realization that curdled in his stomach. She looked... off.

This wasn’t the ’wolfless mutt’ who had limped through the Blackstone woods on crutches, the girl the pack had treated as a broken shadow.

Wrapped in a robe of liquid darkness that unmistakably belonged to the King, with her hair a wild, tangled thicket and her lips swollen and bitten raw, she looked like a woman who had been thoroughly, irrevocably claimed by the monster currently holding him.

Isabella stood frozen at the base of the stairs, her fingers gripping the minimalist glass railing so hard the edges seemed to vibrate under the pressure.

Her gaze dropped, tracing the hard line of Lucian’s muscular arm to where his pale, iron-hard fingers were buried deep in Alaric’s neck.

The sight felt like a fever dream. "Alaric?" she whispered again, her voice finally finding its footing.

She descended the final steps, her bare feet silent on the cold stone, her eyes locked on the boy from her past as if she were afraid he would vanish into smoke if she dared to blink.

Clara stood by the marble island, her white eyes darting between the three of them with a newfound curiosity.

She leaned back against the counter, the silver runes on her spellbook dimming to a faint hum as she processed the scene unfolding before her.

’So, the stray isn’t just a stray,’ she thought, her lips curving into a faint, cynical line. The boy who had claimed her as his ’mate’ was bound by history to the King’s own ward.

It was a delicious, tangled mess of loyalties.

Marcus, too, remained unnervingly still, his disheveled copper hair casting long shadows over his blown-out red eyes as he watched the power dynamic shift in real-time.

Isabella reached the kitchen floor, the scent of jasmine and arousal that clung to her skin colliding with the metallic smell of Alaric’s blood.

She looked at Lucian, noticing the way his long, dark hair fell beautifully over his bare shoulders, and then at Alaric, who was stark naked, shivering, and struggling in her mate’s lethal grip.

Lucian’s fingers twitched against Alaric’s windpipe, his gaze never leaving Isabella as she approached.

He could feel the boy’s pulse—rapid and thudding like a trapped, panicked bird—but his focus was entirely on the way Isabella’s dark robe brushed against the polished concrete.

"Lucian, let him go, please," Isabella said, her voice trembling but firm. Lucian didn’t move. His grip tightened just a fraction, causing Alaric to let out a pathetic whimper.

"He is a wolf, Isabella," Lucian countered, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "He is a piece of those species that broke you. Why should I allow a parasite to breathe the air in my home?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"He wouldn’t hurt me, Lucian," she argued, taking a daring step closer into his space.

"Unless he has a death wish, he knows better than to try anything here. He’s... he’s just Alaric."

"He is a reminder of a life you no longer lead," Lucian hissed, his red eyes flashing with a possessive fire.

Isabella reached out, her hand hovering near Lucian’s scarred chest. She looked up at him, her lips tilting into a small, calculated pout, her eyes pleading with an intensity she knew he found difficult to resist. "Please, Lucian. For me? Just let him go."

Lucian stared at her for a long, suffocating moment, the tension in his arm vibrating through Alaric’s skull.

Then, with a low, almost bored sound of disapproval and a deep growl that resonated in the quiet kitchen, Lucian opened his hand.

Alaric’s body hit the floor with a sickening thud. He doubled over instantly, retching and gasping as the air finally rushed back into his bruised, swollen throat.

He was a pathetic sight—a future Alpha reduced to a shivering, naked heap at the base of a bloodsucker’s kitchen island.

Isabella was about to reach down to help him, her instincts to comfort someone she had known taking over, but Lucian’s hand quickly hooked around her waist.

He pulled her flushed into his side, pinning her against his bare chest. Her eyes went to his in confusion, but he wasn’t looking at her softly like he had moments before.

His gaze was hard, a silent warning that while he had granted her request, his patience was thin.

Alaric looked up, coughing violently, his blue eyes bleary and watering as he tried to focus. As he dragged in the salt-thick air of the mansion, his gaze began to rake over Isabella again, searching for the "mutt" he had once ignored and sometimes pitied.

But the closer he looked, the more the horror set in. Her skin was too radiant, practically glowing with a vitality she had never possessed in the pack.

Her presence felt heavy, anchored by a power that wasn’t hers alone. Then, her robe shifted. The movement was slight, but as Isabella leaned closer into that monster, the wide collar of the dark silk slipped an inch to the left, exposing the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Alaric’s breath hitched in his throat, and his heart skipped several beats. There, on the delicate, pale curve of her neck, was a mark that burned with an angry, vibrant red hue.

It wasn’t a wolf’s bite—there were no messy tooth marks. It was an elegant seal of ownership that seemed to pulse with its own dark heartbeat.

Alaric’s blood ran cold. He had seen that mark once before. He remembered the night of her escape, the night she had broken his wrist with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible for a wolfless girl.

He remembered ripping the bandage away in the moonlight and seeing that same blossoming, crimson energy etched into her skin.

Back then, in his ignorance, he hadn’t known what it was. Now, standing in the heart of the North, the truth hit him with a blow to the chest, stealing what little air he had left.

"A mate mark," Alaric wheezed, his voice sounding like it was being dragged over broken glass.

He looked from the mark on her neck up to Lucian, who was watching the naked, broken boy with a look of dark, smug satisfaction, his arm tight around Isabella’s waist.

Alaric’s gaze snapped back to Isabella, his eyes wide with a shivering, profound terror as the reality of her transformation settled in. "You... He? He is your mate?"