Chapter 167

"He is," Isabella said, her voice cutting through the heavy, musk-laden air with a sharpness that Alaric hadn’t heard since the day she broke his wrist.

She didn’t shy away. She didn’t pull the silk of her robe higher to hide the blossoming crimson seal on her skin. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Instead, she leaned back into Lucian’s solid, scarred chest, tilting her head slightly so the mark caught the glow of the LED lights.

It was a silent, proud display of her new reality—a declaration that she was no longer the broken thing his pack had discarded.

She looked down at Alaric, her expression shifting from momentary shock to cold detachment.

"The real question, Alaric," she continued, her tongue as sharp and unforgiving as a silver blade, "is why are you here? And why are you naked and bleeding in my kitchen?"

Alaric flinched as if she had struck him. He was stunned—breathless and reeling—at the sheer vitriol in her tone.

Even back in the pack, when the high-ranking wolves would surround her and mock her for her useless legs, Isabella had always had a remark ready.

She had always been "sharp-tongued," a defiant spark that they could never quite extinguish, especially toward him.

But this was different. This wasn’t the desperate defiance of a victim; this was the cold authority of a woman who was backed by a king.

Alaric tried to find words, his jaw working uselessly and just then the scent of Lillie and honey became stronger.

The bond. His blue eyes flashed gold, still bleary and watering, drifting toward the corner of the kitchen where Clara stood.

The witch was watching the drama with her chin resting in her hand, her white, sightless eyes seemingly looking right through his soul.

He had found his mate. He had followed that invisible, agonizing pull through the void and across borders, only to find that she was a high-ranking witch who didn’t give a single damn about his existence.

She hadn’t moved to help him. She hadn’t even looked at him with anything other than mild, scientific curiosity.

He looked at Clara, then back at Isabella, his world tilting on its axis. He was a future Alpha, naked and shamed, trapped between a mate who found him a nuisance and a childhood friend who now looked at him like a common cur.

"I... I uhh..." Alaric’s voice trailed off,his tongue feeling like lead in his mouth. He looked up at Isabella, searching for even a flicker of the girl who used to flinch at his shadow, but he found only a polished stone.

Isabella didn’t move. She remained anchored against Lucian’s warmth, her arms crossed over the dark silk of her robe as she watched Alaric struggle.

"Well?" she prompted, her voice dripping with an expectant impatience. "Did the great Alpha heir lose his words along with his dignity? Continue, Alaric. Tell me exactly what madness brought you here"

Alaric’s gaze darted frantically between Isabella’s cold stare and the terrifyingly silent King standing over her.

Before he could force another syllable past his bruised throat, a light, melodic voice sliced through the tension like a silver needle.

"The kid claims I am his mate." All eyes snapped to Clara.

The witch hadn’t moved from her spot by the marble island. She remained leaning back, her chin still resting in the palm of her hand, her expression one of bored amusement.

Her white, sightless eyes were fixed somewhere in Alaric’s general direction, though she seemed to be looking at his very life force rather than his battered body.

The silence that followed was absolute. Lucian’s head tilted sharply toward the witch, his brow furrowing in a mix of confusion and sudden, dark interest.

Beside him, Isabella’s posture stiffened, her eyes widening as she looked from the ethereal, powerful witch to the boy on the floor.

"Your mate?" Isabella repeated, the words sounding foreign and impossible in the clinical stillness of the kitchen.

"So he says," Clara replied with a careless shrug of her shoulders, her fingers tapping a beat against her spellbook.

Alaric’s head bobbed in a desperate confirmation that felt like he was signing his own death warrant.

"Yes," he rasped, his eyes fixed on Clara with a yearning that was almost physical. "The pull... I followed it. It’s her. It’s definitely her."

The silence held for a heartbeat, two, and then it was shattered by a sound that no one in the room expected.

Isabella threw her head back and laughed.

It wasn’t a soft chuckle or a giggle of disbelief; it was a full, booming, hysterical peal of laughter that echoed off the cold marble and glass of the kitchen.

She laughed until her shoulders shook against Lucian’s chest, until tears pricked the corners of her eyes, her voice ringing with a genuine, mocking amusement that seemed to strip Alaric of what little skin he had left.

All eyes snapped to her. Lucian’s brow arched in genuine confusion, his hand instinctively tightening on her waist as he watched her.

Clara’s tapping fingers stilled on her book, her sightless eyes tilting with a flicker of genuine curiosity, while Marcus simply blinked, the copper-haired vampire looking as if he’d just seen a statue start to sing.

But Alaric didn’t look curious. He looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

He knew exactly why she was laughing. He remembered the pack woods. He remembered the long, moonlit walks with Selena, Isabella’s twin.

He remembered the way the pack had whispered about them being "practically mates," the way he had catered to Selena’s every whim while Isabella was forced to watch from the shadows.

"Oh, gods," Isabella wheezed, her laughter finally tapering off into sharp, breathless snorts.

She wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, leaning heavily into Lucian as she looked down at the shivering boy on the floor.

"Clara?" she pointed a finger at her, her voice trembling with the last remnants of her mirth. "You found her as your ’mate’, Alaric?" Isabella paused before stepping out from Lucain’s embrace.

"What about Selena?"