Chapter 134: Kiss
Chapter 134
The master suite was a sprawling sanctuary of cold shadows—a stark contrast to the lingering, domestic warmth of the kitchen where Isabella remained.
Below, she was likely finishing the meal that had been so violently interrupted by the arrival of ghosts and the shattering weight of ancient revelations, but up here, the air was still and thin.
Lucian stepped through the double doors, the absolute silence of the room rising to meet him like a familiar, old friend.
He made his way toward the expansive, dark-wood dressing area, his hand instinctively rising to the center of his chest, fingers pressing against the fabric of his garment.
Beneath the fine silk of the shirt, he could feel the dampness spreading. The wound was still weeping.
Despite his lineage and his power, the skin there was stubbornly refusing to knit together with the usual supernatural speed of his kind.
He could bear it now, having found a threshold of tolerance that allowed him to move with his typical grace, but the physical pain wasn’t the only thing gnawing at his composure.
As the wet fabric peeled away from his pale skin in the dim light of the suite, a different, far more dangerous kind of hunger flared in his veins.
It was the persistent demand for blood. Not just any blood—not the cold, bottled essence of a lesser creature. He could smell the lingering, intoxicating scent of Isabella on the very threads he discarded; he could hear the life-affirming thud of her heart echoing up through the floorboards from the kitchen below, a siren song to his primal nature.
He closed his eyes tightly, his fangs pricking the sensitive inside of his lip as he fought to suppress the urge to descend the stairs and take what was his.
He had been fighting this specific thirst since the moment he had passed through those kitchen doors and felt her warmth, and while his iron will was currently holding the line, he knew it was a temporary, fragile dam against a steadily rising tide.
One day, he feared, the suppression would backfire; the beast within him would finally demand its due with interest.
But as he stood there in the shifting shadows, he made a silent vow to the empty room: he would find a solution—a way to bridge this gap—before that day of reckoning arrived.
He reached the master bathroom, the cool air of the tiled space hitting his bare, scarred chest, making him lean over th vanity, gripping the edges until the stone groaned, and exhaled a long tiring breath.
The weight of their conversation in the kitchen washed over him again. Bella. The name no longer felt like a jagged shard of glass cutting his throat.
He knew it deep in his marrow, in the very essence of his immortal, weary soul. Isabella was Bella. The precise curve of her jaw, the defiant fire in her eyes, the way she stood her ground against him even when her knees were visibly trembling—it was too exact, too symmetrical to be a mere trick of the Fates or a cruel coincidence.
They were mirrors of one another, two halves of a singular heart separated only by the cruel, dusty veil of twelve centuries.
Everything in him wanted to believe she was Bella... but something didn’t fit. If she was Bella... why did the memory feel incomplete?
He splashed cold water on his face, as he wondered, with a pang of uncharacteristic doubt, if she truly believed him.
He had been honest—brutally and vulnerably so—when he told her that his memories were still nothing more than a fractured mosaic of light and ash.
He knew for a certainty the gut-wrenching details of how Bella had died; he could still feel the biting cold of that final, tragic moment, the way his entire world had turned to ash and silence in his hands.
But the "Who" remained a terrifying, empty void. Someone had reached into the mind of a Crown Prince and systematically, ruthlessly erased the identity of his executioner.
Someone had wanted him to wake up in a world of shadows, haunted by a love he couldn’t fully name and a betrayal he couldn’t prove.
He gripped the edge of the vanity, his knuckles turning a ghostly white against the dark stone. He didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, and the memory ritual Clara had performed had only opened the heavy door, not cleared the cobwebs from the room.
But as he reached for a fresh shirt, his eyes darkened into a new, singular purpose. Isabella feared she was a replacement—a doppelgänger filling a vacant, dusty space in a dead King’s heart.
He needed to make her understand, with every fiber of her being, that she wasn’t a shadow of the past; she was the soul he had been promised before the very first drop of blood was ever spilled in his name.
He would find out who had stolen his history, and he would ensure that this time, the "sun" wouldn’t set on his world again.
He pulled the fresh fabric over his shoulders, masking the burned wound and the rising hunger alike, and turned back toward the door.
He couldn’t stay away from her for long; the distance felt like an ache. The ghosts of the past were loud, but the sound of her living, beating heart was infinitely louder.
Lucian paused at the threshold of the master suite, his fingers lingering on the cold brass of the handle as he looked back at the empty room.
He could still taste the sweet salt of Isabella’s lips on his own. It pulled at the very seams of his restraint.
Taking another deep, stabilizing breath, he descended the grand staircase and when he reached the kitchen doorway, he stopped again, unwilling to break the spell of the moment.
Isabella was still there, hunched over the last of her meal, the soft glow of the overhead lights catching the golden highlights in her hair.
Bella had possessed hair of pure, snow-white silk, and so had Isabella until recently. To any other observer, the change might signify a difference, but to Lucian, that didn’t mean Isabella was any different from the girl he had loved in the beginning.
She looked so small against the vastness of the modern, industrial kitchen, yet she occupied every single inch of his focus.
He watched the steady way her shoulders rose and fell with each breath, the way her pulse thrummed visibly in the delicate hollow of her throat.
The mark he had placed on her neck was still there but faint from that incident. She was a masterpiece of the Fates, a soul carved from the exact same light as the woman who had died in his arms a millennium ago.
But as he looked at her now, he realized that the "doppelgänger" label was an insult to the woman she was becoming in her own right.
Bella had been his sun as a crown prince, the warmth he needed to survive, but Isabella was a wildfire—the fierce, unyielding flame that had dragged him out of the ash and back into the world of the living.
"Isabella," he said softly, his voice cutting through the hum of the room like a velvet blade. She startled at the sound, her spoon clattering against the bowl as she turned to face him.
Her eyes were wide, still shimmering with the remnants of their shared revelation, searching his face with a mixture of confusion and longing—looking for the "old man" she had teased or perhaps the King she feared.
"You’re back," she breathed, her voice sounding a little more stable, a little more grounded than it had been before.
She noticed the change of clothes, her gaze lingering curiously on the fresh fabric where his weeping wound was hidden from view. "Are you okay?"
Lucian walked toward her, choosing not to answer her question right away. When he was close enough that he could feel the radiating warmth of her Lycan blood, he reached out and gently took the empty plate from her hands, setting it aside on the island.
"I am, Isabella," he replied, his eyes darkening to the color of a stormy cloud as he leaned over her, effectively trapping her between the heat of his arms and the hard edge of the island.
"But I would be better...." He paused, tilting his head slightly, his gaze dropping to the inviting curve of her lips before snapping back to lock with her eyes. "With a kiss."