Chapter 137: Hunger.
Chapter 137
The kitchen was shrouded in an oppressive, ringing silence when Clara re-entered, save for the heavy, labored breathing of the man who remained leaning against the far counter.
The "Councilor" excuse had served its immediate purpose—it had cleared the room of prying eyes—but the air within the four walls remained thick and heavy with the sharp, metallic tang of Lucian’s dark arousal and that persistent scent of Isabella’s essence that still clung to the very fabric of the room.
Lucian did not so much as lift his head as the door swung shut. "There wasn’t any car coming, right?" His voice scraped hollow against the silencle.
"The Councilor excuse... it was a lie?"
"Indeed," Clara acknowledged. "But we both know that wasn’t why I sent her away. Look at me, Lucian. Look at me and tell me you don’t see the precipice you’re standing on."
Lucain posture was as rigid as a statue in a forgotten tomb. "You were a second away from tearing into her throat," Clara footsteps echoed as she closed the distance between them.
She stopped directly in front of the King, her hands moving in a swift motion as she cast a shimmering veil of a silence spell, a distortion in the air to shield their conversation from any supernatural ears that might be lingering in the mansion’s halls.
"I have seen you feed in the white-hot heat of battle, Lucian. I have watched you take the lives of a thousand enemies without a second thought or a flicker of remorse. But this? To do this to her? To the woman you claim is your soul made manifest?"
Lucian spun around, his eyes were no longer the deep obsidian of a man, but were shimmering with the dying embers of that predatory red, his fangs only half-retracted.
"Do you think I don’t know that?" he hissed but Clara didn’t flinch. She stood her ground, a defiant woman facing down an ancient, starving King who looked capable of undoing the world.
"Then why, Lucian? If you are so aware of the danger, why don’t you just feed? You have a city teeming with willing humans who would donate their life-force for a handful of cash. We could even bring a willing donor here, right now, if you want it fresh from the source, pulsing and warm. Why choose this slow suicide?"
Lucian’s laugh was dry, a hacking rasp that didn’t even attempt to reach his haunted eyes. He laughed like a sad, crazed man, reaching into the refrigerator and pulling out a heavy crystal carafe filled with the dark, chilled animal blood that Marco usually favored.
In a desperate jerk of his wrist, he upended the vessel and downed a mouthful. Almost instantly, the reaction manifested. His body convulsed, rejecting the offering with a primal loathing.
He doubled over the sink, retching violently as the fluid spilled from his lips. "Because it tastes like ash!" he slammed his fist into the marble countertop with a force that sent a spiraling through the expensive stone.
The marble groaned and shattered under his strength. "Every drop that isn’t hers feels like poison in my veins! It’s a humiliation I didn’t ask for, Clara. A biological trap! My body... it rejects any other blood now. If it isn’t hers, it isn’t life. It’s just rot."
Clara watched him, her expression shifting, the sharp edges of her anger softening into a chilling pity.
"The Bond," she whispered. "It’s not just emotional anymore. It’s not just a romantic tether. It’s biological. You are tethered to her survival in the most literal sense, and your body is refusing to thrive on anything less than the very source of your ruin."
Lucian wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his breathing ragged and uneven. Beneath the fine black silk of his shirt, the scars on his chest seemed to throb in an agonizing agreement with her words.
Clara took another step forward. The pity in her eyes vanished, replaced by a searing, academic intensity.
"It isn’t just the thirst, is it?" she asked in a whisper "The wounds from the Veiled Space... the ones she gave you. They aren’t knitting, are they? Not the way a Sovereign’s wounds should."
Lucian didn’t answer. He turned his back to her again, his hands returning to grip the edge of the ruined, splintered sink.
His shoulders heaved with the sheer, exhausting effort of remaining upright against the gravity of his own failing constitution.
"Lucian," Clara commanded, her tone brooking no argument. "Open your shirt."
Lucain stiffened. The suggestion was a profound affront to his regal dignity, a total breach of the carefully maintained distance he kept between himself and the rest of the world.
He slowly turned his head, looking down at Clara over the broad expanse of his shoulder with a gaze so dark and freezing it could have withered a forest in mid-bloom.
He looked at her as if she were overstepping every boundary he possessed, his eyes flashing a dangerous, warning red.
"Do not test me, witch," he hissed through clenched teeth.
"I am not testing you; I am trying to keep you from falling apart and bleeding out before she sees the mess you’ve become!" Clara snapped back, entirely undeterred by his lethal aura.
"Open it. Now."
Lucian growled a bit but finally, he turned fully toward her. His fingers, trembling in suppressed, feral rage, moved to the first button of his black silk shirt.
He flicked it open in a jerky motion, then the second, and the third, until the expensive fabric fell away from his pale, muscular torso.
Clara’s breath hitched in her throat at the sight of the scarred chest. The scars weren’t merely the static marks of a past battle; they were living, breathing entities of pain.
The deep, diagonal furrows that raked across his chest were raised, angry, and inflamed, glowing with a faint, sickly light from beneath the skin.
They hadn’t settled into the clean, silver-white lines of old vampiric scars. Instead, they looked as fresh as the moment they were carved as if the Lycan’s "celestial fire" was still trapped and burning inside his very muscle fibers.
Clara reached out, her fingers hovering just inches away from the feverish heat radiating off his skin.
"It burns," Lucian admitted, looking down at his own physical ruin with a detached sort of horror.
"Every time I even catch a scent of her... these marks pulse. They scream. It’s like she’s still there, standing over me, tearing into my soul."
"Because in a way, she is," Clara said, her eyes finally lifting to meet his. "The bond has fused your cellular healing to her essence. You are starving, Lucian, because you are trying to feed a vampire’s hunger while carrying a goddess mark. If you don’t get her blood into your system soon, these wounds won’t just stay raw. You’ll bleed out from the inside, consumed by the very fire she left behind."
Lucian pulled the silk fabric back over his chest, his fingers fumbling with the buttons with a desperate haste.
"I can’t feed from her," Lucian’s jaw set into a hard, stubborn line of pure agony. "The one time I did... the one time I let the hunger take the lead... I almost killed her. And at that moment....I didn’t want to stop."
The memory of Isabella’s face—the sheer, unadulterated fear she would feel if he ever pierced her delicate skin again to take what he needed—was a thousand times more painful than the burning fire in his chest.
"I will find another way."
"There is no other way!" Clara shouted, her frustration finally boiling over the edges of her self-control.
"You said it yourself, Lucian! Your body rejects any other blood! It’s hers or it’s nothing! You’re a King dying of thirst in the middle of an ocean!"
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a hiss. "It’s better to take what you need now, while you still have your mind, before you lose every shred of control and take it by force. Because if you slip into that primal state of ’The Hunger,’ Lucian, you won’t stop at a sip. You won’t stop at a taste. You’ll drain her dry and leave nothing but a husk behind."