Chapter 146: Why did you stop.
Chapter 146
Isabella stood before Lucian, her shirt hanging open and heavy with the dampness of the room.
Her skin pale and shimmering under a fine, ethereal mist of spray and sweat. To any other observer, she might have looked fragile—a slip of a girl caught in the devastating path of a hurricane—yet the look in her eyes was steel forged in a furnace of absolute resolve.
She wasn’t begging for her life, nor was she pleading for mercy; she was commanding him with the silent weight of her soul.
The freezing spray of the shower continued to drum against the marble tiles. Lucian’s eyes, fractured by streaks of crimson that swirled within his irises, were locked onto the pale, vulnerable curve of Isabella’s throat.
The steam curled around her, clinging to the damp, honeyed skin he had just been invited to ruin.
"Then take it." He stood paralyzed. The words were no longer just sound; they were vibrating through his head, threatening to shatter his remaining composure.
Lucian’s chest heaved, the breath hitching in his lungs as he stared at her. He wanted it. God, he wanted it with a desperation that bordered on the religious.
Every cell in his immortal body screamed for the relief only her blood could provide. The itch in his gums was an agony, throbbing with pressure as his fangs descended, making his jaw ache with the need to pierce, to claim, to consume.
But beneath the roaring hunger, a cold blade of terror twisted in his gut. The memory of the kitchen—the acrid smell of burning, the sound of her gasping for air while he held her with the detached strength of a predator holding a piece of meat—flashed behind his eyes.
If he crossed this line now, if he took what she was offering while the rot in his chest was this hungry, there would be no coming back.
He wouldn’t just be feeding, he would be erasing her. He saw her pulse jumping frantically beneath the skin of her neck, a delicate drum of life.
One slip. One second of losing himself to the sweet high of her essence, and that rhythm would stop forever, leaving him in a world of absolute silence.
He gripped the edge of the vanity, his knuckles turning bloodless white. "Isabella..." he whispered again, the name a broken prayer.
He took one step forward. Just one. His boot splashed into the pink-tinted water that pooled on the floor, but he stopped abruptly, his body bowing as if he had walked into an invisible wall of self-loathing, bracing himself against the primal urge to lunge.
The tremors through his frame were rattling his very bones as he fought the gravity of his nature.
Isabella didn’t flinch. She didn’t recoil at the sight of the monster rising to the surface; in fact, she took a step toward him, closing the distance until the heat radiating from her body began to clash with the unnatural, deathly chill of his skin.
She was rooting him to the present, acting as a bulkhead against the rising tide of his madness.
Lucian’s hand moved, hovering in the charged space between them before finally settling on her bare waist.
His touch was hesitant, almost reverent, his cold fingers sliding beneath the damp fabric of her open shirt to find the burning warmth of her skin.
The contrast was a shock—a lightning strike that traveled straight to the weeping wounds on his chest, making the "Celestial Fire" flare.
His other hand rose, moving agonizingly slow with caution of a man handling live glass that was already beginning to crack.
He let his thumb brush against the side of her neck, resting just a hair’s breadth away from the pulse point he was destined to pierce. He could feel the vibration of her life under his skin, making him lean in, his forehead dropping to rest against hers as their breaths mingled in the steam.
The mist of the shower turned to a thick vapor where it hit his skin, his body temperature rising in a feverish response to the proximity of his mate.
"Isabella," he voiced in a growl that vibrated against her lips. "Listen to me. If... if I lose control... you have to push me away. You stab me if you have to. Do not let me take more than you can give."
"I won’t have to," she murmured, her voice unwavering even as her heart hammered against his palm. "Because you’re stronger than the hunger, Lucian. I trust you."
The word trust was the final snap of the leash. Lucian tilted her head back gently, his lips ghosting over the skin of her throat for a heartbeat before he finally let his fangs sink in.
It wasn’t the violent, desperate puncture of the kitchen. This was slow and devastatingly intimate. As his teeth broke the surface, Isabella let out a soft gasp, her hands flying up to grip his wet shoulders, her nails digging into his skin as the world tilted on its axis.
The roar of the shower faded into a distant, replaced by the overwhelming sensation of the bond opening.
For Lucian, the first taste of her blood wasn’t just liquid; it was light. It was the smell of jasmine after a rainstorm, the concentrated heat of a summer noon, and the absolute, terrifying purity of her trust for him.
As the iron-rich nectar hit his tongue, the agony in his chest was cauterized. The three claw marks on his torso reacted instantly; the "Celestial Fire" began to flow, turning into a shimmering solder that began to mend the broken tracks of his flesh.
His own blood stopped weeping, drawn back into his body by the sheer power of her essence.
Lucian’s breathing turned into a series of erratic, shallow hitches, his bare chest heaving against hers as the heat between them became a furnace.
The bite deepened, his jaw locking as he began to draw from her frantically, his throat working in a primal swallow that ignored the limits of her mortal frame.
His grip on her waist tightened, his fingers digging into her hip with a force that would surely leave bruises.
He stopped hearing the shower. He stopped hearing her heartbeat. All he heard was the siren song of the blood, demanding more, demanding everything.
Isabella felt the shift. The gentle pressure had turned into a crushing, suffocating weight. Her head felt light, the world spinning as black spots began to dance across her vision.
The cold began to seep back into her limbs, a numbing frost that started at her fingertips and moved toward her heart.
She felt her strength leaving her, her fingers losing their grip on his wet hair, sliding down his back as she began to drift into a haze of euphoria and exhaustion.
"Lucian..." she managed to whisper, but the sound was swallowed by the hiss of the water.
He didn’t hear her.
He buried his face deeper into the curve of her neck, his body trembling with a dark, ecstatic pleasure that bordered on the lethal.
"Lucian!" she tried again, her voice cracking with the last of her strength. She reached out, her hand finding the center of his chest, her fingers brushing against the healing tracks of the scars.
The contact between his healing chest and her raw, burnt palm sent a jolt of agonizing pain through her, and she cried out, her body jerking violently against his.
That cry—that sharp, human sound of distress—cut through the thick, narcotic haze in his mind.
Lucian’s eyes snapped open. He saw the way her skin had gone a ghostly, translucent white. He felt the way her heart was beginning to stagger, the rhythm slowing into a sluggish, dangerous beat that threatened to stop altogether.
He saw the blood he had spilled—not just what he was drinking, but the crimson staining the water at their feet, a vivid, horrific reminder of his failure.
I’m killing her., Lucian tore himself away, his fangs ripping free. He was about scrambling back but Isabella hand shot out and held his wrist in a terrifying strength that wasn’t supposed to be there after being fed on.
The three marks on his chest were silent now; the wounds had closed, the fire fading into silver scars bought by the very sacrifice she had just made.
Lucain looked at Isabella with eyes wide and filled with horror. His fangs were still extended, his lips stained with the vivid red of her life, and his body was still humming with the stolen power.
"I almost..." he started, but the words died in his throat. Isabella took a shaky breath, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven intervals.
Her head lolled back against the shower wall, her eyes fluttering as she fought to stay conscious. But she wasn’t looking at him with fear.
As her eyes finally flickered open, Lucian felt his breath catch in his throat. They weren’t the normal shades of gold with that ring of red anymore.
They were a pure, molten gold, burning with an internal light that seemed to pierce through the steam of the room.
Around the gold the potent, vibrating ring of crimson bled into the iris—the unmistakable mark of her Lycan power she didn’t yet understand.
Isabella wasn’t pale with death; she was flushed with a terrifying, supernatural high.
"Isabella?" he whispered and a low, soft moan escaped Isabella’s throat. A sound that wasn’t born of pain, but of a primal hunger that mirrored his own.
She reached up, her fingers tracing the marks on her neck where his fangs had just been. She looked down at the blood on her fingers, then back at him. "Why did you stop?" she murmured, her voice sounding like honey and smoke.
Lucian froze.