Chapter 140
"Looks like it’s just you and , Your Royal Highness," Isabella whispered softly, her voice carrying a lightness that completely betrayed the danger of the situation.
Lucian looked down at her, his gray eyes unreadable for a fraction of a second too long. She had no idea—no comprehension whatsoever—that she was currently locked inside a vast, silent mansion with a starving predator whose very cells were screaming, clawing, begging for the blood dancing so vividly through her veins.
"So it would seem," Lucian managed to rasp at last, his voice rougher than he intended. He forced his feet to move, leading her down the grand staircase.
"Though I suspect your definition of ’occupied’ involves far more manual labor than I am accustod to..."
"Oh, definitely," Isabella chirped without hesitation, her tone bright and unbothered as her hand slid down his arm, fingers threading easily with his as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The contact was imdiate. Electric. Beneath the smooth layer of his fresh silk shirt, the wounds across his chest flared violently.
They reached the kitchen, the morning sunlight now streaming through the tall windows in long, dusty fingers that stretched lazily across the marble floors and polished surfaces.
The room was pristine. Perfect. But to Lucian, it was nothing short of a battlefield. The composite stone of the island still seed to hold the ghost mory of the night. The heat of her body pinned against it. The sharp rhythm of her pulse, hamring, right beneath his lips.
Isabella let go of his hand and practically bounced toward the pantry, her energy bright and alive, a striking contrast to the still, coiled predator watching her from across the room.
"Okay, Assistant," she announced, already in motion. "Rule number one: no brooding. Rule number two: you do exactly what I say. Got it?"
Lucian leaned against the doorfra, deliberately keeping as much distance between them as the room would allow.
He crossed his arms over his chest, partly to maintain the rigid elegance of his posture, and partly to keep his hands from betraying the faint, dangerous tremor threatening to surface.
"I believe I am familiar with the concept of ’orders,’ Isabella," he replied smoothly, though his voice carried a lower edge. "Though, usually, I am the one giving them."
"Well, consider this a temporary demotion," she shot back easily, erging from the pantry with a bag of flour tucked under one arm and a carton of eggs balanced in her hand.
She set them down on the island. The exact spot. The precise place where he had nearly tasted her.
"First task," she continued, completely unaware, "crack four eggs into that bowl. And try not to use your ’super-strength’ and turn them into dust, okay?"
Lucian pushed himself away from the doorfra and stepped forward. As he reached the island, her scent hit him back fully.
His vision flickered—just for a second—but it was enough. A thin edge of red threatened to bleed into the corners of his otherwise controlled gray gaze. He picked up one of the eggs, his fingers looking almost absurdly powerful wrapped around sothing so fragile.
He simply stared at it—then at Isabella, who was watching him with an expectant, slightly amused grin.
"Is sothing wrong, Your Highness?" she teased, leaning forward onto her elbows. "Is the egg beneath your dignity?"
"The egg is... manageable," Lucian muttered, forcing the words out through clenched restraint.
He cracked it with a precise flick of his wrist. His focus narrowed completely onto the task, locking onto it with near-desperate intensity, anything to avoid looking at the steady beat of the pulse at her throat.
One by one, the four eggs fell into the ceramic bowl, each yolk intact, unbroken, pristine.
"Pass the salt, Assistant," Isabella said brightly, far too cheerful for a man currently navigating what felt like a psychological warzone.
Lucian reached for the small crystal cellar, his movents careful. But as he handed it to her, his fingers brushed against hers.
A fresh jolt tore through his chest, the sensation akin to molten tal being poured slowly along his ribs, seeping into bone.
He withdrew his hand instantly, masking the reflexive flinch by adjusting his cuffs with deliberate precision. Isabella, blissfully unaware of the war raging inches from her, added a asured pinch of salt.
"Here." She slid the bowl toward him, her eyes gleaming. "I actually liked the way your eggs looked that day, Lucian. They looked perfect." Her grin shifted. "It’s just a sha they tasted like a seawater cocktail."
Lucian’s jaw tightened, but sothing faint flickered behind his eyes, perhaps a ghost of amusent cutting through the suffocating pressure.
He took the whisk, his large hand engulfing it as he began to beat the eggs in smooth, controlled motions.
"So," he said, voice steadier now, "you are finally admitting that my culinary presentation was superior to yours? Even if the execution was... robust?"
Isabella laughed out brightly and It made sothing deep inside him stir, made the fangs behind his lips ache with renewed intensity.
"Superior? Lucian, I couldn’t feel my tongue for three hours," she shot back. "But yes...they looked like five-star hotel eggs. Very... regal."
"Then perhaps you should pay closer attention to your ’assistant’ today," he returned, a faint, teasing edge slipping through despite everything.
"You might actually learn how to plate a al befitting a King—even if that King is currently being subjected to manual labor."
He moved toward the stove, putting several blessed feet of distance between himself and the overwhelming pull of her presence.
He could feel her warm and curious gaze on him. Soft in a way that unsettled him far more than fear ever could. As he set the pan over the fla, butter lting into a pale golden pool, the scent rose quickly.
For a mont—a brief, fragile mont—it helped. It dulled her. Not erased. Never erased. But dulled enough to breathe.
Lucian kept his eyes fixed on the pan, his hand steady on the handle even as the celestial fire continued to lick along his chest. He was holding. He was winning. He was doing it.
He was being the man she believed him to be. The man who could stand in a sunlit kitchen and joke about salt and burnt toast like nothing monstrous lived beneath his skin.
Then...The world stopped. The sharp, comforting sound of butter sizzling vanished completely. The warmth of the stove faded into irrelevance.
Even the air itself seed to tighten, compressing into sothing sharp and unbearable.
A new scent hit him. It wasn’t the ambient, floral warmth of her skin that he had been battling all morning.
This was different. This was concentrated. It was raw. It was the scent of iron and tallic, blooming in the air with the force of a physical blow to his chest.
Lucian’s hand tightened on the pan handle until the tal groaned, but his eyes were no longer on the eggs.
His head began to turn—slowly—driven by an instinct that sat far behind his royal titles or his human pretenses.
Across the kitchen, Isabella stood frozen by the cutting board. The small paring knife lay forgotten beside her.
She wasn’t moving. Her thumb was pressed to her mouth, her brows drawn together, her eyes wide—not in fear, not yet, but in that sharp, startled confusion that ca with sudden pain.
A single, dark crimson droplet had escaped her grasp. It slid, slow and vivid, saring against the corner of her lip.
Lucian didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. His fangs dropped fully, snapping into place with a soft, lethal click against his lower teeth.
And in the silence of his mind—stripped bare of reason, restraint, and anything human—only one word remained.
Blood.
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