novelraw Chapter 132: First
Chapter 132: First
Chapter 132
"Whose head?" Lucian repeated, his voice dropping an octave as he stepped fully into the kitchen.
The air in the room, which had just been warm and comfortable under the domestic cooking, suddenly felt thin, electric, and dangerously pressurized.
"I believe I heard my name mentioned in the same breath as a... prehistoric reptile?" Lucian mused, his eyes narrowing.
At the sound of that low, rumbling tone, the heat in Isabella’s skin flared again—that fierce, radiating Lycan warmth that Clara had noticed earlier.
Isabella clutched her spoon like a weapon, her face flushing a deep, unmistakable crimson. "I... we were just..."
"We were discussing the challenges of dating in the modern era, Lucian," Clara interrupted, her voice perfectly calm, smooth as glass, and completely devoid of the humor she had just shared with Isabella.
She stood up in one graceful, fluid motion, her white eyes returning to their usual neutral shimmer. "Isabella here was just discussing with me about her past lovers."
The silence that followed Clara’s words was so thick, so heavy with sudden gravity, that it felt like it could be cut with the knife still resting on the island.
Isabella’s spoon clattered against the bowl with a ringing protest. She looked at Clara, her eyes wide with a mixture of sharp betrayal and pure, unadulterated shock.
Past lovers? She hadn’t even had a "present" lover, let alone a history worth discussing with an ancient vampire king who looked like he was ready to dismantle the world.
The lie was so sudden, so absurdly out of character for the calculating witch, that Isabella’s brain momentarily short-circuited.
"Is that so, Isabella?" Lucian’s voice was low and laced with a dangerous purr that made the hair on her arms stand up.
He stepped fully into the kitchen’s light, the overhead LEDs catching the sudden, vivid flash of crimson bleeding into his gray pupils.
The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. He didn’t even glance at Clara; his gaze was pressed firmly to Isabella’s flushing face, tracking the frantic way her pulse was jumping in the space of her throat, betraying her every nerve.
Clara, meanwhile, acted as if she hadn’t just tossed a stick of burning dynamite into a furnace. She turned toward the doorway, her expression masked with bored indifference.
"I believe I’ve said quite enough for one day," Clara remarked, her tone dismissive as she caught Marco’s eye, giving him a look that was less an invitation and more a silent, magical command.
"Marco, if you aren’t busy standing there, I need your assistance. My hound is being particularly restless outside, and I require a second pair of hands to check his restraints."
Marco, who had been enjoying the unfolding drama with an unreadable, stoic expression, blinked in genuine surprise.
He looked at Lucian’s tense back, then back at Clara, realizing the witch was clearing the room with the subtlety of a landslide to leave the two mates alone.
He cleared his throat, pushing off the doorframe with a practiced ease. "Restless? Right. Yes," Marco’s voice regained its steel-edged, stoic tone as he caught on to the play. "We wouldn’t want a stray hound causing a scene on the grounds. Sire, if you’ll excuse us."
Lucian didn’t even acknowledge them with a nod. He didn’t blink. He was too busy staring into Isabella’s wide, panicked eyes, his presence filling the space until there was no room left for anyone else.
Clara and Marco vanished through the double doors and Isabella felt the sudden, terrifying absence of their company.
"You are very quiet, Isabella," Lucian whispered, reaching out a pale hand. He didn’t touch her yet, but his fingers hovered just inches from her jaw, the cold radiating from his immortal skin making the fine hairs on her neck stand on end.
"Was it a long list, Isabella?"
"She’s lying, Lucian. I don’t—I never—" Isabella finally found her voice, though it was little more than a breathless, desperate rasp.
"Lying is a human trait, Isabella," Lucian interrupted, his thumb finally grazing her chin, tilting her face up with agonizing slowness to meet his burning, relentless gaze.
"Was it that boy, Isabella? The one from the forest that night?" The image of Aleric—the golden boy of the Blackwood Pack, the one who had discarded her like yesterday’s trash in favor of her sister—flashed through her mind. It was a bitter, stinging memory, a wound to her pride, but it wasn’t a romantic one. Not anymore.
"No," Isabella gasped, the word tripping over her tongue as her heart hammered against her ribs. "No... Lucian, you don’t understand. I didn’t..." She swallowed hard, her throat tight. "I didn’t have a boyfriend. I never did."
He didn’t pull away. If anything, he moved closer, pinning her against the stool with the sheer weight of his shadow.
Isabella remained seated, her face tilted upwards toward Lucian’s towering, imposing form, feeling smaller than she ever had before.
"Is that so, Isabella? Then why was your heart racing the moment Clara spoke? Why does your scent spike with such... delicious agitation, Isabella?"
"Because she’s making things up!" Isabella nearly shouted, her frustration finally bubbling over the top of her fear, turning into a hot, defiant energy.
She gripped the edge of the stone island, her knuckles turning bone-white against it. "I was a nobody in that pack! I spent my time in the kitchens or the library, not... not with lovers! I’ve never even dated anyone, let alone what she’s implying!"
Lucian’s hand moved with the speed,his fingers sliding from her chin to the side of her neck, tracing the erratic thrum of her pulse. "You are a very convincing actress, Isabella. But even the best performers leave a trail of truth behind them, Isabella."
"I’m not acting!" Isabella’s face was flushing with a deep, angry crimson, the heat of her Lycan blood rising to meet his icy touch.
The absolute absurdity of being interrogated about a non-existent love life by a twelve-century-old vampire was finally too much to bear.
"I literally gave my first kiss to you, you old man!" The silence that followed was absolute, heavy enough to choke the air from the room.
Lucian froze, his fingers stilled against her skin like marble. The dangerous, mocking glint in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a stunned, piercing clarity that seemed to strip her bare.
He stared at her, his gaze dropping to her lips and then snapping back to her eyes, searching for the lie he was so certain he would find.
"Isabell, your first??" he whispered, the name coming out again like a prayer and a curse combined.
Isabella huffed, her chest heaving with exertion as she tried to maintain her flickering defiance. "Yes. My first. But am I yours, Lucian?" The words took effect in an instant, hitting him with a force. Lucian didn’t flinch, but his eyes... they changed.
For a split second, the red-gray storm in his pupils fractured, revealing a raw, ancient vulnerability.
A flash of a memory—vivid, haunting, and centuries old—seemed to mirror in the gray of his irises.
White hair. A woman with hair like spun silk and gold eyes that held a slightly different tone.
Bella. It was a ghost of a second, a flicker of a past he still hadn’t fully remembered, a remnant of a life lived before the long darkness.
His hand stilled on her neck, his thumb pausing its possessive stroke as he drifted, for a heartbeat, back to a dead world.
The hesitation was like a physical slap to Isabella’s face. "Oh," she breathed. The warmth in her chest turned into a cold, hard knot of rejection.
"Why did I even ask that? Of course there was someone. You’re twelve hundred years old, Lucian. I’m just... a moment to you."
Frustration and a sudden pang of inadequacy surged through her. Before he could find his tongue or explain the ghost in his eyes, she pushed against his chest—hard.
The strength of the move, fueled by her rising adrenaline, caught him off guard, and she used the momentum to slide off the velvet stool.
"I’m going to finish my food upstairs," she snapped, grabbing her plate in a fit of embarrassment and hurt, turning to bolt toward the door.
Her eyes were stinging, her pride wounded, her mind going back to those text from the library book. "I don’t know why I thought for one second that—"
She didn’t get to finish. She had barely taken two steps toward the exit when a cold, iron-strong hand clamped around her wrist.
In one fluid, blurred motion that defied the laws of physics, Lucian spun her around. The plate remained gripped in her hand, but she was pressed firmly back against the edge of the island, the impact making the breath leave her in a startled oof.
Lucian didn’t give her a chance to argue, nor did he allow her the space to retreat. He leaned down, his large, cool hands framing her face with a sudden, desperate intensity, and locked his lips with hers.
Isabella felt her knees go weak, the plate in her hand tilting dangerously as she melted into the icy-hot contact.
He tasted like winter, like mountain air and ancient secrets, but the way he held her—like she was the only thing keeping him to the present, the only thing real in a house of shadows—was anything but cold.
He pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against hers, his ragged breath ghosting over her lips.
"You are the only one who matters now, Isabella," he rasped, his eyes burning into hers with a possessive fire that demanded her total attention.
"Do not let the ghosts of a dead world pull you away from me, Isabella. Do you hear me?"