CHAPTER 166
"Isabella." The name left two sets of lips simultaneously, but the weights behind them were worlds apart, colliding in the charged air of the kitchen.
For Lucian, the name was possessive, his baritone dropping from the cold register of a killing machine to that of a territorial guardian.
He spoke it because she should have been safely tucked away within the silk sheets of his bed, shielded from the grit, the blood, and the filth on his grasps he was currently forced to manage.
His red eyes, which had been glowing with a lethal heat, softened instantly as they landed on her, though his pale hand remained a vice around Alaric's throat, refusing to grant the boy even a sliver of mercy.
For Alaric, the name was a choked sob. He was looking at a ghost. He had spent weeks mourning her, replaying that final, horrific day at the top of the cliff in his mind, but here she was—alive, standing in the heart of a fortress of the damned.
