CHAPTER 167
"He is," Isabella said, her voice cutting through the heavy, musk-laden air with a sharpness that Alaric hadn't heard since the day she broke his wrist.
She didn't shy away. She didn't pull the silk of her robe higher to hide the blossoming crimson seal on her skin.
Instead, she leaned back into Lucian's solid, scarred chest, tilting her head slightly so the mark caught the glow of the LED lights.
It was a silent, proud display of her new reality—a declaration that she was no longer the broken thing his pack had discarded.
She looked down at Alaric, her expression shifting from momentary shock to cold detachment.
"The real question, Alaric," she continued, her tongue as sharp and unforgiving as a silver blade, "is why are you here? And why are you naked and bleeding in my kitchen?"
Alaric flinched as if she had struck him. He was stunned—breathless and reeling—at the sheer vitriol in her tone.
