The chamber was shrouded in shadows, only the dim silver of the moon crawling across the velvet curtains. Dante lay beside her, his breath uneven, his chest heaving with the weight of unspoken grief. His lips brushed against Isabella's bare shoulder, trembling, before leaving a trail of salt and warmth.
She froze—her skin alive beneath the ghost of his kiss.
And then, slowly, she felt it—his tears. Heavy, burning, endless. They sank into the fabric of her dress, until it clung wet against her body. The quiet ache of his sobbing made her heart twist against her will.
Why does this ache feel so human? she thought, her throat tightening. Why does his sorrow feel heavier than my own?
His grip around her waist was merciless, an iron clasp that refused to release her. She tried to shift, to free herself, but his arms only locked tighter, as though she were the last fragment of his sanity. She could not move—not a breath, not an inch.
Her thoughts drowned her.
If his mother belonged first to his father… if she was stolen on her wedding night… wasn't she ever meant to return? Or does a single mark on one cursed night condemn a woman forever?
The questions poisoned her mind like whispers in the dark. She turned her face slightly—and found herself colliding into his nearness.
Nose against nose. Breath against breath.
Dante's lashes were damp, his icy blue eyes glowing faintly even in the dark. They shimmered like a broken sea, like a tsunami thrashing against the shore, and yet within them lay a fragility she could not name.
Her thoughts faltered.
Oh, your eyes… she whispered to herself in silence. They are oceans drowning me, waves too merciless to escape. A storm of grief in frozen blue…
And then, his golden hair caught the candle's faint light. A flicker—like molten fire bound into strands. Even in sorrow, even in torment, his beauty was a curse, a cruel spell no heart could deny.
She closed her eyes, guilt and humanity consuming her, because she was half human—she could feel, she could ache, she could break. That was her curse.
Meanwhile, in the darkened hallways of Lunaris, Theodore's boots echoed like thunder. His fury was silent, but his restlessness bled into the stone walls.
"Where is she?" His voice was low, sharp enough to cut. His eyes burned with a rage he could no longer chain.
He summoned his men, shadows gathering like a restless storm. "Find her. Search the west wing, the tower, the gardens. Do not return without her."
But with every passing moment, the truth sank like poison into his chest. He could not find her. He could not sense her. And that knowledge gnawed at him, for somewhere in the darkness—Isabella was not his.
Not yet.