WOLFLESS: Accidentally Marked By The Devil's Son-Chapter 76: They were happy.

Chapter 76

Isabella watched, her heart still hammering against her ribs, as Caleb closed the distance between himself and the trembling girl.

She expected him to be harsh, or perhaps to demand something for his rescue, but his movements were agonizingly slow, as if he were approaching a wounded animal.

Bella was pressed so hard against the stone wall it looked like she wanted to disappear into the masonry.

Her breath came in ragged hitches, and her hands were still locked in a white-knuckled grip over the tear in her bodice.

Caleb stopped a few feet away, respecting the space she clearly needed. The "Crown Prince" persona—the untouchable, arrogant heir—had vanished.

In its place was a man whose eyes burned with a mixture of fury toward his brother and a strange, haunting sorrow for the girl in front of him.

"He is gone," Caleb said, his voice dropping to a low, soothing rumble. "He won’t touch you again. I give you my word."

Bella looked up, her golden eyes—so much like Isabella’s—glassy with unshed tears. "You...Your highness" she whispered, her voice cracking. "I... I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I didn’t mean to spill the wine. I’ll take the whipping, I’ll—"

"You will take nothing," Caleb interrupted, his jaw tightening. He reached for the clasp of his heavy, fur-lined cloak.

With a fluid motion, he unshouldered the garment. Isabella watched, mesmerized, as he stepped forward and draped the expensive fabric over Bella’s small shoulders.

It was far too big for her, swallowing her frame, but it instantly hid the ruined state of her dress.

Bella flinched at the initial touch, but as the warmth of the cloak seeped into her skin, she let out a sob she had been holding back. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"I’m sorry." Bella choked out, looking at him through her lashes. "Please...please, I can’t accept this."

Caleb leaned in, his face inches from hers. Isabella felt a jolt go through her own body, a resonance that made her skin prickle.

"You don’t need to accept it, you could throw it away if you don’t need it but let this shield you a bit before you get to your room."

He reached out, his fingers hovering near the bruise forming on her temple where Selena’s cup had struck her.

He didn’t touch it—perhaps he knew he shouldn’t cross a line. " I heard of your king’s illegitimate child but never the name. What’s your name"

Bella trembled under the weight of the fur, the scent of cedar and expensive leather—Caleb’s scent—wrapping around her like a sanctuary.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and a budding, dangerous hope. "Bella," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "My name is Bella."

"Bella," Caleb repeated. He said it slowly, as if tasting the name, and the way it vibrated in the air made Isabella’s own mark on her neck burn with a sudden, localized heat.

"A beautiful name for a girl who was meant to be a Princess, not a shadow."

"I am whatever the King says I am," Bella said, her gaze dropping to the floor.

"Not to me," Caleb murmured. He stood back up, the "Crown Prince" mask sliding back into place as he heard the distant echo of footsteps—guards returning to their posts. He looked at her one last time, a silent promise in his eyes. "Go to your quarters. You are free to retire early today"

Bella didn’t wait. She clutched the cloak to her chest and fled down the corridor, her figure blurring as she moved further into the darkness.

Isabella tried to follow, but the world began to warp. The stone walls of the castle started to stretch and bleed, the grey masonry dissolving into swirling charcoal vapors.

The vision changed and Isabella stood frozen as images of Bella and Prince caleb stealing glances of each other as days go by flashes through eyes.

The image went on, Bella and Caleb getting closer together. She blinked, and suddenly she was in a dark room.

The darkness of the room was heavy, smelling of old parchment, expensive wax, and that now-unmistakable scent of cedar.

Isabella stood in the center of the shadows, her breath hitching as she realized where she was. This wasn’t a servant’s quarter. The high vaulted ceilings and the faint shimmer of silk hangings told her this was a royal chamber.

Prince Caleb’s room.

The heavy oak door creaked open, and two figures slipped inside, their movements frantic and hushed.

Caleb shut the door with a soft thud, leaning his back against it as he exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime.

Beside him stood Bella. She was no longer wearing his cloak, but her maid’s uniform was crisp, her eyes darting around the room in a panic.

"My Prince, please," Bella whispered, her voice trembling. "It isn’t wise to be here. If my sister—if Selena sees me in your chambers, I would be hanged. She already looks at me as if she wants to erase my very existence."

Caleb stepped away from the door, his hand reaching out to capture hers. "Let her look," he rasped, pulling Bella into the sliver of moonlight filtering through the window.

"Let the whole world look. I am tired of living in the spaces between shadows, Bella."

"But the betrothal," Bella countered, her voice breaking. "You are the Crown Prince. You are promised to a future Queen, a ’pure’ blood. I am... I am an accident of birth. A half-breed maid with no name."

"Damn the crown!" Caleb erupted, though his voice remained low. He stepped closer, his forehead resting against hers.

"And damn the bloodlines. They want a King, let them find one in Lucian. I don’t want a throne built on treaties and cold iron. I want a life. I want to wake up and see the sun in your eyes, not the ice in Selena’s."

Isabella watched, frozen. The air in the room was thick with a desperate, tragic longing. She saw the flashes of the past weeks behind her eyelids—the stolen glances in the garden, the secret notes tucked into books, the way their hands had accidentally brushed in the corridors.

They weren’t just falling in love; they were falling into a gravity that neither could escape. "We could leave," Caleb whispered, his thumbs brushing the tears from Bella’s cheeks.

"We could elope. Cross the border where no one knows the names Caleb or Bella. We could just be a man and a woman starting a life that belongs only to us."

Bella let out a small sob, her resolve crumbling as she threw her arms around his neck. "You would give up everything? For me?"

"I would give up the world," he promised, "because you are my world."

The vision blurred, time skipping forward like a heartbeat. Isabella didn’t move, yet the room felt warmer now, the moonlight softer.

She looked toward the large, canopy bed. Caleb and Bella were wrapped in the heavy velvet bedspread, their limbs tangled in a peaceful, post-storm exhaustion.

The chaos of the palace felt miles away. Caleb was propped up on one elbow, his fingers tracing the line of Bella’s jaw with a reverence that made Isabella’s throat tighten.

"I love you," he murmured, his voice a sacred vow. "I will forever love you, Bella. I would give my life a thousand times over just to keep you safe. I will never let them take you from me."

Bella didn’t speak. She simply leaned into his touch, a soft blush coloring her cheeks and a fragile, beautiful smile playing on her lips.

She looked at him with a silent, absolute trust—the kind of trust that only someone who has been unloved their whole life can give to the person who finally sees them.

Standing in the corner of the room, Isabella felt something wet splash onto her hand. She touched her face and realized she was crying.

The tears flowed silently, hot and bitter, down her cheeks. She wasn’t just watching a memory. She was watching the origin of a bond that had might had been ripped apart for centuries.

"They were happy," Isabella whispered through her tears. But then the vision twisted again and this time see stood face to face with young Lucain.