Chapter 190

The sudden movement sent the rolling ladder skittering backward along its track. For a terrifying heartbeat, she was suspended in mid-air, the hollow realization of her height hitting her just as her feet slipped from the narrow wooden rung.

A sharp cry escaped her as gravity took hold. Before she could even brace for the impact with the stone floor, the air around her shifted. A blur of movement, faster than her eyes could track, intercepted her fall.

Strong, cold arms wrapped securely around her waist and shoulders, pulling her flush against a solid chest.

She was on the ground in an instant, but her feet barely touched the floor. The scent of sanlderwood mountain pine, and something ancient and dark filled her senses.

"Carefully" Lucian’s voice rumbled, vibrating against her ear. The grip he had on her was firm,possessive yet he held her as if she were made of the very vellum she had been searching for.

Isabella’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She stayed there for a second too long, her hands instinctively clutching the lapels of his dark, frost-dusted cloak. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The adrenaline from the fall began to mix with the pulse of the mate bond, sending a different kind of heat through her veins.

Slowly, she pulled back, though Lucian didn’t fully release his hold on her waist. She looked up at him, her golden-red eyes wide and still shimmering with the remnants of her panic.

"You’re back," she breathed, her voice a fragile thread in the massive room. Lucian’s gaze was intense, tracing the lines of her face as if checking for cracks.

"I am," his tone low and dangerously smooth. He glanced up at the high, empty shelves she had been scouring before looking back at her. "And I see you’ve been busy trying to find answers in a house that was built to keep them hidden."

Isabella straightened, trying to reclaim some of the grace she had felt earlier. "The books, Lucian... they’re empty. I’ve looked through every history, every lineage. There isn’t a single mention of a shifter, let alone a Lycan. It’s like we don’t exist."

She looked at him, her eyes searching his for the truth she couldn’t find on parchment. "Why is there nothing here? This library has everything else."

Lucian finally let his hands drop from her waist, though he remained close enough that she could feel the cold radiating off his clothes.

He turned slightly, looking toward the dark, nameless tomes on the Restricted History shelves.

"That is because I took them."

Isabella blinked, her mind momentarily stalling as she tried to process the flat, matter-of-fact tone of his voice.

"Huh?" she managed, her hands still resting tentatively against the damp wool of his cloak. "What do you mean, you took them? You took... all of them?"

She looked back at the vast, yawning gaps on the upper shelves, then back at him. The thought that she had spent the last hour climbing ladders and spiraling into an existential crisis because of his personal interior decorating choices made a spark of irritation flicker through her lingering shock.

Lucian didn’t look remorseful. If anything, he looked remarkably satisfied with himself. He reached out, his thumb grazing the line of her jaw to brush away a smudge of library dust.

"When I realized your blood wasn’t following the laws of a standard shifter, I didn’t want the Marcus —or guests—stumbling upon records they didn’t have the clearance to understand," he explained, his gaze dropping to her lips before returning to her eyes.

"I personally cleared every shelf," he continued, his voice dropping to a low, possessive rumble. "Every scroll on primal lineages, every text on the Great Shift, and every recorded myth regarding the Lycan line is currently sitting in my home office"

Isabella stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. "So, I’ve been up there risking my neck on a rickety ladder, wondering if I was some kind of hallucination, because you decided to start a private collection in your office?"

"I wanted to be sure, Isabella," Lucian countered, his expression softening just enough to betray the protective streak that drove almost every move he made.

"And I didn’t want you filling your head with ancient, terrifying legends without me there to help you navigate them. The history of the Lycan is not a gentle one. It isn’t something you read about over afternoon tea."

He stepped closer, closing the small gap she had created between them. "They are in my study. Safe. Under lock and key."

Isabella sighed, the tension in her shoulders finally beginning to bleed away, replaced by a strange mix of relief and lingering annoyance. "Next time, Sovereign, maybe leave a sticky note? It would save me a lot of dramatic internal monologues."

Lucian’s lips tilted into the faintest ghost of a smirk—the kind that usually preceded a very distracting kiss. "I’ll keep that in mind for our next family secret."

Isabella didn’t return the smile. Instead, she reached out, her fingers smoothing the heavy fabric of his cloak where she had bunched it up during her fall.

She worked with a quiet, focused energy, tapping out the stray flecks of frost and discretely rearranging the collar so it sat perfectly against his shoulders again.

It was a domestic gesture, yet it felt weighted with the new distance. "Lead me to the office, then," she said, her voice steady but lacking the warmth he was used to hearing.

Lucian watched her hands, his expression going unreadable. He could feel the shift in her—the way her touch was precise rather than lingering.

He knew he was still walking on thin ice. Ever since he had withheld the truth of her Lycan heritage, a fracture had formed in the fragile trust they had built.

"As you wish," Lucian replied softly, stepping out, turning toward the library doors, and his hand instinctively found its place at the small of her back.

He was careful, his touch light as if he were waiting for her to flinch away. Isabella didn’t say anything. She didn’t lean into him, but she didn’t pull away either; she simply let him guide her.

As they walked through the silent, echoing hallways of the mansion, the space between them felt filled with the things they weren’t saying.

Isabella kept her eyes forward, her mind already on the books waiting in his study. She knew he acted out of a desire to protect her, but after a lifetime of being "managed" by the South, his protection felt uncomfortably like another cage.

Lucian, for his part, remained acutely aware of her every breath, knowing that while he had caught her from the ladder, he was still struggling to catch the trust he had let slip through his fingers.