WOLFLESS: Accidentally Marked By The Devil's Son-Chapter 65: Where am I?

Chapter 65

The heavy click of the lock served as the final period to his sentence. Isabella remained frozen against the headboard, the lingering warmth of the broth still coating her throat, while the ghost of Lucian’s heat vanished from the mattress.

The room felt empty without him. She stared at the door for a long time, half-expecting him to burst back in and demand the truth again. But there was only the low whistle of the wind against the wall and the frantic thudding of her own heart.

A tool, huh? there wasn’t a single insult, a single name that man hadn’t thrown at her. She looked down at her hands. They had stopped shaking, steadied by the nutrients and the brief, electric contact with his skin.

If she was a tool, she was one that was being sharpened against her will. She could feel the "Void" within her—the blight that had once felt like a cold, empty hole—now swirling with the gray, stormy essence of Lucian’s blood. It wasn’t just keeping her alive; it was filling her, changing the very marrow of her bones.

She thought of the red eyed man in the courtyard—Cyrus. The memory of his red eyes sent a fresh shiver down her spine.

He hadn’t looked at her like a predator looks at a butterfly. He had looked at her like a scientist looks at a mutation—with a cold, calculating hunger for knowledge.

If Lucian was a storm, the Council was the biting frost that preceded it. Sleep did not come easily. When she finally drifted off, her dreams were a chaotic mess of black cars, spoons, and white moths that turned into shards of glass the moment she touched them.

DAY 4

Isabella woke to a silence so profound it felt like a physical weight on her chest. The sun hadn’t quite cleared the horizon, leaving the room in a state of bruised, pre-dawn blue.

She sat up, expecting the usual wave of nausea or the crushing "Void" to greet her. Instead, she felt an odd, buzzing energy under her skin.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet hitting the marble. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel like she was made of glass.

She walked toward the wardrobe, intending to find something other than Lucian’s oversized shirt to wear, when she saw it. Clara Stone. That dull and now creaked stone.

The stone sat on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe, looking utterly discarded. It was a dull, ashen gray now, the intricate silver runes that had once glowed with Clara’s life force now nothing more than shallow, cold scratches.

A crack ran down its center, nearly splitting it in two, a souvenir from the moment Isabella’s hunger had overwhelmed the ritual.

Isabella reached out, her fingers hovering over the cold surface. She had intended to find a gown, something to replace the shirt that smelled so strongly of Lucian it made her head swim, but the wardrobe’s contents were forgotten.

She picked up the cracked stone. It felt heavier than it had three days ago, or perhaps it was just that she felt stronger.

The buzzing under her skin intensified, she didn’t head back to the wardrobe. Instead, she climbed back onto the bed, pulling her legs up and tucking the charcoal-silk duvet around her.

She sat in the center of the massive mattress, the stone cradled in her palms. "Okay," she whispered to the empty, shadowed room. "Let’s see what I am today."

She closed her eyes, trying to mimic the way Clara had told her to breathe—deep, steady, reaching down into the center of her chest where the draw lived.

Three days ago, that place had been a terrifying, icy cavern. But today, thanks to the constant infusion of Lucian’s blood, it felt like a pressurized chamber. It was full of him—of gray storms, ancient iron, and a flickering violet heat.

She focused on the heat, refusing to remain a mere vacuum. This time, she would push back.

She pressed her palms against the stone, imagining the crack in its center mending. She waited for the drain, for the sickening pull that usually left her gasping and gray-faced.

It didn’t come.

Instead, the energy under her skin surged. It wasn’t a withdrawal; it was an overflow. The gray essence she’d been drinking for three days flowed into her will for the first time, obeying her intent instead of dragging her under.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, the stone began to vibrate.

A faint, ghostly light—the exact shade of her eyes—flickered deep within the crack. The runes didn’t just light up; they hissed, the stone growing warm, then hot, against her skin.

Isabella’s breath hitched. She could feel the connection. Through the stone, the room seemed to expand.

She could feel the coldness of the walls, the distant smell of the tress, the rush of a lake far away. She could feel nature. But she also felt the stone resisting her, as if warning her that power always comes with a price.

A pressure behind her eyes built until it was no longer a hum, but a roar. The room around her began to warp, the charcoal silks of the bed bleeding into a hazy, shimmering gray.

The scent of the forest she had just touched—the damp earth and the biting pine—suddenly intensified, rushing into her lungs until she felt like she was drowning in the wild air.

And then, the sound of her own heartbeat vanished. Isabella blinked, and the transition was so violent it made her stomach heave.

She wasn’t sitting on the soft mattress anymore. The warmth of the duvet was gone, replaced by a draft so cold it felt like a physical slap against her bare legs.

She was standing.

The floor beneath her feet wasn’t polished marble, but rough, uneven stone that bit into her soles.

Her vision was tunneled, the edges of her world blurred as if she were looking through a thick pane of frosted glass.

She gasped, her fingers tightening instinctively, and felt the sharp edges of the cracked stone still pressed into her palms.

Directly in front of her was a door. It wasn’t the grand, ornate oak of Lucian’s suite. This was a heavy slab of dark timber, reinforced with rusted iron bands.

There was no gold latch, no royal crest—just a sense of ancient, brooding silence. Isabella’s breath hitched, coming out in a pale puff of mist.

Where am I?