Chapter 95 — The Mark Beneath the Skin
Chapter 95 — The Mark Beneath the Skin
Scarlett
The pain didn’t come from my body.
It came from something deeper—like a string inside me was being pulled too tight, threatening to snap. I clutched my stomach, breath heaving as I dropped to my knees in the center of the candlelit circle Lucien had drawn hours ago. The flickering light painted shadows across the stone floor, but it was the silence afterward that told me something was wrong.
Very wrong.
“Scarlett?” Lucien stepped forward from the shadows, his expression unreadable. “Did you feel that?”
“Something’s wrong with the baby,” I whispered, voice trembling. “It—something touched her. Inside me.”
Lucien didn’t hesitate. He crossed the floor in seconds, his cold fingers pressing gently to my pulse point. “She’s still alive. I can hear her heartbeat.”
“But not alone,” I murmured.
Because that’s what I felt—another presence. Cold, invasive, ancient. Whatever it was didn’t belong in my body, didn’t belong anywhere near my child.
Lucien’s mouth tightened. “The protections we’ve cast aren’t strong enough anymore. The wards are fraying, and whatever is hunting her… it’s getting closer.”
I swallowed the rising bile in my throat. “Then we reinforce them.”
He hesitated.
“What?” I snapped, bracing against the panic building in my chest. “Say it.”
Lucien straightened, his silver eyes burning with something unreadable. “There’s an old rite. One that would tether your life force more directly to hers—to protect her. But it’s… dangerous, and irreversible.”
I felt the pulse of my child within me—a flutter of awareness, as though she knew we were speaking of her.
“Do it.”
“Scarlett—”
“I said do it.”
Lucien’s jaw flexed, but he nodded.
As he began the incantation, tracing old blood-runes around me, I closed my eyes. For a moment, I saw Kael’s face again—not the cold vampire prince, but the man I’d seen in the dark. The man who had touched my soul with a single, broken glance.
I wondered where he was now. If he’d feel it when the bond shifted again. If it would hurt.
And then, the pain returned—but different. A glowing heat spread from my spine outward, encasing my belly, my chest, and finally my throat in white-hot fire. I didn’t scream.
I couldn’t.
Lucien’s voice echoed around me, low and steady, commanding the ancient language with a fluency that chilled me. The room itself seemed to tremble, and when my vision cleared, something on my skin had changed.
A mark.
Right above my heart.
It shimmered like molten gold, then faded, leaving only the ghost of heat behind.
Lucien was staring at it.
“What is it?” I rasped.
His gaze locked onto mine. “It’s the mark of old blood yours, and hers.”
I blinked, heart hammering. “You said this was just a tether.”
“It was.” He exhaled, looking almost unnerved. “But the child… added something of her own.”
The mark had power, I could feel it. And worse—someone else could too.
Because the moment Lucien stepped away, the door to the chamber exploded inward in a shower of splinters.
Kael storm-eyed, bloodied, and furious.
I didn’t even get a word out before he was in front of me, dragging me behind him with a possessive grip I hadn't felt in weeks.
“What did you do to her?” he roared at Lucien, fangs flashing.
Lucien raised his hands, utterly calm. “Relax prince, I saved her.”
“You did something. I felt it break.”
Kael’s voice cracked on that last word.
And that’s when I realized—he was shaking.
“Kael,” I breathed, stepping out from behind him, “I asked him to do it. It was my choice.”
His eyes locked on mine. They were wild, devastated. “You broke our bond.”
“I had to,” I said softly. “It wasn’t safe for her, or me.”
Kael stared, as if trying to find the lie.
And then he stepped back—just once—and looked at me like he didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him.
“You’d rather be protected by him?” he said, voice low and dangerous.
“This isn’t about him,” I snapped. “It’s about our child, and the thing hunting her.”
His lips curled back slightly. “And what makes you think I wouldn’t burn the world to ash to keep her safe?”
“Because you didn’t,” I said, the words slicing us both. “You let me walk away. You let me face this alone.”
Kael flinched like I’d struck him.
Lucien cleared his throat. “If you’re done bleeding over old wounds, perhaps you’ll want to know that something broke through our outer wards less than an hour ago.”
I stiffened.
Kael turned to him sharply, “What?”
Lucien nodded. “The shadows moved too fast for the watchers to track. But whatever it is, it’s here.”
The room dropped into silence.
Then Kael said, low and furious, “Get her out.”
“What?” I said.
“You heard me,” he growled, already heading for the door. “I’ll deal with it, but I can’t protect you both if you stay here.”
“I’m not leaving—”
He turned back to me, his eyes glittering. “Don’t fight me on this, Scarlett. Not now, please.”
That please cracked something in me.
I nodded, swallowing hard.
But as Lucien and I turned toward the back passage, I glanced over my shoulder—
And saw Kael drawing something from inside his coat.
A dagger, ornate, and ancient.
It pulsed black.
“Kael!” I shouted, “Where did you get that?”
He didn’t answer.
He just looked at me one last time—and smiled like a man walking into his own death.
And then the shadows swallowed him.