14: Unleashed
14: Unleashed
Isabella’s POV
Luca had always been the predator. But for the first time… he wasn’t sure if I was prey.
The air in the room felt wrong.
Too heavy.
Too thick.
Each breath I took burned in my lungs, as if something inside me had caught fire, spreading through my veins with each unsteady pulse. My skin tingled, stretched too tight over bones that suddenly felt foreign. There was a pressure beneath my ribs, coiling, pushing outward, as if something inside me was trying to break free.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
And worst of all?
I couldn’t stop it.
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Luca still stood across the room, unmoving.
He wasn’t watching me the way he usually did—like I was something fragile, something he could manipulate and control. This was different. His silver eyes were locked onto me, unreadable but sharp, as if he was seeing me for the first time.
And the truth was…
I barely recognized myself either.
Not because I looked different.
But because I felt different.
A slow, twisting hunger curled in my stomach, unfamiliar and insatiable. My tongue felt strange in my mouth, my throat dry and raw. The ache wasn’t just a craving. It was a need.
A need for something I couldn’t name.
Luca saw it.
And for the first time since I met him, I saw something close to hesitation in his gaze.
"Luca," I rasped, my voice hoarse, like I had swallowed glass.
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t move.
And that’s when I felt it.
The hunger.
Not just for him.
For blood.
For destruction.
For something dark and wild clawing its way to the surface.
A deep, guttural sound tore from my throat before I could stop it.
Not a scream.
Not a whimper.
A growl.
The moment it left me, something inside me snapped—
And the entire room exploded.
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The lights above me shattered, glass raining down in sharp, glittering fragments. The bulbs didn’t just break—they burst, as if something had reached inside them and ripped them apart from within.
The air vibrated, charged with an unseen force, sending furniture skidding across the floor, slamming into walls with deafening cracks.
My heart pounded so hard it felt like it might tear itself apart. My breaths came in sharp, ragged bursts, my vision swimming in and out of focus.
What the hell was happening to me?
"Luca!" I gasped, clutching at my chest as another wave of heat pulsed beneath my skin.
My legs buckled. The floor tilted.
Then—strong arms caught me.
The second his hands touched me, something inside me recoiled.
Luca’s scent wrapped around me, dark and heady, a mixture of smoke, leather, and something richer, something dangerous.
But he wasn’t just holding me.
He was restraining me.
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"Enough," he growled, his grip like steel bands around my arms.
I thrashed against him, panic and fury and something else rising inside me like a tide I couldn’t control. My pulse was wild, erratic, a drumbeat of chaos inside me.
"I can’t—" I gasped, my skin burning, my entire body trembling.
Luca’s fingers tightened. "You will," he snapped, but there was something in his voice—something that almost sounded like doubt.
He didn’t know what was happening either.
For the first time since I met him, Luca Devereaux, the untouchable, the all-powerful, didn’t have the answers.
I saw it in his eyes.
That second of hesitation.
That flicker of uncertainty.
The moment he realized—
He wasn’t in control.
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The force inside me coiled tighter, a storm building beneath my skin. My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms as I tried to hold it in.
But then Luca—
Luca touched my throat.
His fingers grazed the fresh bite mark he had left there.
And that was all it took.
A pulse of pure energy exploded outward, knocking him back with a force that sent him crashing across the room.
Luca hit the wall hard, a sharp snarl ripping from his chest as he slid to the floor.
I gasped, stumbling backward, my chest rising and falling too fast.
I had thrown him.
Not with my hands.
Not with a weapon.
With something else.
Something inside me.
The weight of what had just happened settled over me, suffocating, impossible.
Luca wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, his silver eyes darker than I’d ever seen them. He didn’t rise immediately. He didn’t lunge for me like he always did.
For a long, breathless moment—
He just watched me.
Then, in a voice that was quiet, deadly, and full of something I couldn’t name, he spoke.
"You’re not turning into a vampire, Isabella."
His eyes flickered, that unreadable emotion twisting in their depths.
"You’re turning into something worse."
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The silence that followed was suffocating.
I stood there, panting, shaking, my hands still tingling with the remnants of power. It felt like my entire body was humming, like something had awakened beneath my skin that would never let me be normal again.
Luca wiped the blood from his lip, but his focus never left me.
His silver eyes burned into me, unreadable, intense.
Not with anger.
Not with desire.
Fear.
My stomach twisted into knots.
"Luca," I whispered, my own voice foreign to my ears. "What’s happening to me?"
He didn’t answer right away.
He didn’t smirk.
Didn’t taunt.
For the first time, he looked at me like I was something else entirely.
Something unknown.
His voice was softer when it finally came, lower than before.
"This… isn’t how it was supposed to happen."
The room seemed to tilt around me, the edges blurring. My pulse slammed in my ears, my head spinning.
"What does that mean?" I demanded. "You said I was yours before I was even born!"
Luca’s jaw tightened.
"You were," he murmured.
"But not like this."