Chapter 185

The hallway was longer than she remembered, or perhaps it was simply that her senses now parsed every inch of it with a clarity that made the space feel vast.

The air outside the suite was thinner, sharper, and carried the faint, lingering notes of the mansion’s long, cold history.

Isabella stood just outside her door, the heavy oak swinging shut behind her. For a moment, she just breathed, her lungs expanding with an ease that felt almost criminal compared to the suffocating anxiety of the last few days.

She began to walk forward. As she rounded the corner toward the grand staircase, she caught a scent that made her pulse skip a beat.

It wasn’t Lucian’s earthy sandalwood or Clara’s herbal bitterness. It carried a thick, musky aroma that undeniably belonged to a wolf

Alaric.

She smelled him before she saw him. The scent was no longer the suffocating, aggressive musk of an Alpha in heat. it had settled into something grounded, though still potent.

Isabella paused at the top of the staircase, her hand hovering over the banister as her eyes found him. He was on the ground floor, midway towards the kitchen, but the moment her presence registered, he went dead still.

Alaric looked up, his gaze locking onto hers with an intensity that made the air between them feel physically heavy.

He looked significantly better than he had during his initial arrival. The feverish flush of rut was gone, replaced by a calm, pale composure.

He was dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt and dark slacks. Isabella felt a flicker of genuine surprise, she hadn’t realized Lucian had granted him this much freedom to walk the mansion’s halls unescorted.

They looked at each other for a long time, a silent exchange that carried the staggering weight of violence, ignorance, and the hardship of her years in the South.

Slowly, Isabella began to descend the stairs. Her movements were fluid and silent, lacking the careful, self-conscious hesitation of her old self.

But upon reaching the midway point, a shadow moved in the periphery of her vision. Through the open archway of the kitchen, she could see Clara.

The witch was moving with efficient, practiced motions, clearly in the middle of preparing lunch. Alaric remained stationary at the base of the stairs, watching Isabella’s progress with a steady, unreadable expression.

He didn’t move toward her, nor did he retreat. He simply waited until she cleared the final step and stood before him on the cold marble floor.

"Isabella," Alaric’s low and devoid of the rasping, animalistic edge it had held ever since he arrived in the North.

He tilted his head slightly, his eyes scanning the golden-red ring of her pupils more closely, searching for the girl he thought he knew.

He saw the change, but he didn’t—or perhaps couldn’t—find the words to comment on it. Isabella smoothed the front of her new cashmere sweater, the expensive fabric acting as a shield between her and the boy who had been her first crush and her most silent tormentor.

"Alaric," she replied in acknowledgment, her voice steady and echoing with a confidence that felt new. "I didn’t expect to see you wandering the house freely."

"The Sovereign decided I was less of a threat when I’m not trying to tear the doors off their hinges," Alaric said, a faint, ghost of a smile touching his lips.

It was a dry attempt at humor, but it died quickly. He gave an awkward cough as he realized Isabella wasn’t giving him a reaction, nor was she offering the familiar, uncontrolled defiance gaze she used to wear like a uniform. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Silently, he gestured toward the kitchen with a stiff, formal motion of his hand—a shadow of the Alpha heir he had been bred to be.

The movement felt entirely wrong here, stripped of the context of the South where he had once stood at the center of a pack that viewed Isabella as a blemish on their pristine reputation.

Isabella didn’t smile back. She didn’t offer so much as a polite nod. The sight of him—healthy, composed, and standing in the halls of her new home—sent a cold spike of memory through her.

She remembered the way he used to look right past her in the communal dining hall, as if she were part of the furniture.

She remembered the way he had laughed, or worse, simply remained silent, when Selena had called her ’the defective.’ She remembered the silent, crushing weight of her crush on a boy who had treated her like a ghost for eighteen years.

The awkwardness between them was thick enough to choke on. In the South, he had been the sun and she was a speck of dust.

Here, she was the one draped in fine cashmere and the dormant power of Lycan blood, while he was merely a guest living on the Sovereign’s sufferance.

Isabella didn’t stop to indulge the conversation. Although she had been the one to plead with Lucian not to hurt the boy, she still couldn’t find it in her heart to forgive what had been done to her.

Mere survival didn’t erase a decade of being made to feel like a mistake. She felt his gaze tracking the way she moved as she stepped past him.

She didn’t want his apologies, and she certainly didn’t want his recognition now that she finally had a form he could respect.

She wondered, with a bitter twist of her heart, if he even knew she was a Lycan yet, or if he just thought the Northern air had finally given her a backbone.

Entering the kitchen was a relief. Clara was standing by a massive butcher block, her back to the door.

The sound of a knife hitting wood was the only noise in the room, steady and purposeful as she sliced through root vegetables. The air was thick with the smell of roasting lamb and rosemary, a heavy, grounding scent that pushed the stifling awkwardness of the hallway back into the shadows.

"You finally left the room," Clara said without turning around. Her white eyes seemed to be focused on the steam rising from a copper pot, yet she perceived Isabella’s presence perfectly.

Isabella stopped by the kitchen island, her hands finding the cool, solid surface of the marble to steady herself. "Well, I had to eventually. I couldn’t stay hidden forever."