chapter 12
1301 Words
Chapter 12– The Bargain’s Price
The storm quieted, but it wasn’t peace.
It was the silence of a graveyard.
Isabella’s knees were numb against the stones, her palms slick with Ethan’s blood. She pressed harder, desperate, but his chest barely stirred. For one heartbeat, two, she thought he had already gone. Her throat locked, her whole body trembling.
“Ethan,” she whispered, her tears hot against the cold rain. “Don’t leave me. Not like this.”
A hand brushed her shoulder—not gentle, not tender. Damian’s touch was possessive, claiming. She flinched.
“Don’t waste your breath begging the dying,” he murmured near her ear, voice soft as velvet and sharp as a blade. “Ask me instead. You know what I can do.”
Her pulse stumbled. “You said you had a cure. If you’re not lying—”
“Do you think I lie, dove?” His smile ghosted against her cheek. “I poison, I break, I destroy. But when I choose, I save. That is the difference between me and him.”
Her eyes shot up, meeting Adrian’s across the storm-soaked courtyard. He was standing rigid, his sword hanging loose in his hand, his face carved with anguish. His chest rose and fell like he couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t listen to him!” Adrian shouted hoarsely, the wind carrying his words like thunder. “He’s using you! Isabella, look at me—look at me!”
She wanted to. God, she wanted to. But her hands were covered in Ethan’s blood, and the man bleeding beneath her was slipping away with every breath.
Her voice cracked. “If you can save him… then save him!”
Damian crouched beside her, his coat brushing the stones. His eyes glittered with triumph, but beneath it—a flicker of something else. Hunger. Need.
“You’ll ask me properly,” he said softly. “Not like a command. Like a plea. That’s the price.”
Her heart stopped. “You want me to beg?”
“Yes.” His gaze dipped to her trembling lips. “On your knees. With his blood still on your hands. Beg me like you mean it.”
“Damn you!” Adrian roared, taking a step forward. “She owes you nothing!”
Damian’s hand shot up, a dagger flashing, pressed against Ethan’s throat. “One more step, brother, and she owes me everything.”
Isabella froze, her lungs seizing. “Stop! Don’t hurt him!”
Damian’s smirk widened. “Then beg.”
Her pride screamed no. Her heart screamed yes.
Her voice broke on the word. “Please.”
“Say my name.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Rain streaked her face, salt and storm and shame. “Please… Damian.”
The dagger withdrew. For the first time, Damian’s expression shifted—less smug, more dangerous, as if her surrender had lit something feral in him.
“Good dove.” His hand slid across her blood-slick fingers, covering Ethan’s wound. “Now watch.”
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A hiss rose as Damian’s palm pressed down, dark energy threading from his skin into Ethan’s body. Isabella gasped—the wound beneath her hands pulsed, the edges searing, burning away the black venom that had been eating him alive.
Ethan arched, groaning weakly, his eyes fluttering open before rolling back. Color returned to his lips, faint but real.
Isabella’s sob of relief tore from her chest. She grabbed his hand, squeezing. “Ethan! Ethan, stay with me. Please.”
His fingers twitched, barely. Alive.
Adrian staggered forward, sword forgotten, eyes wide with disbelief and fury. “What did you do?”
Damian rose slowly, wiping blood from his palm. “I gave him back. For her.” His gaze lingered on Isabella, dark and unreadable. “She chose.”
Adrian’s face collapsed—anger, heartbreak, betrayal twisting together. “Isabella…” His voice cracked. “Tell me you didn’t—tell me you don’t belong to him now.”
Her throat burned. “I did it for Ethan.”
“You don’t bargain with the devil to save a life!” Adrian’s roar shook her. “He’ll take more. He always takes more!”
Damian only smiled, wolfish. “And yet she came to me.”
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They moved Ethan inside, into the crumbling shelter of the old stronghold. Isabella stayed at his side, pressing fresh cloth against his wound, watching the shallow but steady rise of his chest. Relief warred with dread inside her.
Adrian paced like a caged beast, every glance at her heavy with anguish. Finally, he broke.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done,” he said, voice raw. “Every choice with him is a chain. You’ve given him your hand, and he won’t stop until he has all of you.”
Isabella lifted her head, her voice trembling but steady. “Then maybe you should have told me the truth before it came to this. Maybe if I’d known—”
“What truth would change his poison in Ethan’s veins?” Adrian snapped, fury blazing. “What truth justifies kneeling to him?”
Silence fell. The storm outside softened to a drizzle.
Isabella’s shoulders sagged. Her hands shook as she whispered, “I couldn’t lose Ethan.”
The words hit Adrian like a blade. His face shuttered, grief hollowing his eyes. He turned away, shoulders rigid, fists clenched.
And in the shadowed corner, Damian watched. Not gloating now, but intent, as though her defiance fed something deeper in him.
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When the silence grew unbearable, Damian finally stepped forward. His voice was smooth, certain.
“You understand the cost now, dove. I saved him because you asked me. That bond doesn’t break. Not until I say so.”
Isabella’s chest tightened. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re mine now.” His eyes burned into hers. “Not his. Not your own. Mine only.”
Adrian whirled, fury blazing. “Over my dead body!”
Damian’s smirk curved, cruel. “That can be arranged.”
The tension snapped like a bowstring. Isabella leapt to her feet, her palms raised. “Stop it! Both of you! I can’t take it any more, I am tired of this game now.” Her voice broke, tears streaking down her face. “I can’t keep being torn in two.”
Her plea froze them. Two men, two shadows, both tethered to her. One by love unspoken, the other one by chains of choice.
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Outside, the storm had quite down, like it had never rained. moonlight slicing through the clouds like the morning dew.
Isabella turned back to Ethan, her heart was raw. But when she reached for his hand, she felt it—heat searing into her skin, a burning sensation, not his, but something else. she pulled her hand back abruptly.
Her gaze snapped to Damian. He was smiling faintly, knowingly.
The mark burned faintly on her wrist—an invisible chain, a tether to him.
Her breath caught in her throat. “What did you do to me?”
Damian’s smile was slow, devastating.
“I kept my promise, dove. You asked me to save him. And I did. But now…” He stepped closer, voice like velvet over iron. “Now you’re bound to me.”
Adrian’s roar shook the walls. Isabella’s heart stopped.
And Ethan—Ethan’s fingers twitched in hers, his lips parting with a single, rasping word.
“Run.”
The world fractured again.
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Isabella realizes Damian has marked her. he had bound her to him in ways deeper than she understood. Adrian's world is shattered in to pieces and Ethan wakes just enough to whisper “Run,” as she has no other options
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- Writer
