WOLFLESS: Accidentally Marked By The Devil's Son

Chapter 195: Survival

Chapter 195

The clearing felt too small the moment Lucian stepped back, putting several yards of silver-grey dirt between them.

The warmth of his hand was gone, replaced by the biting evening air that hissed as it met Isabella’s skin.

"According to the books, Lycan doesn’t respond to meditation, Isabella," Lucian said, his voice dropping that rare warmth from moments ago. He stood with his feet braced, his silhouette looking like an immovable statue of black marble. "It responds to survival."

"I will not lie to you. This will not be like the training you saw in the South. There will be no wooden swords or sparring circles. To find your shift, we have to push you to the very edge of your sanity. We have to make the human part of you so desperate that the Lycan has no choice but to tear its way out to save you."

Isabella clutched the Chronicle for a second before realizing it was useless for what was coming. She set it carefully on a flat stone at the edge of the clearing. "So what? You’re just going to growl at me until I shift?"

Lucian didn’t smile. In a blur of movement that her human eyes could barely track, he was suddenly in front of her.

He didn’t strike her, but he caught her shoulders in a grip of iron and shoved her back. Isabella stumbled, her boots skidding on the loose dirt. "Lucian!"

"Your blood is screaming to be let out, but you are holding the cage shut with your own fear," he commanded, his eyes flashing with a cold light.

"Stop trying to contain the fire. If you don’t shift, you will burn from the inside out. I am going to push you until you have no choice but to let the beast take over."

He moved again, faster this time. He was testing her reflexes, forcing her to move, to dodge, and to tap into that primordial heat that had been building in her marrow since they left the mansion.

Isabella scrambled backward, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. This wasn’t what she had pictured.

In her mind, she had imagined a wide, safe distance between them—Lucian standing far across the clearing, perhaps shouting instructions or guiding her through the internal furnace. She thought she would have the space to fail safely.

"Lucian, stop!" she cried out, her voice thin and reedy. She ducked as he swiped toward her shoulder—not a blow meant to harm, but a jarring movement intended to keep her off balance. "I can’t do this with you right there! What if I lose it? What if I hurt you again?"

The memory of the lines she had carved into his chest—the scars he now wore because of her lack of control—flashed vividly in her mind.

"I’ll survive, Isabella," Lucian countered, his voice flat and devoid of the comfort she was begging for. He stepped into her space again, his shadow looming over her.

"Worry about your own survival."

Isabella was shocked at Lucian’s words. "You’re not listening!" she yelled, her hands coming up to shield her face as he lunged again.

She rolled to the side, her palms scraping against the silver-grey dirt. "I didn’t think this through! I thought you’d be... I don’t know, further away! I’m dangerous, Lucian! I’m unstable! If I turn into that... that thing, I might.....no....I won’t know who you are! I’ll kill you!"

"Then kill me," Lucian’s voice was like a whip-crack in the silent clearing. He didn’t give her a moment to breathe.

As soon as she scrambled to her feet, he was there, grabbing her arm and spinning her around. The force wasn’t enough to bruise, but it was enough to infuriate.

"Stop hiding behind your guilt. It’s just another way for you to stay small."

"That’s not it!" Isabella’s voice cracked. Tears of frustration and mounting terror pricked at her eyes.

Lucian’s expression didn’t soften. If anything, it became more mask-like, more Sovereign.

"Then what is?" He shoved her again, harder this time. Isabella fell back, her spine hitting the rough bark of a gnarled tree at the clearing’s edge.

The impact knocked the wind out of her, and for a second, the world went grey. She looked up at him, her chest heaving, her hair tangled and wild around her face.

He was standing over her, looking down with an indifference that felt like a slap. He wasn’t her mate right now. He wasn’t the man who had cupped her cheek and offered her a way out. He was a predator mocking her weakness.

"Is this all you are?" Lucian asked, his voice dripping with a calculated, cold disdain. "After eighteen years of suffering, after everything we’ve found... you’re still just a wolfless girl cowering in the dirt? Maybe the Moon Goddess was right. Maybe you were a mistake."

The words hit her like a physical blow to the gut. A mistake.

Something inside Isabella snapped. It wasn’t the shift—not yet—but the fear that had been paralyzing her was suddenly incinerated by a white-hot flash of pure, unadulterated rage.

The guilt for his scars, the terror of hurting him, the hesitation of the "wordless furniture"—it all vanished, replaced by a roaring furnace of defiance.

How dare he? How dare he use her trauma against her? How dare he stand there, looking at her as if she were a defect, after he was the one who told her she was a revolution?

"Shut up," she hissed.

Lucian didn’t shut up. He stepped closer, his boot inches from her hand. "Make me."

Isabella didn’t think. She didn’t plan. She simply exploded. She lunged upward from the dirt, slamming into Lucian’s chest, her small hands grabbing the lapels of his coat.

She wasn’t worried about his scars anymore. She wanted to tear the arrogance right off his face.

"I told you... to stop... PUSHING ME!" she roared.

Lucian stumbled back, finally losing his immovable stance under the sheer force of her fury. He saw it then—the shimmer of silver fur beginning to ripple beneath her skin, the way her fingernails were lengthening into talons, and the raw, primordial heat that made his own ancient blood boil.

He had pushed her to the edge of her sanity, just as he promised. And as Isabella stared at him, her vision blurring into a world of heat and shadow, she realized she didn’t care if she hurt him.

She didn’t care if the whole forest burned. She just wanted to be unleashed.