CHAPTER 129
Isabella's fingers tightened on the edge of the chair, the dark, expensive silk of Lucian's shirt bunching in her frantic grip.
The logic she had built her entire life on—the rigid, fated, and unbreakable laws of the Blackwood Pack—was crumbling into dust beneath her feet, leaving her feeling dangerously exposed and utterly adrift.
She stared down at the ancient text, the words "deliberate act of the will" taunting her from the yellowed page.
Did he only see value in me once I smelled like a mate? The silence of the library suddenly felt heavy and judgmental, as if the thousands of leather-bound books surrounding her were all silent witnesses to her utter insignificance.
She thought of Selena and Aleric again, the image of them burning in her mind like a brand. She hated them—hated them with a white-hot fervor that scorched her gut—but in this moment, she found herself envying the one thing they possessed: certainty.
