Chapter 181

Chapter 181: Chapter 181

Lysander’s pov

The room went terrifyingly still.

Drake’s thumb remained anchored against my jawline, his touch warm and firm against my cold, tear-stained skin.

The heat of his hand seemed to pulse right into my marrow, a striking contrast to the icy, suffocating pressure filling the ruined cell.

Behind him, I saw Julian freeze. The smug, victorious sneer that had been carved onto his pale face completely melted away, replaced by a sudden, sharp flick of disbelief.

"Drake... what are you saying?" Julian asked, his voice losing its theatrical composure, dropping into a tight, strained pitch. He took a step forward, his polished boots crunching over a sharp fragment of crystal. "He destroyed your family’s heirloom! He smashed the decanters, threw the wine across the walls, and dragged his claws across my cheek! I came in here to offer him food, and he attacked me!"

Drake didn’t move. He didn’t break eye contact with me. His crimson eyes scanned my pale, exhausted face, taking in the short, ragged hitches of my breath and the way my hands were desperately clutching my sweater over my middle.

"Julian," Drake said, his voice quiet, low, and laced with an ancient, lethal weight that made the air in the room turn heavy. "You are many things, but you are not a clumsy fool. Someone who has been starved for three days, shivering on a cold floor without a blanket, does not possess the speed or the strength to overpower a vampire."

Julian’s jaw tightened, his fingers digging hard into his bloody silk handkerchief. "He was feral—"

"He was cornered," Drake cut him off sharply.

Slowly, deliberately, Drake stood up. His towering frame rose over me, his broad back completely blocking Julian from my sight, casting a long, dark shadow over my huddled form on the floor.

He turned around to face Julian. The warmth that had briefly touched his hand vanished entirely from his posture, replaced by the terrifying, unyielding authority of the High Sovereign.

"You brought a single bowl of unseasoned broth to this room twenty-four hours ago," Drake said smoothly, taking a slow step toward his former lover. "You turned off the floor heating grid in this wing. And you used your own aura to crush his hybrid strength before throwing him against that sideboard."

Julian backed up half a pace, his silver-tinted eyes widening as Drake laid out the truth with cold, surgical precision.

"I was managing a rebellious prisoner!" Julian argued, his voice rising in desperate indignation. "He is a traitor, Drake! He ran to Darius! He let him put a mark on his skin! He deserves to be punished! He deserves to be thrown into the lower dungeons, chained to the stone, and reminded of what he is!"

"He is my prisoner," Drake growled low in his chest.

The sound was a deep, physical vibration that rattled the loose glass shards on the floorboards. The ambient temperature dropped so fast that my breath bloomed in a pale mist before my lips.

"He is not yours to discipline," Drake continued, stepping right into Julian’s personal space, looking down at him with an absolute, terrifying coldness that made my blood run cold even as I watched from the floor. "He is not yours to starve. And he is certainly not yours to touch."

Julian stared up at Drake, his chest heaving, his face drained of color. "You are defending him? After everything he did to you? After he broke your trust and ran into the forest like a stray dog?!"

"I am establishing order in my house," Drake said, his voice dropping into a level, emotionless register that left zero room for argument. "You requested permission to manage his daily routines, and you used that permission to indulge a petty, personal vendetta. You lied to my face, you ruined ancestral property to construct a cheap illusion, and you laid hands on someone under my direct protection."

"Protection?" Julian gasped, a bitter, disbelieving laugh tearing from his throat. "He is a captive locked behind an iron door!"

"And that door is locked on my orders, not yours," Drake replied coldly.

He reached out, his long fingers catching Julian by the collar of his dark jacket. He didn’t throw him, but the grip was absolute, forcing Julian to stand straight, pinning him under a gaze that burned like hot iron.

"Listen to me very carefully, Julian," Drake whispered, the words coming out as a sharp, razor-edged promise. "If you step into this wing again without my explicit command... if you withhold a single meal, turn off a single heater, or lay a single finger on his skin... I will strip your flesh from your bones and throw you out."

Julian gasped, his eyes wide with utter shock and humiliation. He looked at Drake, searching for any sign of a bluff, any flicker of the old affection they had once shared. He found nothing. Only the cold, carved marble of an apex predator defending his domain.

"Do you understand me?" Drake demanded softly.

Julian swallowed hard, his teeth clamped together so tightly his jaw trembled. "Yes, My Lord," he rasped out through his teeth, the title tasting like ash on his tongue.

"Get out of my sight," Drake commanded, releasing his collar with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "And send the medical staff to clean this room immediately."

Julian didn’t say another word. He threw one last, venomous glare at me where I lay on the floor, a look of pure, unadulterated hatred that promised future violence before turning on his heel and sweeping out of the room, his heavy steps echoing down the stone corridor.

The heavy iron door remained open.

Silence fell over the ruined cell, heavy and suffocating.

I sat on the cold floorboards, my hands trembling violently against my knees, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked up at Drake’s broad back as he stood in the center of the room, his chest rising and falling in slow, heavy drags of air.

He had shielded me. He had shut Julian down, exposed his lies, and threatened to cast his former lover out of the territory just for putting a hand on me.

My throat felt tight, tears hot and stinging behind my eyes as I looked at the back of the man who held my heart.

But before I could speak, before I could find the words to ask him why he was still protecting a prisoner he claimed to hate, Drake turned slowly back toward me, his face smoothing back into a cold, unreadable mask that shut me out entirely.