Chapter 390: Chapter 390: The Dance
The rain didn’t let up. It poured harder, a ceaseless torrent that battered against Isabella’s skin, pressing her down as if the sky itself wanted her to kneel. Her knees dug into the mud, the weight threatening to suffocate her. For a fleeting second, panic bloomed in her chest.
Her breath stuttered. What if she couldn’t stand? What if they saw her falter—saw her, Isabella, undone by a storm? Her fingers clawed into the dirt, slipping, her body trembling beneath the relentless water. Doubt whispered sharp and cruel in her ear: you can’t do this... you’ll break, you’ll fall, you’ll drown right here where they all can see.
Every heartbeat hammered louder, her pride and fear crashing together like the storm itself. She gritted her teeth, her chest heaving, caught in that terrifying space between giving in and rising up.
But then—something shifted.
She realized it wasn’t the rain that was crushing her. It was her own stubbornness. The more she tried to push against it, the heavier it pressed back. But the moment she let go, stopped fighting... it wasn’t so unbearable anymore.
Isabella’s lips curved faintly, even as water streamed down her face. Fine then. You don’t want me to fight? Watch me dance.
She let her body melt into the earth, her palms pressing against the slick mud, her chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the storm. Her blonde hair, plastered to her skin, clung and whipped with every movement, a golden curtain alive under the silver of the moonlight. Slowly, sinuously, she began to move.
It wasn’t a fight anymore—it was a flow.
Her back arched, her shoulders rolling as she slid along the ground like a serpent, every curve of her body accentuated by the clinging white of her soaked dress. The fabric molded to her skin, tracing every line of her frame as though the rain itself wanted to reveal her.
The villagers gasped. Murmurs swelled through the circle, their eyes widening as the foreign woman didn’t collapse or falter as expected, but moved with an elegance they had never seen. She wasn’t simply enduring the rain. She was using it.
The mud became her stage, the water her music.
She twisted, rose onto her knees, then sank low again, her body undulating in time with the relentless downpour. The women who had danced before had stomped and spun, trying to battle the weight, but Isabella?
Isabella seduced it. She let it slide over her, dip her low, pull her hair down her shoulders like strands of silk. Each flick of her wrist, each tilt of her chin was deliberate, as though she was inviting the storm to dance with her.
Kian’s eyes never left her.
From the moment she had stepped into the circle, he had been prepared to see her falter, to see her overwhelmed. Even when he had chosen her, there had been a piece of him ready to watch her break. Because that was the truth of the rain—most did.
But Isabella wasn’t breaking. She was transforming.
His jaw tightened, his blue eyes narrowing with intensity. Every arch of her back, every sway of her hips was a knife sinking into his control.
She looked wild, untamed, dripping with defiance and fire, and yet at the same time she was... divine. The rain clung to her like it adored her, soaking her hair, trailing down her skin, illuminating her like a goddess carved in light and water.
His heart thudded once, hard, betraying him.
Around him, the villagers chanted again, swept up in the rhythm of her movements. Their voices grew louder, stamping their feet, not to drown her but to celebrate her. Even the older women who had schemed this moment sat slack-jawed, their hands pressed together in awe.
Cyrus stood rigidly at the edge of the circle, Glimora in his arms. His soft pink eyes followed every motion, every twist of Isabella’s frame.
He knew her well enough to see it—this wasn’t just a dance. This was her proving herself, her pride on full display. She wasn’t simply dancing for Kian. She was dancing for herself, for the right to never be underestimated.
And yet... it affected him too.
Cyrus swallowed tightly, his jaw flexing. He’d always known Isabella was beautiful—untouchably so. But this?
This was something else. Watching her rise from the mud, hair plastered to her skin, dress clinging like a second layer of flesh, moving like the storm itself had chosen her—Cyrus felt the ache of it in his chest. A woman like her could bring an entire kingdom to its knees, and the best past was that she knew it.
Slowly, Isabella shifted.
She pushed herself from the ground, not with force but with grace, rising like a flower unfurling in the rain. Her arms lifted, fluid and hypnotic, her body rolling as though her bones themselves were liquid.
Step by step, she stood, her legs sliding against the mud, her dress translucent in the storm’s assault. She moved like a siren, every glance and flick of her wrist pulling the entire village deeper into her spell.
And she knew it. Isabella could feel every eye locked on her, drinking her in. The weight of their stares only fueled her pride, only sharpened her glow. She didn’t wonder if she looked breathtaking—she was certain of it. She always had been. Confidence draped her shoulders like a second skin, and tonight, under the storm, she wore it like a crown.
Kian leaned forward slightly, his knuckles white on the arms of his throne. He couldn’t look away. For years, he had dismissed this tradition, brushed off every dancer who had tried to sway him. None of them had touched him. None had even come close.
But Isabella... Isabella was devouring him alive.
Her eyes, sharp and glittering through the curtain of wet hair, locked with his again as she rose fully upright. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t pleading. She wasn’t asking to be chosen. She was daring him not to.
The villagers roared with approval, clapping, stomping, chanting her name now instead of the Moon Mother’s. They knew what they were witnessing—something rare, something sacred.
And as Isabella swayed one final time, arching her body with a spin that sent her hair whipping, the storm seemed to bow with her, drenching her in silver as if crowning her the night’s true queen.
Kian’s lips parted, the control in his expression cracking for a single instant. His pulse thundered.
He wanted her. He needed her more than he wanted her.