Isla completely refused to let this golden, fragile opportunity slip through her trembling fingers.
She had to get him as far away from that washroom door as humanly possible, no matter the agonizing cost to her own pride.
Taking a deep, highly calculated breath to steady her violently racing heart, she boldly stepped forward.
She gently reached out, intertwining her delicate, cold fingers with his large, warm hand.
'Come away from that silly door, my dear,' she murmured, her voice dripping with a fake, intoxicating sweetness that practically made her own stomach churn.
'You are entirely ruining the beautiful, romantic mood of our wedding night by obsessing over a tiny stain and a ringing ear.'
Lucier's dark eyes instantly widened, his chest puffing out with overwhelming, arrogant pride.
The heavy, lingering suspicion completely vanished from his handsome face, instantly replaced by a greedy, victorious lust.
'You are absolutely right, my sweet bride,' he purred, willingly allowing her to pull him completely away from the dangerous threshold.
'I would be an absolute fool to waste another precious second standing by a door when I have you waiting for me.'
Isla led him directly toward the center of the grand bedchamber, forcing a brilliantly bright, flawless smile onto her pale lips.
Deep inside, however, her soul was violently tearing itself apart.
"Dorian is right there behind that thin wooden door," she thought frantically, her chest tightening with suffocating guilt.
"He is completely bound, entirely helpless, and he can hear absolutely everything I am saying to this monster."
To mask her sudden wave of trembling anxiety, Isla quickly turned toward the wooden table.
'Since our first glass was so tragically ruined, why do we not pour a fresh one?' she suggested brightly. 'Let us properly toast to our magnificent future together.'
'A brilliant idea, Princess,' Lucier agreed, slowly sitting down on the edge of the plush mattress, his eyes never leaving her delicate frame.
Isla quickly picked up the heavy crystal decanter.
As she poured the dark, ruby liquid into a fresh glass, she desperately closed her eyes and called upon her ancient serpent magic.
She did not have the physical knockout poison, but she suddenly remembered a highly complex, deeply exhausting sleep-inducing spell.
Focusing every single ounce of her magical energy into her trembling fingertips, a faint, entirely invisible golden spark transferred directly from her hand into the dark wine.
She turned around, flashing him one final, dangerously alluring smile, and handed him the glass. 'Drink up, Lucier. To us.'
'To us, my beautiful Isla,' he smirked, raising the glass and eagerly downing the enchanted wine in one massive, greedy gulp.
Almost instantly, the heavy crystal glass slipped from his fingers, tumbling onto the thick rug with a soft thud.
Lucier violently blinked, his arrogant smile abruptly faltering as a sudden, overwhelming wave of dizziness violently crashed into his brain.
'What... what on earth is happening to my head?' he slurred heavily, desperately clutching his forehead as the room began to violently spin around him.
'Isla... I feel so incredibly... tired...'
Before he could even attempt to stand back up, his heavy eyelids fluttered shut.
His massive, six-foot frame violently collapsed backward onto the plush mattress, rendering him completely, terrifyingly unconscious.
A profound, breathtakingly heavy silence instantly descended upon the grand chamber.
Isla stood perfectly still for three agonizingly long seconds, just to make absolutely sure the magical spell had worked.
When Lucier began to snore softly, a massive, suffocating weight completely lifted off her shattered chest.
She let out a sharp, trembling gasp of pure, unadulterated relief.
Without wasting a single, precious heartbeat, she aggressively hitched up the hem of her delicate gown and frantically sprinted straight toward the washroom door to finally free her beloved Dorian.
Isla frantically threw open the heavy washroom door, her violently beating heart immediately plummeting directly into her stomach the very second she saw Dorian lying entirely motionless and unconscious upon the freezing cold marble floor.
'Do... do... Dorian, what on earth happened to you?!' she stammered in sheer, suffocating panic, instantly dropping to her trembling knees beside his lifeless, heavily muscled form.
Without wasting a single, precious heartbeat, she summoned a desperate flash of her golden serpent magic, instantly shattering the magical cords that had brutally held him captive in the dark.
Frantically, she scooped a handful of freezing cold water from the nearby basin and splashed it directly across his pale, unresponsive face, desperately praying to the heavens for him to wake up.
Agonizingly slowly, his heavy eyelids finally began to flutter open, his dark eyes staring up at her through a hazy, deeply blurred vision.
Isla's brilliant blue eyes were completely overflowing with thick, agonizing tears as she gently and protectively pulled his heavy head to rest upon her soft lap, her trembling fingers gently stroking his dark hair.
As his mind slowly cleared and the terrifying reality of the room set in, Dorian struggled to push himself up into a seated position.
The very second his blurry vision focused on her tear-stained face, he instinctively, violently pulled her into a desperate, bone-crushing hug, entirely breaking down and sobbing into her shoulder as the heavy emotional toll of the night completely shattered his usually unbreakable composure.
Isla clung to him just as fiercely, unable to stop her own endless river of tears from soaking his shirt.
'I am so incredibly sorry, Dorian... I am so sorry,' she wept brokenly against his chest, her heart completely tearing itself apart with suffocating guilt.
Suddenly, the harsh, agonizing reality of the wedding and her conversations with Lucier violently crashed back into Dorian's mind.
He abruptly stopped crying, his entire body going terrifyingly rigid before he forcefully shoved Isla away, violently throwing her out of his arms and breaking their deeply emotional embrace.
'You completely cheated on me, Isla!' he accused her fiercely, his voice cracking with a devastating, raw mixture of absolute heartbreak and burning rage as he stared at her bridal gown.
'No, Dorian, please, that is absolutely not true—' Isla pleaded desperately, frantically trying to offer her genuine excuses and explain the terrifying compulsion behind her actions.
But Dorian was absolutely not in the mood to listen to a single syllable of her justifications.
He furiously shook his head, clamping his hands over his ears and stubbornly refusing to hear the painful words falling from her lips.
Seeing that her desperate verbal pleas were completely failing to reach his shattered heart, Isla suddenly decided to take an entirely different, drastic approach to completely calm his raging storm.
Moving with a sudden, breathtaking speed, she forcefully grabbed both sides of his handsome face, violently pulling his head directly toward hers as she aggressively captured his lips in a desperate, punishing kiss.
She poured every single ounce of her profound love, her agonizing regret, and her fierce devotion entirely into that single, breathtaking action, relentlessly holding his mouth captive for fifteen long, incredibly passionate minutes until the fierce, angry tension completely melted away from his heavy muscles.
When she finally, breathlessly pulled away to let them both catch some much-needed air, Dorian simply sat there on the cold marble floor, completely paralyzed and staring at her in sheer, unadulterated shock.
Taking a deep, highly calculated breath to steady her wildly racing heart, Isla looked directly into the depths of his dark eyes.
'Dorian... today, I am finally going to tell you something incredibly important about exactly who I am.'
She paused, letting the heavy weight of the moment settle over them before delivering the ultimate truth.
"I am absolutely not a simple, ordinary human girl."
'What?' Dorian asked breathlessly, his dark brows knitting together in profound, utter confusion.
'I do not understand a single word of what you are saying right now.'
'Yes, Dorian, I know it sounds completely impossible, but I am speaking the absolute, undeniable truth,' Isla whispered softly, gently taking his large, trembling hands into her own.
'But today, I am begging you, please do not interrupt me or stop me from speaking; please just give me your complete, absolute permission to finally reveal my darkest, most terrifying secret to you.'