Page 116 of Beautiful Beast

Aeghi grinned. He grinned. With his size, in his dragon form, it was horrifying. Mate or not, if you had completed the task we’d set for you, all of dragonkind would be better off. You say our age has made us callous? I say it has shown us the paths of the world and the cycles that continue to move. There is no cycle involving humans and dragons that does not end in war and devastation. It is better for things to take their natural course. Merciful, even, to let the humans die.

Merciful? People were beginning to starve. It wasn’t merciful. It was a long and drawn-out execution. I understood from their perspective why simply burning every human could be a mercy. But whether or not humans could live was not their decision to make.

And we were content, Mizyn said, to wait until it happened naturally. While the humans did not approach us out of fear, it was an easy solution. The massive green head swung toward us. Until you went to Rensara and killed the wrong royal.

My mates stiffened. We killed no royals.

No? If you did not, then why does Andaros wear the crown of Craisos?

Nausea twisted my stomach. King Edwan had been thrown out of my line of vision when Zovai struck him. He’d died?

He succumbed to his injuries in the aftermath, Eloith said.

Cieso turned his head, fire spewing from his mouth onto the edge of the circlet. It raced around the border, leaping to unnatural heights with speed that hissed and spat. The entire circlet was surrounded with flames in seconds, blocking us in.

“What’s going on?” I murmured.

I don’t know. Sirrus’s voice that I knew was only for me.

You put a human worse than the Instigator on the throne. Aeghi was seething. Even the alliance we sent you to prevent would have been preferable with Edwan at the helm. Andaros is not content with things as they are.

My blood ran cold. I squeezed Endre’s hand. “Is not content?”

I might not know everything about the world of dragons, but I knew that every dragon, no matter who they were, chose their words with care.

A shiver went through the air. Like the one I’d felt after they’d executed Soza. This time, my hair stood on end. “Varí,” I whispered. “Under my skirt. Now.”

He obeyed, snaking down my side, hidden from view by Sirrus. I didn’t have my harness because the knife had melted. But he clung to my undergarments as he once had.

Rage and terror burned in my chest.

What have you done? Endre asked.

Somehow I knew. I felt it.

I turned, and through a break in the flame, with a new scar across his face and a crown upon his head, was Andaros.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

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SIRRUS

Lena’s terror screamed through my chest, and I was barely keeping my own in check.

The human prince—now king—strode toward us with soldiers in tow. They were armed with scalefire arrows that could kill a dragon in moments. My sire was protecting the Elders. His power was similar to mine, and I felt their shield.

He wasn’t protecting the rest of us.

The three of us moved, shoving Lena between us and the Elders, shielding her. It was laughable that she was safer closer to the Elders now. But she was.

They sent everyone away, I said to the others, finally understanding. They didn’t let us hear. They’ll tell everyone we left the city with Lena to spend time with our mate.

What have you done? Endre asked the Elders again. The moment he’d screamed it after we rescued Lena echoed in my mind. This time there was no anger.

Only despair.

The King of Craisos offered us a choice. Beimani’s voice was dark with anger. Surrender the dragons that killed his father, or attack Doro Eche with every weapon they have stored for the last three hundred years.

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