Page 22 of Beautiful Beast

Once upon a time, a flight like today wouldn’t have put even a flicker of strain on me.

My mouth tightened, my teeth creaking as they clenched. I really was tired, if these kinds of thoughts were the ones plaguing me.

Zovai sat in front of the open fire pit in our private quarters, staring into the flames like they would speak to him. He didn’t bear that gift.

“The human sleeps.”

He said nothing, only lifting the cup dangling from his fingers to take a sip.

I poured my own drink, hoping it would take the edge off my mind enough to sleep, and sat across from him.

Z’s eyes lifted to mine. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

He inclined his head. “As much as I can be.”

Smirking at him, I lifted my glass. “Little late for that, Z.”

“I know. But it’s still true. I’m sorry for whatever consequences this might bring, and I promise I will be the one to bear them.”

Fuck the stars. I downed the drink in one go, savoring a burn that was different from my fire to ignore the memories. “I just want to know why.”

“Don’t you think I’ve been asking myself that same thing since it happened?” Zovai snarled. He rose to his feet and downed his glass in one swallow. “Every fucking second of the flight and every second since I dumped her in the cell.”

Turning, he hurled the glass at the wall where it shattered in a shower of a thousand sparkles. “Even now, Endre, I feel a pull to go to her. It’s like she’s calling to me, and I fucking hate it.” His chest heaved with the breaths he took. “She’s a human. She is nothing. After all the lives we’ve taken, it shouldn’t matter. So why? If I could go right now and finish it, I would, simply to be free of it. But I can’t.”

I watched my friend and brother, taking a sip of my drink. How far did it go? “Then I’ll do it,” I said. “She’s sleeping. It will be fast.”

Zovai was on me in a second, pinning me to the couch with a feral growl. “Don’t you dare.”

Raising an eyebrow, I allowed him to feel what he’d done.

“Fuck.” Zovai muttered the word under his breath. “I’m unravelling at the seams. And there’s nothing, Endre. There’s nothing. There is no reason.”

I studied him for a long time. There wasn’t much I could do to reassure him. While the three of us shared a bond out of our roles and titles, I wasn’t in his head or body. I didn’t know what he was experiencing. Finally, I spoke. “I can’t promise you she’ll live.”

“I know that.” He sighed. “I know, but… I truly can’t explain it. Perhaps it was the stars intervening. Or perhaps I’m finally going mad in my old age.” I snorted at that. “But I couldn’t kill her. My dragon believes she cannot die by my hand. And I promise I tried.”

I grunted, not responding further. We would see. Maybe it was true that she wasn’t meant to die by his hand. It didn’t mean she wasn’t meant to die at mine.

“If I need to end her life, are you going to stop me?” I asked evenly.

Zovai’s whole body went stiff, fighting his instincts. “Yes,” he finally ground out. “If you tell me beforehand, I will have no choice.”

The desolation in those words tugged at my soul. Familiar. I understood them and the feeling, because it had lived in me for centuries. Very rarely did I ever have a choice. “Very well.”

It was all I voiced out loud. I did not say that I would simply not tell him.

“Stars.” He shook his head. “I hope you feel it. I hope you understand it, if only so I am not alone in this… fervor.”

Hope was a thing I had not had in a very long time, and I did not have it now. Not even to comfort my friend and brother. “We shall see.”

The only reason the woman still lived was because of curiosity. By rights, I should have opened that cell and run her through instead of offering her food. It might yet come to that.

Sirrus came out of his room. The dampness in his hair told me he’d been in the baths. Not a terrible idea after such a long journey. “Do they know yet?”

The Elders.

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