Page 35 of Beautiful Beast

I barely felt the air move before a strangled cry left my body. Sirrus’s arm came around me, pinning my arms to my sides as a blade rested against my throat.

Endre and Zovai were on their feet, rage on their faces and in the snarls that shuddered through the air.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Sirrus whispered. “Finish the job.”

Panic clawed at my insides. No matter that I understood every reason, I didn’t want to die. Unwelcome tears pricked my eyes, blurring everything. I closed my eyes and said goodbye. “You should.”

No words were spoken, and the tears I tried to keep back leaked from the corners of my eyes.

“You should kill me.”

“Sirrus,” Zovai warned. “Release her.”

The dragon behind me snarled. “Before I kill you, Princess, tell me what it is you’ve done to my brothers to ensnare their dragons.” In one movement he spun me, grabbing me by the throat, the tip of the blade—my blade—pressing to the skin, ready to break it.

Just like that moment against the wall with Zovai, something surged between us. It had been the same with Endre, but slower. Something invisible shifting that I didn’t understand. Sirrus’s eyes went wide, and he stumbled backward, releasing me like he’d been burned. In another moment, those same eyes froze and thawed. Closing the distance once more, I was in his arms. Not the embrace of a lover, but one borne of desperation, anger, and despair. “What are you?”

I didn’t dare move or breathe.

Beneath my skirt, Varí moved, pressing his head into my leg, just barely, like he wanted to remind me he was there. It was as if the tiny dragon had screamed. Sirrus pulled back and gripped me by the shoulders. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“I scent dragon on you, Princess. And not one of us.”

Before I could do anything, Varí dropped from my leg and ran out into the open. Sirrus looked at him, released me, and I threw myself in between them. “Don’t touch him.” Venom laced my words.

All three dragons looked at me, the room bathing in tense silence.

“I didn’t know any of our small cousins lived at Skalisméra,” Zovai murmured.

“They don’t,” Sirrus said.

“The day before the wedding I went into the city alone. I found him. I didn’t want anyone else to discover him and kill him on sight. Why he was there, I don’t know. But he was beneath the skirts of my wedding dress. You carried him here with me. He was beneath the blankets last night,” I said to Endre.

A low growl came from Sirrus, not directed at me, but at the small dragon. Varí leapt into the air, fluttering up to my shoulder and perching. He was growling too as he rubbed his face along my jaw. I startled in shock. “He can speak?”

“After a fashion. Less words and more intent. It is something very old and very primal.”

I quieted as the three of them focused on him. Back and forth in the growled dragon language, they had questions for him. Eventually Endre laughed softly. “He is quite attached to you.”

“I had hoped to smuggle him out of the city before I left for Craisos, so he could be somewhere safer. He told me—well, what little we can communicate. I guessed his name was Varí. Was I right?”

If I hadn’t been looking for it, I don’t think I would have noticed the subtle stilling of the dragons in the room. There and gone. Quickly masked shock. “Yes,” Sirrus said. “You were correct.”

“What does Varí carry?” Endre asked.

“You may ask him.”

They did, and I watched surprise take over their face as he told them. Even Sirrus hid a smile. A further conversation had the three dragons nodding.

“He wishes to stay with you,” Zovai said. “And we have no objections.”

“Thank you.” My heart pounded in my chest. “If you—If I must die, please keep him safe.”

Varí growled, but these were the Heirs of all dragonkind. They needed to think about more than just me, no matter what strange power zinged in the spaces between us.

Zovai stood now and approached. The way his gaze took me in and the proximity to the two of them had my breath going short. His eyes, more like his hair up close, shifting through tones of amber and gold, dropped to my lips for an eternal moment. “You know we were sent to kill you.”

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