Page 44 of Beautiful Beast

Her eyes widened, and I heard her heartbeat speed up. She glanced at Zovai and Sirrus, who had closed the distance too, and stood on either side of me.

The sheen of sweat and golden glitter on her skin made me want to trace the line of her neck with my tongue. Katalena Isabel Arslan Savea was a living temptation, and my words held true. If I allowed myself—any of us—to know what she tasted like, to know what teaching her to feel pleasure was like, to break her in the way only we could, I would never let her go.

“You are a temptation we cannot afford,” I said, so softly it was barely spoken.

She swallowed, and I tracked the movement of those muscles. Followed the line of them elsewhere. “You said you weren’t good. That you would take?—”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t tempted,” I growled, and then smiled, allowing the monster inside me to show. “I said I cannot afford to be. If you had known and understood what you offered appearing like this, your clothes would have been shredded by the time you were fully in the room.” I dared to reach out and touch her once more, my thumb brushing along the line of her jaw. Lena’s shiver drove my blood south. “And I never said we wouldn’t give in to temptation.”

Sirrus and Zovai growled in agreement. I knew without looking at them that they confirmed the thought.

Lena stared at us with wide eyes and no fear. We were getting closer to breaking. It was only a matter of time. The real question was if I was ready to face the consequences.

Idroal broke the tension. “For my own sake, I would appreciate you waiting until after I depart, my lord.”

We were too far gone for laughter, but the brief distraction allowed me to step away and take a breath that wasn’t soaked in Lena’s scent. The tang of something darker that spoke of arousal and want and something beyond the sweetness of who she was.

“Stay with Idroal,” I commanded, stalking past her, the others at my shoulders.

“Wait,” she nearly tripped over the froth of shimmering material trying to reach us. Sirrus caught her. I saw the way his fingers flexed against her body, feeling the heat of her skin through the sheerness. She was everything we shouldn’t want, and yet what Zovai had seen in those moments had woven itself into me. Into Sirrus. This woman was something I didn’t understand, and my instincts drove me more than thought. To protect. To take. To claim in the most pleasurable and carnal way possible.

She looked at the three of us. “Don’t hurt them.” Little more than a breath. “Not because of me. Please.”

We turned and left, striding out the doors without response. It wasn’t a promise I could make, and a human could not understand the hierarchy of dragons. It would not be because of her that they were hurt, but their own actions hurting her.

I put my limited power on display, allowing my footsteps to echo through Skalisméra. Few dragons were on the stairs, but the ones that were quickly fled our presence.

What shall we do? Zovai asked, his own power glinting through his skin, scales nearly forming.

Make them look us in the eye and admit it. Sirrus said. Then decide.

I growled, barely able to agree when my hands ached to shift into claws and tear out the nearest throat. Lena’s scent was easy to trace down the stairs, back to the hoard of Ellemar. Idroal didn’t have to be here to say the older dragon had nothing to do with this. Despite the harshness of our life, Ellemar had no unkindness in her. Steel and strength? Yes. Fire? Yes. Vindictiveness? No.

Throwing my hand forward, power flung the door open. It slammed against the stone wall hard enough to crack the wood. We would repair it when we were more in control.

As I suspected. Ellemar wasn’t here. But Soza was. Soza and four other dragons lounging in the midst of the gorgeous hoard, laughing and drinking. Now staring at the three of us.

The scent of fear spiraled through the room. I snarled. If they were that afraid, they should have known better. Sirrus lifted his hand, catching Soza with a burst of his power. He was one of the few dragons whose magic could manifest physically and not merely invisibly influence the world. Bands of hardened air wrapped around her arms and neck, pinning her to the wall near the window.

“You have three breaths to explain yourself,” I said. “Before I shall force your change, rip your wings off, and drop you from the peak in your human form.”

“Endre,” she croaked through the wind at her throat, and the roar that came from me shook the mountain.

“Who are you that you call me by my name?” I glanced at Sirrus. “Silence her.”

Panic crossed her face, and she tried to speak again, but couldn’t. I whirled, but Zovai was already moving, leaning over another female dragon. We weren’t here enough to know the names of every dragon in the city. Many of them, yes. But not these females.

We knew Soza because she had been thrown at us in an attempt to get at least one of us to mate a century ago. It had not gone well, but she continued to try every time we were here. I should have seen this coming.

That thought only made black rage seep further over my vision.

“Who planned this?” Zovai asked softly. Almost as soft as Lena’s skin, what little I’d felt of it.

Sirrus turned to the room and crossed his arms, proving he did not need to look at Soza to restrain her. He stared them down. “When Erryn came here to ask for a favor, did you all discuss how to undermine us?”

A gasp. “We did not.” The woman Zovai towered over looked between the three of us, her eyes shifting back and forth between forms in her fear. “Undermine you.”

“And what do you call it when you send a human guest to us dressed like a whore?”

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