Page 48 of Beautiful Beast

Zovai nodded, though his eyes lingered before he returned to the kneeling dragons, and I found both Endre’s and Sirrus’s burning gazes on me too. Had they heard?

Sirrus spoke first, confirming he had. His voice echoed through the mountain, laced full of power. “Not only the two of you, but all of Skalisméra. No one will lift a hand against our human guest, nor take action to harm her, directly or indirectly. If you have your doubts, you may speak them to the Heirs, and us alone.”

Endre turned his gaze on the violet-haired dragon. I didn’t even know her name. “Shift. Your wings only.”

Her head snapped up. “I cannot, my lord. I do not have that level of control.”

The smile on Endre’s face sent chills down my spine as much as it made me want to feel him close again. To brush with danger and not know how it all would end. My entire life had been nothing but safety, and with nothing left to lose, I found myself wanting recklessness and uncertainty. I wanted to play with fire.

“Who said you would be in control?” He extended a hand toward her, and this time his voice thundered with the power carried inside it. “Shift.”

Wings exploded from her back, nearly crashing into Soza. They were gray, the light of the setting sun shining through the delicate membranes. She stayed on her knees, though her body swayed, colors swirling over her skin. Her body was trying to shift fully into her dragon form and Endre wouldn’t let her. Their dragon forms were much bigger than the human body, and she was off balance, struggling. She hung in the net of power ensnaring her.

Sirrus walked toward her slowly, air visibly curling around his fingers, hardening into something that looked like ice. He passed behind her, only his silhouette visible through her wings.

All I saw was his arm lifting. Screaming shattered the air. I’d never heard a sound like that in my life. It was death in my ears and pain in my soul. My knees shook, the secondhand agony threatening to take me to the ground. I couldn’t look away, but I needed to know.

“What are they doing to her?”

Before Idroal answered, I saw what accompanied the next scream. A spike of air, thrusting through the dragon’s wing at the apex. Where the bones came together at a point and then flowed apart once more. Blood spread from the wound, not slowing, and another appeared, lower, closer to the base.

She pulled her wings in like a reflex, trying to hide from the pain, the screams having turned into weeping.

Idroal now stood next to me, and their voice was both quiet and steady. “They are severing her wings.”

“He’s going to cut them off?” I gasped.

“No. But she will never fly again.”

Cold, brutal nausea crashed through me. This couldn’t happen. Not because of me. “Wait,” I said, but I couldn’t get enough air to be heard. Instead I went, sprinting for them. Zovai turned at the last second, catching me before I could run to Endre. “No.”

“Please don’t,” I said. “Their crime wasn’t worth this.”

Dragons were immortal. To be immortal as a dragon without flight? It was worse than death.

I tried to pull out of his arms, but he held me fast, shifting me against the front of his body and holding me there, facing the dragons. “We will decide what their crime was worth.”

“Please.”

Zovai said nothing, but Soza looked at me. Hatred still burned in her gaze, but a little less now. I couldn’t stop this, but I hoped she’d seen that I tried.

Before my eyes, the pierced wings of the dragon healed, the blood drying on translucent skin. But the cuts didn’t heal. The edges sealed themselves along the gaping holes. “Perhaps the Fallen will grant you grace when you return to the stars,” Sirrus said. “But you will receive none from us. You are bound to the earth for the rest of your immortal life.”

The dragon’s human form melted away, and she slumped to the ground, unconscious in her bestial form.

Endre turned to Soza, and I opened my mouth to speak, only to find nothing but air leaving my mouth. I whirled and found Zovai watching me. There was sympathy there, but not enough. He shook his head to tell me no, he would not intervene or let me. And when he moved to turn me back to the spectacle, I threw his hands off me.

“Shift.”

Soza’s wings were yellow, and I couldn’t watch. I covered my ears when it began, unable to fully block out the sound of her screaming. Somehow I was on my knees, and I didn’t remember how I got there. This took longer. It never seemed to end, and every time I looked to see if it was finally done, it was another piercing thrust through broken wing.

This time, when Sirrus spoke, it was not the same. “It is the first thing you learn. We fly together, or we die alone.”

“Not with a human,” Soza hissed.

I stilled. Surely she wasn’t throwing this in their faces now? They would kill her.

“Then not only did you not learn the lesson, you did not understand it.” Zovai stepped around where I knelt. “United we succeed and divided we fall. That does not hold true for only dragonkind. And you should know better.”

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