Page 4 of Beautiful Beast

One breath more, and I pushed out into the rain, dropping the parchment into the stream of water sliding between the cobblestones. It was already gone.

The dragon curled closer to my skin, a little hot breath warming my ear. “All right. Let’s go see if I can get you into the palace without getting us both killed.”

I heard a tiny chirp, and his warmth made it less daunting to step back out into the pouring rain, walking toward the prison I would never be able to escape.

CHAPTER TWO

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KATALENA

King Rhole really needed better guards.

Or more of them.

Either way, getting in and out of the Rensaran palace was far too easy. I was glad, because it worked in my favor, but my father would be horrified if he knew how lax security was. I was bringing a dragon into the palace for fuck’s sake.

I slid through a small space between the extremely well-hidden overlapping walls I knew women in my line had been using to get out of the palace for centuries, and into the cellars. My cloak was the first thing to come off.

“You’re going to need to hide somewhere other than my neck,” I whispered. “Until we can find a place for you.”

The shirt I wore was loose, and I tugged the collar open. If I’d been wearing a skirt, it would have been easy. But the leather trousers I wore when I left the palace didn’t have much in the way of hiding.

“Try not to look too lumpy,” I muttered as he slid beneath the cloth, forming a little warm shape pressed to my side as he clung to my undergarments.

I stowed the cloak and weapons in a trunk no one used. Honestly, I didn’t know if anyone ever came to this section of the cellars anymore. It was dusty as all hell, and the only footprints I ever saw were my own.

But I didn’t bother to change further. The sight of me in trousers wasn’t exactly scandalous. Most of the palace servants knew I preferred them, and I got out of wearing the cumbersome skirts required for court whenever I could.

Not that I didn’t like dresses. I did. But until now there was no true way for me to enjoy them. The only time I had the opportunity to wear them was when I was being paraded around like a newly trained drayg, so everyone could act impressed and amazed.

I had more freedom than the draygs, at least, though most of that freedom was in secret.

Slipping up the servant’s stairs into my chambers, Helena was pacing back and forth across the floor, gnawing on her thumbnail. Given how much she prided herself on her nails, she was anxious. I didn’t even have a chance to ask.

She whirled on me. “Where have you been? Your father is about to cut off my head for not producing you in the courtroom.”

“I told you I needed to make a visit to the city.”

“You didn’t tell me it would take two hours.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And my journeys there and back have a history of being shorter than that?”

Helena glared at me before storming to the armoire and throwing it open. “This isn’t funny. Your father is summoning you to meet the Craisos delegation, and every minute you’re not there, he gets angrier.”

Sighing, I crossed into my small workshop and placed the ingredients from Taia on one of the tables. “Fine. Send one of the chamberlains to inform my father I’m on my way.”

My maid and friend wasn’t wrong. My father was mercurial on the best of days, and the arrival of the Craisos delegation would make him that much worse. She went to do as I asked, and I tapped gently on the little dragon’s body through my shirt. “Time to come out. Hide somewhere in here while I’m gone and don’t let anybody see you. Not even Helena.”

Helena had been raised in the old ways, much like I had been. She wouldn’t harm the creature, but showing him to her would be a conversation they didn’t have time for, and her shocked scream while finding a dragon in my rooms wouldn’t be welcome when I was in the midst of meeting the royal delegation from the kingdom famous for hunting them.

The dragon crawled across my collarbone and down my arm onto the table, his coin in his mouth. He didn’t hesitate, going to a large, empty, and most importantly opaque, jar, and hopped inside. “Thank you,” I whispered before I placed the lid on top.

Now. To make myself presentable.

Helena already placed the dress she’d chosen on the bed, and I smiled. She knew me well. The dress was sleek and subtle—far simpler than the gowns I usually wore, and about a thousand times simpler than the dress I would wear tomorrow. And the color made me grin as I stepped out of my damp clothes. Silver. All shades of silver, from the darkest of steel to the palest brush of dawn’s light, but everyone would know what it meant. And I didn’t give a star-ridden fuck.

The dress was light enough for me to slip into on my own before Helena returned and could lace me into it. I took the time to strap my favorite dagger on my thigh—easily reachable through a cleverly constructed and invisible split in the dress.

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