Page 49 of Beautiful Beast

Soza fought the magic that held her, flames bursting out of her mouth toward me, like she would kill me even now. Even after it already cost her everything. “They killed my family. Shot them out of the sky and let them bleed.”

“Princess Katalena did not do that. Was not alive to do it.”

“They’re all the same,” Soza snarled, eyes wild. Her hair streaked over her face, and it wasn’t fully human anymore. “They all deserve the same.”

“I pray the Fallen do not grant you grace, Soza,” Sirrus said. “For you do not deserve that. You have been bound to the earth for your immortal life, and beyond that, you shall bear the mark of a traitor.”

His hands weren’t his hands any longer, instead the claws of his pale blue dragon. They shone so brightly they glowed. Burning like the hottest part of a flame. Soza struggled even more, the flames she poured out nearly reaching me. Endre stepped between us just in time, but I still felt their searing heat.

I could see just enough to witness Sirrus place his claws on her face. Draped over her cheekbones and down her neck like a veil or a mask. This scream was silent. Her body glowing from within before her skin sparkled softly. Pearlescent, like the shine of an opal, but the skin was mottled like a burn.

Her eyes found mine. “I regret nothing.”

She collapsed on the ground next to her friend, flesh giving way to dragon form. And in that one too, her dragon’s face was marred with the same beautiful and horrible scar.

“Let’s return upstairs,” Idroal said, lifting my elbow and helping me to my feet. I shrugged them off, still staring at Soza where she was unconscious.

Endre turned. His shirt was charred, burned away by the flames meant to kill me. And over his heart, crawling outward like veins reaching for every part of him, was another pearlescent scar.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

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KATALENA

“Am I free to return to my room?”

“The Heirs would speak to you,” Idroal said. They glided silently behind me, almost unnerving in the smoothness and ease with which they moved.

I crossed my arms, incredibly aware that I was dressed in only their clothing. “I’m not sure I wish to speak to them.”

“And why is that, Princess?” Sirrus strode into the room with no remorse on his face.

Idroal bowed and left without a word, abandoning me to the three dragons. Endre’s chest was still visible, showing me that scar, and… more.

I’d never been so close to an unclothed male. From a distance on the palace walls as the soldiers trained, but I was forbidden from getting too close. An errant part of my brain wondered what it would feel like to touch him, his body so different from my own. Now that I knew what he felt like with clothes on, pressed against me, I wanted to know what it was like without.

Pushing the thought away, I crossed my arms.

The second thing I noticed was that Endre looked pale. Dragging and sluggish. What had happened?

Sirrus stared at me, waiting for an answer. I didn’t have one. But discomfort burned under my skin, and I wanted to be anywhere but here. Where I really wanted to be was my workshop where I could crush ingredients until my chest didn’t feel tight and I could sink into the beautiful stillness of creating.

“You don’t think she deserved it?” He finally asked. “I assume not, since you tried to stop it.”

“Isn’t that worse than death for a dragon? Not to be able to fly?”

“Yes.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’ll admit I did not suspect the depth of her hatred. But I’m sure many dragons feel the same. Sending me to you dressed—” I huffed out a breath. “The punishment does not seem to fit the crime.”

“No?” Sirrus took a step toward me, and then another. Slow and intentional. Once more stalking me like prey, but I was not afraid. “And what do you think was her aim?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sending you to us, unsuspecting, hoping we would pounce on you like savages.” He was so close now, I could sense the heat coming off him, like the way he’d burned Soza was close to the surface. “She hoped we would violate you,” he whispered, stepping so there was barely air between us. “And not merely as a thinly veiled request to take your maidenhood, Lena. She was banking on the fact that we wouldn’t care to control ourselves our hold back with a human. She hoped your fragility would kill you, and wanted you to feel pain, shame, and horror as you died. Not only that, but she chose to turn on the most vulnerable, which lacks honor.”

“I’m not vulnerable.”

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