Page 58 of Beautiful Beast

I realized we were staring at each other without speaking. He seemed to realize it too. “None of us had seen you today, and I wondered where you were.”

Was I supposed to tell them where I was? I said nothing, unsure. Like every time I stepped in their presence, I felt like I stood on shifting ground. Nothing was even and I could slip and fall at a moment’s notice.

Part of my mind said the fall wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Zovai blew out a breath and stepped back, palming the back of his neck as he looked at me. “I do not know what to do about you, Lena.”

“What do you mean?”

He came around the table toward me, and I turned on the stool to face him. “I mean that I still do not understand what it is about you that stayed my hand.”

I smiled in an attempt at levity. “I suppose we still don’t know if you will.”

Stepping into my space, that same hand suddenly slid around my throat, holding me in place. “Killing you would end me. I know it, and my dragon knows it. If you die, it will not be by my hand or claws.”

“Doesn’t mean the others won’t kill me.”

A flicker of a smile. “Endre is right. You do have a death wish.”

“No. But I will not allow myself to hope.”

Zovai leaned in, that same hand sliding to the back of my neck in order to bring me closer. Somehow my hands were on his arms and I didn’t remember how they got there. His mouth brushed the skin of my cheek. “Would that you were a dragon. It would be so simple.”

“How?” Did I only imagine how breathless I sounded? My eyes fluttered closed when he inhaled, long and deep.

With a soft voice, he spoke, and I swore I felt his voice everywhere. “Dragons need no more than scent and instinct. And had you been a dragon, you would have been naked and beneath me long before now.”

I swallowed as his lips moved upward, brushing across my temple, never wanting the touch to end.

“How much do you know?”

There was no need to specify what he meant. And I did know. Those alleys I walked by and the teachers who instructed me. But I also knew that the fact and the reality lived in wholly different realms. “Not enough. Practicality and not experience.”

“And tell me the truth. Though I suspect I already understand. If you came to our beds willingly, and you were sent back, what would happen?”

“They would execute me as a traitor after compelling me to tell the truth.”

Where this thumb rested beneath my jaw, he moved it back and forth gently, bringing those nerves to life like they’d never been touched before.

He growled so low it made my hair stand on end. “So you cannot say yes for fear of your own life, and I cannot keep myself away from you. Your scent lives in my nose even when you’re not in my presence. The brief touches of your skin have burned me deeper than dragonfire. I crave more.

“I want to show you what it’s like to be wanted by a dragon. Teach you everything. Though I should let you go and leave you alone.”

“I—”

Zovai’s lips touched mine. The softest kiss, silencing me. “If you tell me yes, and are then executed, you will still have been executed because of me. So do not say yes.”

My entire being wanted to say yes. “What should I say then? Should I refuse you? So if I tell the truth they vow to hunt you down and kill all of you slowly?”

His lips moved to the edge of my mouth and along my cheek. Kissing slowly down beneath my jaw. I couldn’t breathe, desperate for more, and if I moved a muscle I feared he would retreat.

“Say nothing,” he whispered. “Say nothing.”

The heat of his lips on my skin, the teasing gentleness of the movement, made chills rise. My fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, instinct telling me to pull him closer, and reality telling me I didn’t know what I was doing.

“Lena, if you’re still here—” Belleo came into the room and stopped short, seeing us. She blinked and bowed. “My apologies, my lord. I merely wanted to make sure the Princess was not lost and could find her way to her rooms.”

Zovai pulled away, looking at me with eyes filled with heat. “How very thoughtful of you. I will not stand in your way.”

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