Page 88 of The Kingdom's Crown

I rose, with Owen's help, naked and calm before my sister.

"Are youinsane?" Camellia gasped, staring up at me with plain horror on her face, body crumpled on the floor before me.

"Luckily for you, I am not," I answered.

"Come, Mistress," Owen murmured, edging away.

Cress stood a man again, his eyes blazing on mine, but it was a mix of anger and love and relief.

"Be careful, sister," I said as Cress took his jacket off and slipped it over my shoulders.

"Ofwhat?" Camellia squawked.

I smiled in answer and backed away.

22

Bryony

“My…goodness."

I yawned, and the woman, my mother, gasped at the sight of my enormous toothy jaw.

"Now she's just showing off," Cosmo murmured, smirking at me.

My tail thumped against the floor, and my artist grinned and turned back to the grand model of me on his table. It was rough still, but already elegant, powerful. Just as I was.

"Beautiful," my mother murmured.

"You can pet her," Owen urged.

My mother glanced between us, excitement filling her face, but there was a little flavor of fear on the air too. Cosmo huffed as I pushed up from the floor and padded over to my mother, who stiffened. She'd kept safely away from me since I'd transformed for her, and while she seemed her usual delighted by anything self, the nerves in the air were a clear hint to something else.

I resisted the urge to let out a rumble of annoyance even as she stumbled back two steps. There'd been no keeping my new second-nature a secret. Not after I'd gone barreling through the castle on a spree. Or a hunt. Even now that the tiger and I were more unified, I could still recall the flavor of Camellia's terror, sharp and dense and bitter, scratching at me to track her down and snap at her just to hear her scream again. Maybe that was a little bit my own wish.

I sat down in front of my mother, close enough to rub myself against her but waiting for her to grow more comfortable first. Her heart was loud and fast in her chest, eyes wide and fixed to watching. Owen reached out, and I tilted my head to catch his scratching fingers behind my ear, a huff of pleasure escaping. My mother laughed, one trembling hand reaching out slowly. She smelled of men and of magic and the animal in me found something unpleasant in the flavors, but I was trying to prove to her how gentle, how myself I really I was, so I leaned into her touch, lapping my tongue over a spot on the back of her wrist and marking my scent there.

"Oh my." She sank down to her knees in a quick rush that prickled my senses, warned of an attack, but I held those instincts back, blinking at my mother as her face hovered in front of mine. "Oh my," she repeated. "My daughter…is a tiger."

I chuffed as she reached into my fur with both hands, scratching and rubbing pleasantly. She laughed, nearly falling sideways as I rested my chin on her shoulder.

"She's harmless," my mother said brightly.

"She's Bryony," Cosmo said, and my tail thumped at the correction. I wasn't harmless, not at all, but I wasn't wild. Not now at least. It had taken a few practicing shifts with Thao and Wendell before I'd really been able to change and hold onto myself right away.

"Her colors are unusual," my mother said.

I had orange and white stripes, although Thao called me 'pink' when the sunlight hit. I wasn't sure if he was just sore that my tiger was bigger and stronger than his.

"We think it's something to do with her magics interacting," Owen said.

"Does this mean her children will be tigers too?" my mother asked.

Cosmo set his tools aside and lowered himself to the floor. My mother laughed as I slid myself down to the floor to drop my head in Cosmo's lap, exposing my belly to them—it prickled the tiger to do this, but my mother sighed as she ran her fingers through the soft pale fur there.

"If her daughter is Thao's, yes. We're not sure if the magic will carry on from Bryony herself though," Cosmo said.

My mother pulled away then, her hands folding in her lap, face going unusually somber. "It's not the same magic as the Kimmerian two-natured?"

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