Page 48 of Monster's Pretty Bride

Amelia, sensing the tension breaking at the seams, reaches for Catalina’s arm. “Enough,” she murmurs, voice softer than usual. “She’s not our enemy.”

“She’s not acting like our ally,” Catalina snaps.

Amelia doesn’t argue. But she watches me. Sees too much. Feels too much.

After a long breath, she says, “We should at least heal them before we decide what to do.”

Naranus snarls immediately.

“You won’t touch me.”

Catalina lifts her chin. “Then you can rot in that body of yours.”

Amelia sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Enough. He’s still a beast, Catalina, but right now, he’s her beast.” Her gaze flicks toward me, expectant. “Isn’t he?”

My lungs seize.

I don’t answer.

Amelia watches me for a long moment, then sighs again. “Fine. We’ll leave him be.”

Naranus doesn’t relax.

Not an inch.

The hostility still rolls off of him, his claws still unsheathed, his gaze drilling into mine.

I feel his rage, his betrayal still simmering beneath the surface, still waiting for a chance to consume me whole.

Yet, when I step toward him, placing myself firmly between him and them…

He doesn’t move away.

22

NARANUS

Ishould have killed them both.

Even now, with the tension in the room thick enough to choke on, my claws twitch with the desire to tear into their throats, to rip through flesh and bone and end the threat standing in front of me.

Because make no mistake, they are a threat.

Not just to me. To her.

Eryss is standing too close to them, her body still angled toward me, but her loyalty tethered somewhere between. I feel it like a blade pressed against my core, like a rope pulling taut, stretching the space between us.

Her silence is the worst part.

Not an argument, not a plea, not even an explanation, just silence.

I glare at the Purna woman closest to her, the one called Catalina. Her hand is still near her weapon, and the challenge in her gaze makes my rage pulse sharper, hotter.

"Say the word, Eryss," Catalina murmurs. "And I'll finish it."

I take a step forward.

Eryss reacts immediately, her palm pressing against my chest.

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