Page 61 of Beast and Remedy
Not even Marian.
All I can do is stare at my untouched food, my appetite evaporating.
“What? We needed to ask it sooner or later,” Leo responds casually.
No one says a word, and my heart hammers in the middle of my throat. Heat bursts across my skin as a cold sweat trickles down my neck.
I knew it was going to happen—I just wasn’t expecting them to be so brazen about it. But I should’ve known better.Especiallywhenever Leo is involved.
I peer up, watching Leo cut his meat and lift the fork to his mouth. He eats his meal with nonchalance despite his veins bulging.
“So, tell us,” Leo enunciates before driving his point deeper into me like a dagger plunging into my back. “Oh, wait, how about you pinpoint the timeframe. Was it one year? Three? Five?”
I bristle under his scrutiny, vexed over his lack of manners, lack of care, lack of anything respectful, and tighten my hold on my knife.
Someone’s hand finds mine, the soft touch cool. And yet I still shake, my skin clammy againsthis,calloused from years of training. Hunting.Killing.
The reminder of what Beau is capable of flashes through my mind, making me second-guess my own beliefs—my own feelings.
I rip my hand away from Beau’s as Leo scoffs at our lack of rebuttal.
“Better yet, answer this. Was it before orafteryou came to us for help?” Leo asks, expanding on his question.
The room remains quiet, their own minds probably thinking the same things Leo was brave enough to voice first.
Lifting my head, my eyes flick directly to Jules, Marcel, and Christine, all wearing wary grimaces. And I don’t know why, but it makes me even more angry that no one tries to talk Leo down or reassure my sister and me.
I don’t want to torture myself with a glance at Beau because, I swear, if I do and see a similar look, I might explode.
I peer over at Marian, seeing her own uncertainty, and the few bites of the roll I enjoyed threatens to crawl out onto my dinner plate. Taking another deep breath, I calm the tension and fury as I twist to Leo, the only onestilleating.
The cocky ego ripples off him in waves as if heachievedsomething, and I can’t hold in my seething wrath.
“Maybe it was when you all believed my sister and I didn’t share the same beliefs as our father.”
“And when would we have figured that out?” Leo counters.
Leo always acted better than me. He was the one who teased and taunted me, convincing my friends and his family to avoid me during my adolescence.
We barely explored a peaceful friendship in adulthood after Beau came into his role, but now, it seems he is choosing to go back to where we started as teens.
And I won’t have any of it.Especiallywhen all I want to do is claw off his smug smirk.
“Maybe when I refrained from eating you on sight in my other form,” I snarl, unplagued by guilt.
“Vivienne!” Marian’s shock tightens her voice, but I don’t bother acknowledging her.
I’m too busy watching Leo’s jaw slacken in surprise.
Even if he was defending his brother, his king, I still can’t refrain from biting deeper. My protective instincts for myself, for my family, scratch the itch of power harboring within me.
“And the next time you assume wrong inanythingrelating to my sister and me, you better be armed—” I darken my stare and bare my teeth as Leo glares, his features changing into a sneer. “Because I have claws now, Leo Rousselot. And if you continue to assume you know everything about me, my family, and whatwe’ve gone through these last few years, don’t think for one second I will hesitate to use them on you.”
Leo remains tight-lipped as Marian grips my hand.
I ignore her again, wanting Leo to relent before we reveal anything.
I’m not a child anymore, and he doesn’t get to walk all over me. Ally or enemy, he is better than that.
