Page 12 of Betraying the Beast

The contradiction had not escaped his notice. Nor had the way Ceryn’s scent had changed when he stood close to her—fear giving way to something warmer, more complex. He had not imagined that racing pulse, that flush upon her cheeks that spoke of more than simple terror.

“Even if—“ he began, then stopped himself. No. He would not entertain such foolish fantasies. “She is here to steal what Aldaric covets. Nothing more.”

“Then why keep her alive?” Elodia pressed. “Why dress for dinner? Why compliment her appearance? Why feel the stirring of emotions you thought long dead?”

Each question was a blow that landed with unerring accuracy. Vael’Zhur snarled, a sound more pain than threat.

“Because I am still as much a fool as I was when Sylaine first cursed me,” he admitted. “Because some part of me—some weakling remnant of humanity—still believes there might be an end to this curse. An escape from this half-life.”

There. The truth laid bare, pathetic as it was. After centuries of rage and resignation, of accepting his fate as the monster of legend, a single woman with defiant eyes had rekindled the most dangerous ember of all: desire for redemption.

“And if she is the key?” Elodia asked softly. “If, by some twist of fate or design, she is the means to your salvation?”

“Then the joke is crueler than I imagined,” Vael’Zhur replied bitterly. “For she would have to betray her own family to save me. Love freely given, Elodia. How free can love be when coercion shadows every choice?”

The spectral woman was silent for a long moment. “Perhaps that is the final test,” she said at last. “For both of you.”

Vael’Zhur moved to the massive bed he rarely used, sinking onto its edge with a creak of ancient wood. For the first time in years, exhaustion pulled at him, a human weakness he had almost forgotten.

“Tomorrow I will show her the orchard,” he said. “I will tell her of the curse, of the fruit’s true nature. I will reveal to her what Aldaric truly seeks.” His massive hands curled into fists on his knees. “And then I will see what choice she makes.”

“And if she chooses Aldaric? If she chooses her family over your salvation?”

Vael’Zhur closed his eyes, the weight of centuries pressing down upon him. “Then I will know, once and for all, that the curse cannot be broken. That the beast will consume what remains of the man. That this half-existence is all that awaits me until the stars themselves burn out.”

“And her fate?”

A vision flashed in his mind—Ceryn’s throat beneath his claws, her life bleeding out on the orchard soil, joining the ones who had come before her. The beast within him growled in hungry anticipation, but the man... the man recoiled in horror.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, and it was perhaps the most human thing he had said in years. “I truly don’t know.”

Elodia’s form began to fade, her duty as companion and conscience fulfilled for the night. “Consider this, my lord,” she said as she dissipated into mist. “For the first time since the curse began, you spoke to another as a man, not a monster. For the first time, you desired something beyond revenge or blood or solitude.”

Her final words hung in the air after she had vanished completely: “Perhaps it is not the woman who needs to make a choice, but you.”

Alone in the moonlight, Vael’Zhur lifted a clawed hand before his face, studying it as if it belonged to a stranger. Beast’s paw, man’s fingers—caught forever between two natures, two existences.

Unless.

Unless Ceryn Vale, with her fierce eyes and unbroken spirit, could somehow see past the monster to the man trapped within. Unless she could offer what the prophecy required. Unless she could love what no sane person should.

Or unless she would be the one to damn him forever, to drive the final nail into the coffin of his humanity.

Tomorrow would bring the first steps toward an answer. Tomorrow, in the silver glow of the enchanted orchard, he would begin to learn which fate awaited him.

Salvation... or eternal damnation.

Chapter

Four

Dawn in the orchard arrived not with birdsong, but with silence so complete it felt like the world had paused to listen. Ceryn had returned to her room to find a welcoming fire crackling and the room freshly cleaned. The bed was turned down and the mattress so much more comfortable than the lumpy hay mattress she shared with her sister. And Maeva kicked like an ornery mule.

Though, she missed her sister, including bony knees and cold feet against her back deep in the night.

Ceryn didn’t sleep much all night despite the heavenly bed, tossing and turning, the room illuminated by the low light of the fire that never seemed to run out of fuel. More of that magic the Beast talked about. She must have fallen asleep close to dawn because she awoke to a tray with a steaming cup of tea and porridge loaded with fresh fruit and nuts, that tasted nothing like anything she had ever had before. She examined it closely to ensure no silverfruit was mixed in, but it appeared to be regular berries.

She had barely dressed in the woolen trousers and top that hung outside the wardrobe when Elodia appeared and wordlessly escorted her to the silent orchard and the beast. Vael’Zhur. She needed to stop thinking of him as a mindless beast because he was so much more. He was not human, not man, but he was no slavering beast that mindlessly slaughtered all he met. He was too perceptive for that. He saw through her, through the lies she told to the truth beneath, and she had revealed far too much too soon. Instead of tossing her out, he kept her.

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