Page 35 of Betraying the Beast

The ground trembled with their coming.

An army.

He rose to his full, monstrous height atop the parapet, smoke coiling around him, golden fur streaked with blood and soot. His eyes blazed as he looked down.

And saw him.

Aldaric. The architect of all this ruin. The coward. The leech. The man who used Ceryn to infiltrate what centuries of force and deceit had never broken.

Fucking bastard.

So this was the endgame. Weaken the beast with grief. Blind him with heartbreak. Then strike with steel.

Let them come. Let them all come. They would die like the rest.

He stepped forward on the ruined stone ledge, wind clawing at his mane. His roar split the sky—a sound of ancient wrath, wild and unbound. Below, men stumbled, some breaking rank. Even from this distance, he saw the whites of their eyes, smelled the stink of their terror.

But Aldaric stood at the rear, untouched. Commanding. Watching.

Of course. He never led. Only followed. Always from the shadows.

“Coward,” Vael’Zhur growled, voice booming across the clearing.

His claws dug into the crumbling stone.

“If you want the orchard, come claim it. If you want the fruit, face me alone. You want to be me?” His voice dropped to a snarl. “Then fight me. Unless you fear what you’ll become.”

Aldaric’s lips curled into a smirk. And then, to Vael’Zhur’s surprise, he stepped forward.

The army parted for him like reeds before a blade. He wore black armor chased with crimson and silver, too pristine, too ceremonial. A dagger gleamed at his hip, bone-handled and curved. The air around him shimmered with some kind of charm, blood magic old and bitter.

“I accept,” Aldaric called up. “But not as a coward. Not as a man.”

His eyes glinted.

“I’ve tasted the fruit.”

Vael’Zhur stilled. Something cold and ancient slid down his spine.

“We meet on even ground now,” Aldaric said. “Beast to beast.”

The warlord climbed the fractured stair of the gatehouse as if it were his throne. And then they met—on the shattered stone, beneath the broken sky.

Vael’Zhur lunged first.

Steel rang against claw. Magic clashed with muscle. Aldaric was fast—unnaturally so. The fruit had changed him. Strength bloomed in his limbs, his strikes precise and brutal. They tore through the wreckage of the castle, breaking columns and splintering stone, shaking the bones of the earth.

But Aldaric wasn’t just strong—he was prepared.

His dagger flashed once. Vael’Zhur blocked it. Twice. Then—A slash. Too fast to see. Too late to avoid. It kissed his side. The pain was instant. Not deep. But searing. Wrong.

He staggered, limbs faltering. His vision swam.

“Poison,” he rasped, clawing at the wound.

Aldaric grinned. “A gift from my mother. A distillation of Sylaine’s final breath.”

The witch. The curse. The bloodline.

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