Page 6 of Betraying the Beast

Liar. All humans were liars. Had he not learned this truth a hundred times over? Yet as he leaned closer, studying her face in the silverfruit’s ethereal glow, he saw no deception in her eyes. Only desperation. Only fear of something greater than himself.

His massive hand spasmed around the fruit, crushing it. Juice and the pulp dripped between his claws, spattering her cheek with liquid light. The power called to him, demanded that he force it past her lips, bind her to this place as he was bound. Or kill her, as he had killed all the others who dared disturb his solitude.

But her scent...

A memory flickered at the edges of his mind—a woman’s laugh, sunlight through glass, the warmth of human touch against skin not yet corrupted by curse and claw. He shook his head violently, his fur ruffling from the movement..

“I should tear you apart,” he murmured, the words more to himself than to her. “I should paint these walls with your blood as I have done before.”

“Then do it,” she said, meeting his gaze with startling directness. “But know that my death serves no purpose save to feed whatever darkness dwells within you.”

The boldness of her words startled him out of his rage like ice water. When had any human spoken to him thus? When had any dared to look upon his cursed form without flinching away in revulsion?

Vael’Zhur straightened to his full impressive height, the silverfruit still dripping from his fingers. The choice should have been simple. Death had become as natural to him as breathing once was. Yet something stayed his lethal hand.

Her cloak, still wrapped around his neck, carried her scent more strongly. He’d kept it—why? Curiosity? Possession? The need to track her should she have escaped? None of these answers satisfied the confusion roiling within him.

“What is your name, thief?” The question emerged before he could stop it.

“Ceryn,” she answered, then added with careful formality, “Ceryn Vale.”

“Ceryn,” he repeated, testing the word. Her name was pronounced like a mound of rough stones, solid and immoveable. Or a grave.

How long since he’d care to ask a stranger their name? How long since he spoken to anyone save the cursed souls trapped with him? “You will stay.”

It was not a question. Not an offer. A command that surprised them both.

Her eyes widened. “Stay?”

“Here. In my castle.” Each word emerged slowly, as if he were rediscovering speech, the offer unexpected and unsure. “You came seeking the fruit’s power. You shall learn its truth.”

“I told you?—“

“You told me lies.” He cut her off, tossing the bitten silverfruit into the fire where it hissed and sparked, releasing perfumed smoke. “No one enters my domain by chance. No one scales my walls carrying tales of starving family.” He leaned down, bringing his face close to hers. “What sent you here, Ceryn Vale? Who guides your hand? Tell the truth, for once in your miserable life.”

Fear flickered across her features—he saw it, scented it, recognized it from a thousand terrified faces. But she did not break.

“Aldaric,” she whispered, the name emerging like a curse.

The name hit him like a physical blow. Aldaric. The warlord who had been the bane of his existence…at least most recently.

Rage exploded through Vael’Zhur’s frame, muscles tensing, claws extending. Seventy years. Seventy years he’d been harassing Vael’Zhur.

“How?” The word emerged as a roar that shook dust from the ancient rafters. “How does he still live? How does he still reach into my domain?”

Ceryn flinched but held her ground. “He rules the borderlands. He has for many years. He.. ” She paused, as if rethinking her words. “He rules our village.”

Aldaric should have died years before. Yet here he was, still plaguing Vael’Zhur’s life, sending more innocents to their death in a vain attempt to steal the curse and shackle Vael’Zhur for himself. Coincidence? Vael’Zhur’s mind raced, seeking connections, patterns, the web of fate that had brought this woman to his threshold.

“You will stay,” he repeated, his voice carrying the weight of command that had once bent armies to his will. Before the curse. Before the beast. “You will answer my questions. You will tell me all you know of Aldaric.”

“My family?—“

“Will survive or perish based on your cooperation.” He straightened, looking down at her with eyes that burned like molten gold. “Fail me, and they are lost. Defy me, and you join them.”

It was cruelty. He knew it, felt it settle into his bones with familiar comfort. Cruelty had become his shield against the pain of endless isolation. Yet as he watched her process his words, saw the careful calculation in her eyes as she weighed her options, Vael’Zhur felt something change within him, something different from before.

The beast wanted to consume her, to add her essence to the endless hunger that gnawed at his insides. But the man—the buried, nearly forgotten man—whispered of possibilities long denied.

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