Page 44 of Fate & Monsters
“Don’t tell me you’re impressed,” I teased. My tail whipped out and snapped at his wrist. His sword spun away, landing blade down in blood-soaked dirt.
Chest heaving, he stopped. The madness in his eyes when he straightened up to appraise me made my spine crawl. Magic zapped through his fingers, red-hot and virulent. He gazed at me not like I was an unfamiliar beast in a new world trying to kill him, but like a… specimen begging to be placed on display.
“I admit I very nearly am.” The magic at his fingers hummed. The sword wobbled where it protruded from the ground. The blade sang as it jerked from the dirt and spiraled into his awaiting palm. “Almost impressive enough to add you to my legacy.”
He barked out a chilling half-laugh before charging.
“Legacy?” The word leapt from my tongue without permission.
Bloodthirst and hunger aroused a frenzy difficult to control. My precise attacks gave way to chaotic strikes, and my mouth watered to clamp down onto the wizard’s throat and feel the bones snapping in his neck. I wanted to relish the spurt of his blood in the back of my throat and his dying twitch between my jaws. An inferno rose to a dangerous pitch within me as I launched myself at him again and again.
“Oh, yes.” He cackled, dancing out of reach of my claws before hammering me with a storm of bleeding red power. “Why else would I come to this backwoods plane? There’s nothing here but the one prize I seek. I lost her once,but I’m close. I’m so close. I’ll have her soon.”
My stomach sank and clenched. I threw him off me. We circled one another, stepping over the remains of my comrades. My fingers twitched, claws sharp and ready to rip him apart. Sweat dripped down his temple, making his hair look like rivulets of blood streaming down his face.
“If you find this prize, you’ll leave?” I asked.
The mage straightened up, eyes flaring as if seeing me for the first time. Perhaps he saw a leader willing to do almost anything to relieve his people from the scourge on their homes and lives. A bargain instead of a battle to the death.
“It’s hard to say.” He circled me, drawing out his words as if considering my offer. But I think I’d known from the start he was a conqueror. He wouldn’t leave Infernus alone once he found the prize he was here hunting. It was an untapped world of potential, a treasure to a wizard of his caliber.
“What do you seek?” Whatever it was, I had to keep it away from him.
His gauntlets creaked when he adjusted the grip on his sword. His black eyes flashed from black to red, a flare of light and my only warning. “I seek the wind elemental, beast. The last of her kind, and I’ll stop at nothing until her death is rightfully added to the legacy of my haul. Her extermination will be sweet.”
With enough time, I might have put the pieces together. I didn’t have the chance when his magic sent his sword through my flesh and muscle and the ground rushed up to greet me.
Chapter 16
The scent of floral soapfollowed me from the bath and along the winding castle halls. I almost resented it for cleansing his smell from my skin, but the imps insisted on a thorough lather. There were a few stubborn leaves in my hair. Not that I made a habit of looking in mirrors. A woman stared back at me through the glass, and I did not know her. The shame of seeing the wrong reflection plagued me, and I lacked the courage to look.
Perhaps I never would.
But Mavros did. Whoever this woman was, this Astoria, he seemed to care for her. The countless hours spent cooped up in the library analyzing language, speech, and letters. All the energy he put into teaching a stranger from another world was unprecedented. And in that time, those small moments grew into large pillars, a foundation for learning and knowing and… and caring.
The beast prince cared, and he hungered with a passion that almost frightened me. It should. It didn’t. In the light of a new day, I found myselfin that library, pacing along the magnificent rows of books harboring centuries of knowledge. My fingers ghosted over the spines, and I mentally practiced pronouncing their titles as I passed.
What I had come to think of as our table in the coziest section of the library was still scattered with the remnants of our previous lesson. In his favored large, cushioned wingback chair, I picked up the last novel he’d been reading to me. The lord of demons had responsibilities, yet he chose to spend his time with me reading aloud tales of scholars and adventurers. Tales of heroes and lovers.
Those stories of heroes rarely mentioned the guilt of being the lone survivor. A weight I carried, heavy and prickly in the tomb of my ribs. A darkness that stuck to my skin like grime in the darkest, loneliest hours. A shadow accompanying my every step and choking out the light struggling to keep its place in my heart. But I wasn’t a hero, and after witnessing the blood on the beast’s hands, I knew neither was he.
This morning, after my carnal awakening at his hands, I thought of the thin smiles he shared over books in the comforting warmth of our intimate afternoons. They made my heart swell. A human heart with human feelings fit for a mortal with an inhuman lover. I wanted to believe that Mavros shared those feelings, that they weren’t a rehearsed seduction technique.
Where had he disappeared to?
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d left the castle. But it was the first he’d gone without so much as a subtle nod in acknowledgment. Nothing but silence sitting heavy like a shroud.
At first light, I had missed Mavros. I wanted to wake to his face, and his warmth, and his arms around me. The bedding was still toasty, but it wasn’t him. He hadn’t even left a note. Nothing more than his scent clinging to the pillow. If not for the satisfied ache in my core, I might have convinced myself last night was one of my many dreams.
Though I suppose it was better this way with him on some royal task and my time free to think about the changes sweeping me away. The lonesome quiet of the library provided the perfect atmosphere for deep thinking.
Air spirits didn’t feel emotions of this caliber. If I had gotten to the point where I concerned myself with feelings and carnal desires, there might not be any semblance of a sylph left in me. Changes I could contend with in some semblance. I’d seen the rise and fall of man’s empires countless times. My own metamorphosis, however, remained a fresh wound gaping in the center of my being. The grief of losing my life, my world, my identity, would sit within me as deep and unchanging as a grave. The beast’s devotion and the passing of time might ease that agony like flowers blooming over desiccated bones beneath the earth.
A rustle in the shadows made me jump.
“My, my, you’re a skittish thing today.” Domovoy’s feline voice drifted from a nearby row of shelves. The candles on his head puffed to life, revealing his silhouette. His yellow eyes blinked curiously as he unfurled himself from the shelf ledge with a lazy stretch.
“Why aren’t you off chasing some imp or mouse?” I dropped the unread book on my lap. “Why are you here, lurking in the shadows?”
