Page 48 of Fate & Monsters
Now I genuinely went for the books. That fool of a beast was lucky I’d read about healing techniques.
Some of the books were old enough that the ink bled into the pages, hand-written in curling, ancient scripts. Some were full of illustrations—strange shadow monsters, half-remembered gods, maps of faded stars in foreign skies. Some were stories of lost kingdoms, noble lords, women who turned into birds and flew away from horrid arrangements.
They made me ache in ways I couldn’t name. More human feelings.
The scent of parchment and dust almost pleased me. The stillness was no longer an empty excuse for comfort. It wasn’t the open sky, but it was peaceful. And sometimes, when I looked up from a book and found Mavros watching me across the room, his face softened by the glow of sunset, I felt... something.Everything.
Mavros sat at our table, back turned, shoulders tense, staring down at scattered parchment and cracked maps he wasn’t reading. He seemed distant. His tail flicked at the end, the only outward sign of his mood. The sun was sinking low, casting long amber streaks through the high windows of the library and giving the beast prince a fiery silhouette, lighting him up like a burning eclipse.
Warmth pooled between my hips.
His gaze snapped up when the floorboard creaked beneath me.
Uncertainty gripped me, and I hovered at the corner shelf. Then I stepped closer.
“You should be resting,” he muttered. Despite the statement, his eyes glinted with dark heat as they roamed over the robe clinging to my body.
“So should you,” I volleyed back.
The tension between us was different. Not sharp or angry but wound tight with things unsaid. I crossed the room slowly, letting my fingers trail along the spines of the books, then his favored wingback chair in front of the fireplace.
“I like it here,” I said, meaning the library. Or maybe meaningwith you.
But that was too close to an admission still buried in the back of my throat.
Mavros glanced at me with eyes shadowed, but keen.
“You’ve been learning quickly. We’ll have gone through the entire collection soon enough.” Hewaved a dismissive hand at the abandoned book on the table he last read to me. He hadn’t since the incident.
“Give or take a hundred years,” I teased.
He remained quiet.
“Besides, I prefer it when you read to me.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile, but a hint of warmth behind the brooding scowl. I crossed the distance and sat on the wide arm of his chair, deliberately close.
“You haven’t in a few days. I miss hearing your voice.” I bullied away the indulgence of an admission and sucked in a breath. “And you’ve been absent today.”
His fire-eyes slid from the expanse of my exposed thigh he’d been admiring. A muscle in his jaw feathered. I wanted to reach out and smooth the tension from his expression.
“Mavros, we need to talk.”
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair and pulling it behind a fuzzy, pointed ear. “You’re right.”
My heart stuttered, and I waited.
“I want you to trust me,” he said in a hushed tone.
“I think I do.”
“But not enough to tell me the circumstances that brought you to me.”
I lowered my gaze. The ruddy light from the window slanted across the floor, sending golden beams over the wood and stone.
“I wasn’t ready,” I admitted. “But I might be.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might give him the answers I held hostage.
