Page 53 of Fate & Monsters
We only had until the sun touched the horizon.
The spacious library shrunk, squeezing in all around me. Too warm, too close, too cloying. The scent of old parchment and dust turned thick and heavy in my lungs. A primal instinct spiked in my chest, and I clung to Astoria like my life, my sanity, depended on it—on her.
Her trembling leaked into me. It took all my restraint not to shove her into the cage of my ribs when she pushed from my arms. A curtain of silvery sky-blue hair fell to cover her breasts, not that she subscribed to modesty, anyway. I sat up with her, lips pursed, as I draped the blanket around her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice, eyes void as she stared at the ground.
“It’s him. He’s coming for me,” she said, voiceraspy from sleep and shaken.
My tail lashed over the rug and a snarl ripped from my throat. “He’ll die trying!”
“He has a parade of human troops, master.” Domovoy paced, expression pinched.
Astoria turned to me, seeking comfort and answers. “What will we do?”
“We?” I rose from the floor, holding a red throw blanket around my hips. She blinked owlishly at me. “There is no ‘we’ in this. You will go to safety, and I will defend my realm.”
She leapt from the floor in an astounding display of grace and jammed a finger into the center of my chest. Her sapphire eyes flashed with the fury of lightning clashing in a storm. The blanket fell from her shoulders and landed with a solid thump on the floor.
I groaned.
“Call every abled body fighter we have, then prepare the castle and servants for their arrival,” I dismissed Domovoy. His flickering gaze darted between me and Astoria before he vanished in a puff of darkness. The air remained tense in his wake.
In the seconds of silence that followed, the library held an uncanny stillness. The fragile calm before a storm in the shape of a woman. Astoria hadn’t budged, trembling with leashed fury. My heart pounded, equally aroused and concerned. Her head barelyreached my chest, but I knew she was a force to be reckoned with, and that finger on my chest was equivalent to a dagger’s tip.
“I have hidden for long enough. No more,” she said.
I took a steadying breath before the urge to throw her over my shoulder and force her into hiding overcame me. “The Crimson Mage is more powerful than I had anticipated. We don’t know what all he’s capable of. Nor what he might do if he sees you.”
“He might not know Aradia changed me.” Her voice was calm. Resolved.
“He’s a wizard. A powerful one at that—”
“I will not run from him again. He will spend his life hunting me, or the aspect of me he wants, at least. And I cannot allow that to continue. I refuse to live the rest of my life, however much time that may be, spent in fear.”
I stared at her, stunned and seething with frustration. The Inferni half of me begged for me to protect her at all costs. Even if that meant upsetting her and betraying her trust. Her life held more importance than her fury, however righteous.
A fire in her eyes stopped me. An ancient glow, dormant but waking. Something older than even I could fathom. She was ageless, eternal, power in the shape of a woman. The body I touched, caressed, kissed, tasted, might be soft and warm, but her spirit peaked through, pulsing with amagic I didn’t understand. A star made supple, but burning just as bright.
Gods, she would burn me.
My throat tightened, and my claws dug into my palms.
“I need you to be safe. More than anything else in this world, do you understand? You’ve become my top priority in all things.” I cupped her face, exhaling in relief that she didn’t flinch away. “I’ve fought him before—”
“You barely survived!”
“—I know his magic now.”
“That wound should have killed you, and you know it!” Her defiance warmed me, though my tail twitched with agitation.
“But it didn’t.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb, and she glared harder. “I’ve had time to analyze our fight. Turned it over in my head countless times. He won’t get the best of me a second time.”
“Then I’m staying,” she declared.
“You really should go. I can’t protect you and fight at the same time—”
“I’m not asking you to protect me!” She placed her hands on my chest and my hand moved to cradle her head. “I understand protecting. I was the protector of the sky for ages. Responsibility for every creature in the air fell on me. No one understands that calling like I do. So, when I tell you I am not yours to protect, there’s no further argumentto be made.”
“But you are mine,” I grumbled.
