Page 50 of The Breeding Cave
His body begins healing itself. Not all the way, but the immediate wounds.
I climb out of the water, watching his abilities make him whole again, and I curl my arms around myself and look down at my body. My skin is burned off almost completely—some to the muscle, some all the way down to the bone.
Tears well up in my eyes.
We are alive, but at what cost? Surely, the beast will find someone else. He can’t have someone like me. How will it look for a beast like him to be with one like me? My insides are still on fire, somehow burning still.
After brushing my fingers across his face, which is slowly healing itself, I place a soft kiss on his lips and wish that things can be different. I wish that … I could’ve actually a relationship at some point. I wish that he actually loved me.
When my lips left his, I walk away from the hot spring and head toward the exit of the cave. While I will never get my happy ending, I can make sure he gets his with Ella, a strong woman who can give birth to his children.
I can surrender to the Dragon Clan.
I can end this.
“You wanted me?” I scream, arms up in the air to let them know that I am not a threat once I step out of the cave.
I have never once been a threat to them, though they treat me that way. I don’t have any power. I don’t have any magic. I am just a normal human who had fallen in love with a beast who doesn’t love me back.
I drop to my knees and stare up at the dragons. “I surrender.”
Instead of them stopping this madness, they breathe more fire down upon me until my body is engulfed in flames. The smoke thickens around me, the direct line of fire blazing all over me.
“Please, stop this torture,” I whisper. “I surrender.”
But that isn’t enough. It will never be enough.
My body is burning to a crisp, but my mind will not let me lose consciousness. I am forever in a state of pure torture. I don’t know why they want to put me through this. They have tortured me enough.
Yet if it will save the beast and his pack, if it will give them some more time to escape and find somewhere new to start a family, to live a life, then I will happily endure this pain forever.
Suddenly, my eyes shot open, and I stared up at the ceiling in the beast’s penthouse. Breathing heavily, I sat up in the bed and spotted Molly and Ella at the base of the bed, Molly with tea and Ella smirking.
“What’s happened to her?” Molly asked, eyes wide. “Her body …”
I opened and closed my mouth a handful of times, confusion spreading through me. Why was I back here? Last thing I remembered, I had been at the cave with the beast. And what was Ella, out of all people, doing here?
“What’s she doing here?” I asked Molly.
“She’s come to heal you.”
“To heal me? But I?—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Molly looked back at Ella. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Ella said.
Molly grabbed Ella by the collar and slammed her up against the wall. “What did you do to her?! I brought you here to heal her. Why are there burns all over her body?! If you did this, he’ll kill you!”
She held her hands up. “I didn’t do anything. I haven’t even touched her yet!”
Healing? Wounds? Burns? All over my body?
I slipped out of the bed and hurried to the mirror, eyes widening in horror when I saw myself. The burn from the Dragon Clan on my back wasn’t the only one that I had anymore. There was one on my cheek, and another on my chest, and another around my forearm, and more … so many more all over my body.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
