Page 47 of The Beast King's Bride

“—underwater.” Jassin pulls a small knife from his belt, walks to the lip of the pool, and dives.

Leaving me not knowing what to do, how to help—and how did this go from making deals to fearing for Talen’s life?

Jassin bursts out of the water, blinking water from wide eyes. “There’s something down there…” he gasps. “You’d better get out…”

Without a word, I run out of the bathhouse and turn into the corridor. “Guards! Guards, here! Save your king!”

Two guards hurry toward me. “You called, my lady?”

“Hurry up!”

They follow me inside the bathhouse and into the pool where Jassin is surfacing once more, pale and dripping. Fear is a cold ball in my gut, making me feel sick. Where is Talen? How long can he last without breathing?

“Get the king out of the water!” I shout at them, then grab the arm of one of the two. “Give me a knife.”

“My lady—”

“Now!”

He unsheathes and hands me a dagger, and I wade back into the pool, not sure what I can do but ready to cut up anything that might come up.

The guards sink into the water and I fight the terror gripping me, the terrible urge to get out and start running.

A long shadowy form slithers through the water and I force myself not to move away but to stab at it as it passes by. The tip of the knife catches on its skin. A stinging pain stabs in return into my hand and I almost drop the knife, gasping.

But at last, the guards and Jassin come up for air, pulling the king with them. I’ve never been happier to see a set of curved horns and black hair streaming over a pale face.

He’s shaking and coughing wetly but he’s alive and I let out a huge breath of relief.

I let the knife drop in the water after all and reach for him, needing to touch him, make sure he’s alive. “Talen…”

When did I stop calling him king?

“What happened, Sire?” Jassin trails the guards as they pull the king toward the steps. “It seemed like a snake.”

“A snake.” I scoff, panting. “That’s like calling a horse a house cat. That thing was enormous.”

“It was a root,” Talen says, in between coughing and spitting water. “It snagged my foot.”

I gape at him. “But I saw it drag you across the floor.”

“Some plants are hungry,” Jassin says, “and can move as quickly as snakes. If we have a sark in the pool, we have to hack it and uproot it.”

A sark?

The guards drag the king out of the pool. A fresh gash on his arm is bleeding but otherwise, I don’t see much as the guards bundle him up in another sheet from the bench and seat him there.

“Princess Elayne,” he says, the title sounding so incongruous after the near-death experience. “You wounded the sark. Helped free me.”

“Ash,” I say. “Just call me Ash. If I’m staying here for a moon, you might as well know this is the name I mostly answer to.”

“But you’re a princess. You told me not to call you Ash.”

And he’s right, but… “Who cares about that,” I whisper and clench my stinging hand. “Forget what I said last time. Ash is fine.”

The fear of losing him is still too real—and I still don’t understand why. What do I care if he lives or dies?

But it seems that, after all, I do…

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