Page 60 of The Beast King's Bride

With a cry, I run at the creature and stab my puny knife into its neck. The knife clanks against the scales, but somehow the tip buries itself between them, and the monster jerks and swings around to roar at me. I fall on my ass and its triangular head bends over me, its fetid breath nailing me to the ground.

But the king jumps off the scaly neck, grabs the sword from the hand of one of his guards, and skids right in front of me, under that maw. He stabs the sword upward, through the monster’s jaw and mouth, through its head, all the way through—then leaves it there. Turning, he grabs me and lifts me up, wrapping his arms around my waist.

I have a moment when time stops and I hung suspended in the air—the monster’s head gaping over me, dripping blood, the king’s hold rooting me to the earth—and then we’re moving, running away. He is running, carrying me away with inhuman speed as the monster drops to the ground with a sound like thunder, cracking the stones of the path, shaking the gardens with their trees and flowerbeds and animals, sending clouds of butterflies and flowers scattering on the wind.

Some distance away, among the scattered rose petals, in a cloud of blue moths fluttering around us, he lets me slide inside the circle of his arms, my hands looped around his neck, my body pressed to his. I can feel his pounding heart against mine as I slide down, down, until my feet touch the ground.

“You’re all right,” he whispers, his face pale, splattered with the monster’s blood. His eyes search my face for any sign of pain. “You’re okay.”

I open my mouth to reply.

“Majesty! Behind you!” one of the guards shouts, and he spins around, pushing me to his back, his braid long swinging with the movement. The monster isn’t quite dead yet, it seems, and it’s crawling after us.

With a growl, Talen sprints forward, his movements so fast they are a blur, jumps up and pulls the sword from the monster’s jaw, then feints left, avoiding the sharp teeth hunting him, feints right, and I hold my breath as this time the teeth pass way too close for comfort, almost grazing his arm. He moves with such lethal grace and precision as he finds a handhold on the monster’s neck and swings himself on top of it.

But the monster snake—not a snake, after all, I realize just then, seeing legs, but a kind of giant lizard—shakes its entire neck and he almost falls. I stifle a cry, wishing there was something I could do. His two guards are at the other end of the lizard, hacking at its legs, trying to distract it, but it’s focused on the Fae king who is now hanging by one hand from its neck.

Then the king stabs the sword in his hand into the scaly neck, and the lizard howls. Somehow, he swings himself back on the neck and finds his own sword, still embedded there. He pulls it out, climbs up to the head, and stabs it, this time downward, right through where the creature’s brain has to be.

The new deafening roar sends me stumbling back a few steps, and then I stumble back a few more.

“Ash, move!” the king yells and turning, I run as that long neck and massive head come crashing down right where I’d been standing.

The impact throws me back to the ground where I lie panting and shaking with reaction. If this is what a walk in the gardens of the palace is going to be like, I think I’ll find some indoor entertainment from now on.

The king rolls on the ground and the guards are shouting words I can’t make out, my ears ringing. I slowly gather myself up to a sitting position. One side of my face burns, scraped raw on the ground. One of my hands hurts.

Talen. The guards are over him and my heart is in my throat. I start crawling toward them when they part and I see the king struggling to get to his feet.

He’s all right.

I sit back and grin. He’s indestructible. And feeling this ridiculously happy that he’s all right is such a bad idea, but I can’t help it. Can’t help the way he makes me feel.

I need to work harder to keep a semblance of indifference, and it’s becoming hard work indeed.

“Ash.” The king waves the guards away as more pour out of the palace—a little too late if you ask me—and strides toward me. He lifts me to my feet, takes my face in his hands, and gazes down at me with relief written all over his face.

See? How can I fight it when he acts like this? I can’t remember anyone looking at me like this, like they had to see I was okay before taking another breath.

He needs you, I have to remind myself. He thinks you can help him. That’s all this is.

It looks like more, though, when his thumbs brush over my cheeks, when his eyes glitter as he says in a low gruff voice, “I thought I’d lost you.”

Many maidens lost their heart this way, I tell myself.

Learn from their mistakes, I tell myself.

He’s Fae. Born to infatuate and bespell you. He brought you here for a reason. Ruthless, practical, immoral. Don’t trust the way his eyes move over you, checking you for injuries, don’t believe in the worry written on his handsome face.

I manage a small step back. “I’m fine.” Because he saved me and I try not to think too hard about that, either. So many thoughts I need to push down. “What was that thing doing in your gardens? Is it your pet?”

Confusion fills those dark blue eyes. “It’s a draike. A kind of small earth dragon.”

“Small?”

“Size is relative. You should see the large ones.”

“You knew that thing was there?”

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