Page 78 of The Beast King's Bride

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TALEN

Still reeling from the familiar mind-wrenching pain and disorientation of the shift, I growl at her as she approaches—but I know her scent of flowers, I know her. It’s not the Empress.

Ash. Ash means gentleness and fire all in one, and I let her touch me, because I know she doesn’t want to hurt me. Even my animal brain, slower than my human one, knows that.

Her hands slide in my fur, whispers, caresses. I can never admit how much I need that gentleness, how much I am starting to need her.

Damn dangerous, Talen, but the voice in my mind has trouble keeping such complex thoughts in order, especially right after shifting. All I know is that she feels good, familiar but also intoxicating and thrilling. Arousing.

When she puts her arms around my neck, deep in my mind where I’m a male, I want her so badly that I growl my desire for her. And when I invite her onto my back and she willingly straddles me, I want to carry her away to my room and keep her there forever.

The Empress isn’t pleased. Her magic lashes against me in great waves. My arousal, my happiness does not please her. She wants me to lose. Her magic pulses one last time, gathering back inside her, and she walks away, followed by her small army of Lesser Fae, taking the shadows with her.

Ash leans over me, her legs hanging at my sides, her arms around my neck. “Talen,” she whispers. “Can you hear me?”

She wasn’t supposed to see me in my gruesome beast form.

But the Empress was right. Ash had to know sooner or later. You cannot cheat the curse. Though I have no idea where that leaves us. Where I stand. Ash said she isn’t afraid of me, that she finds me… gorgeous?

I shake my horned head slowly, trying to clear it. Surely, she didn’t say those things.

But the Empress was upset and Ash is now on my back, her arms around me, so the first part has to be true, at least.

“Talen,” she whispers now in my ear, “take me away from here.”

Then our wishes coincide. She wasn’t supposed to see me shift, and neither were my subjects and everyone in the palace. They cringe back when I take a few steps away from the twin thrones, probably ranking me along with the Empress’ creatures and the monsters haunting the palace at night.

I could shift back, though an immediate second shift would leave me unable to move for days. But I could talk, explain.

No, the truth is that I cannot explain, so it’s no use. That’s how the curse is crafted, artful and devious, not letting me tell others how it works, how it can be cured.

And if I told them, there’s no guarantee they would believe me or care about it.

My fault. I caused this. I have to pay for it. I have to fix it.

Ignoring their cries of fright, their backtracking, their sour scent of fear, I trod down the long carpet toward the door, carefully carrying my passenger on my back. We exit the ballroom, walk past more Fae who stare at us with huge eyes, and I increase my pace.

Then slow down again.

“I won’t fall,” she says. “Go faster, Talen. Take me away.”

So I allow myself to run, to lope through the palace, her weight comforting and sweet on my back, her arms still looped around my neck, her head resting on my nape.

It feels so damn perfect.

I run out of the main doors into the front gardens, under the trees and among the blossoms. I know there are monsters out here at night, too, but not only are the monsters not usually willing to engage me in this form, but the Empress just left and for a short, blissful time it’s safe to wander.

We run and run and she laughs against my neck, trusting me to keep her safe, to protect her. It warms me inside, where my cold, dead heart resides.

Eventually, I pad back into the palace. We pass by some guests who jerk away as if burned by the sight. I had forgotten all about them, about the ball and the Empress and the curse, in the brief time outside, a time outside of time, with freedom and with Ash.

Now I’m not sure I want to go back—to the room, to how things were.

Worse: now everyone has seen what I am, what I have become, saw my moment of weakness, of pain and fear.

But I cannot be angry while Ash is stroking my fur, still riding me.

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