Page 47 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

“I’m only saying what’s true. You can’t control the beast inside you.

Someday, you’ll get away from your keepers and you’ll harm someone you love, perhaps even slaughter countless lesser fae before the royal families take you down.

Is that how you want to be remembered? Is that how you want to live your life, in constant fear of the inevitable? ”

“Not much I can do except make sure I’m caged well enough. You know that.”

Diego’s smile returned, charming and rakish and so not Diego.

“Ah, but there you’re wrong. I can control it.

I can teach you to control it, to some extent, as Lila does.

She’ll never be safe to let loose in the world since she doesn’t want to inhibit the beast. The violence is too addictive for her.

But I can set limits on her beast, on her madness. ”

“You’re not making sense,” Zack growled. “The only time the beast comes out is during the full moon. So long as I’m locked up then, there’s no danger.”

“I wish that were true, Zack, I really do. Think about it, though. In adrenaline-charged moments, in moments of extreme temper, or when faced with someone else’s beast, hasn’t yours struggled to break through? Haven’t you acted faster than you should have, more aggressively, more…instinctively?”

“No.” It was the first time since he’d known Diego that Zack had flat-out lied to him.

Diego nodded, hand raised as if to stave off future protest. “I understand. Por supuesto , it’s a very personal thing, like asking how you’re performing in bed these days.

Not something I’d expect you to admit to.

” He leveled his right hand at Zack and the bright motes of magic circling him sped, whizzing around his sphere in frenetic, swooping trajectories.

“But here’s the problem. You can’t control it.

The madness will only grow worse, as it has with Lila.

Soon, anyone powerful enough will be able to use you, because once you know how, the beast can be controlled. ”

Heat prickles ran up either side of Zack’s spine, his only warning before pain tore through his gut. He doubled over, arm wrapped around his stomach, his free hand clutching the doorframe in a desperate attempt to keep his feet. Shit, oh, holy shit…

“I can drag the beast out,” Diego said, his voice soft and regretful. “There will come a point where I’m not the only one, Zack.”

“Stop it!” Kara yelled, fists balled tight. “You’re hurting him! Knock it the hell off!”

“It’s a necessary demonstration, Ms. Kara,” Diego said in that same soothing tone. “Zack’s stubborn but he’s a smart man. He’ll understand after this.”

“What in God’s name…” Zack gasped out, his voice dropping back to a guttural snarl again. The room spun. He dropped to his knees. “…am I supposed to learn…except…that you’ve…gone psycho?”

“No, my dear friend. I need you to understand how important registration and control of magical beings will become over the next few years. If you can’t stay in control, if the beast can leap out when it pleases or when someone with nasty intentions wants to use it, how is anyone safe from people like you?

If we don’t have proper safeguards, proper tracking, proper education in place, how will the human race survive this ever-widening plague of magical disasters? ”

“Some of which you engineered, love.” Finn cocked his head to one side, incredibly calm and outwardly unconcerned under the circumstances. “Is your intent self-fulfilling prophecies now?”

“Giving the slow wheels of bureaucracy a push is hardly that, mi amor .”

Zack lurched forward as a heavy wave of agony slammed into him. Spears of fire shot outward from his core. Tendons creaked, muscles spasming as they realigned. He cried out as his fingers stretched, nails pulling painfully into the beginnings of claws.

“Diego…” Finn took a step further into the room.

“I came to stay with you this time. I won’t be sent away again.

All the politics and the human laws, you know they simply confuse me.

My only concern is you, and keeping you safe.

Please stop torturing Zack. We’ll help him grasp whatever it is you need him to.

But this seems a mite much, don’t you think? ”

“No, he needs to understand how dangerous his illness is. How dangerous he is. Who else can teach him how to control this? And if he can’t learn how, then who else can offer him the control he needs?”

All the late-night talks when Diego couldn’t sleep came back to Zack.

All the support he’d given the anxious new consul, all the trust and all the confidences between them.

How can he do this to me? We’re friends…

good friends. The kind who have each other’s backs.

Fuck! A magma pit of rage opened up in Zack’s chest, boiling under red-zone pressure.

A tower of blood-red fury would soon erupt from the top of his skull.

Flesh. Gnawing hunger. He would rip the consul’s throat out, drink from his partially severed neck, smash through his ribs and tear his heart from his chest. He would—

“Zachary. Beloved, listen to me.”

The sudden, intruding voice spoke in his mind and in his ear. His beast paused in confusion. It stirred things, that deep, familiar bass, things the beast well understood and others that only deepened its confusion.

A large hand rested on his shoulder, warmth against his back that he had known in moments of ecstasy. “Lugh?” It hurt to rasp out the word, his voice barely human.

“I’m here.” The whisper shook in his ear, echoed by the trembling in the arms that encircled him. “You were in dire need. I came. Stay with me, Zachary. Yours is the strongest heart I know, stronger than this affliction. Stronger than any compulsion laid upon you.”

Zack whimpered, turning his face into that broad chest even with his teeth still bared. The rest of the room existed in a dim, distant way, but the sounds became muted behind Lugh’s heartbeat, the scents faded under his heady musk.

“Who the hell let the prince out?” Diego bellowed. “Magnus!”

Heavy footsteps pounded down the hall. The boy who threw fire careened around the corner, probably from some pre-arranged hiding place in case Diego needed backup. “Shit! He supposed to be here?”

“Didn’t I leave instructions to keep him safe?” Diego pointed Zack’s way. It took a moment for his beast-fogged brain to understand he meant Lugh. “Take him back to his room.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed, anger in the set of his jaw. “Yes, sir. I mean…but not with that fucking animal wrapped around him. No way.”

Both halves of Zack’s brain, beast and human, didn’t want the brown-haired boy coming any closer or laying a single stinking finger on Lugh. Mine! He wrapped an arm around Lugh and roared at the boy in the doorway.

“Shit. Lemme kill it, sir. That thing’s worse than Lila.”

Finn had turned to face Magnus, his eyes glittering with some fey emotion, hair whipping about in his own magic wind. “It’s clobbering time, as they say.” He threw a hand up and hurled a wall of air to knock the boy back to the other side of the hall.

Either the blow wasn’t straight-on or the boy had his own defenses.

Immediately, a fireball barreled through the doorway in answer.

Finn crouched low, hand raised to deflect it.

Trajectory ruined, it raked down Finn’s side rather than striking him in the face and fizzled out in the center of the room, but it still left the pooka curled up over his knees, whimpering in pain.

“ Finn !” Diego’s scream held such raw fury and anguish, Zack almost expected him to turn were-beast as well. His handsome face contorted in rage, he flung a wind spell of such force it knocked holes in either side of the doorframe and flung Magnus hard into the opposite wall.

“Watch, my brave sergeant,” Lugh whispered to him. “Watch and be ready. Stay with me. Remember who you are…”

Diego’s distraction had slowed the rotation of his shielding and Zack wasn’t the only one watching.

Kara and Will nodded to each other, magic suddenly glowing around them, presumably handed to them from behind Minky’s wall.

They each tossed what appeared to Zack to be grappling hooks made of light.

The hooks fastened onto Diego’s sphere and began to pull in opposite directions, opening a rapidly widening hole.

“You are Zachary Morrison,” Lugh whispered in his ear. “Not a beast, not a monster. Know that I love you. Go do what you must, my braveheart.”

The words anchored his human half, allowing him to drag himself partway from the quagmire of the beast’s all-consuming rage and hunger. He flexed his claws, waiting for the hole to grow big enough while Diego’s attention remained on settling a cool blanket of healing over Finn.

Rabbit-sized. Dog-sized. Sheep-sized . Zack untangled himself from Lugh and gathered into a crouch, taut as a leaf spring.

As soon as the hole reached a passable diameter, he pounced, leaping through that opening to seize Diego.

He yanked one of Diego’s arms behind his back, keeping a clawed hand around his throat.

Diego swallowed against his hand, his voice a strangled whisper as he said, “Zack, think. This didn’t work out so well last time, remember?”

“Stay still.” Zack yanked the arm up harder, making Diego cry out in pain. He still couldn’t manage a human voice, and the rasping snarl sent shivers up his spine. “Don’t tempt the beast. He’s still here.”

The side of the shield ripped open wide and suddenly, the two of them weren’t alone inside the sphere. Brandon stood directly in front of Diego, the rainbow effect of his coven’s magic surrounding him. He took Diego’s head between his hands, their faces so close they might have kissed.

“You…” Diego spat out, obviously fighting to pull his magic in for some massive strike.