Page 45 of Beasts of Shadows #1

Calea’s lips curl—not quite a smile. Something smaller. Sharper.

“Interesting,” she murmurs.

And then—just like that—she waves me off.

Dismissed.

Not safe.

Just done.

I walk back into the crowd without remembering how my feet work.

Jeremy’s at the edge, wide-eyed. Reema looks like she might throw something.

Behind me, the staff continue calling names.

But all I hear is that one word.

“ Interesting .”

#

I don’t mean to end up at the cliffs.

But I keep walking—past the dorms, past the torchlit hedge maze, past the last flicker of firelight from the solstice bonfires—until the trees thin and the wind howls louder than my thoughts.

The sound slaps against the rocks like it’s trying to unmake the world.

It almost works.

Except someone’s already there.

Of course it’s him.

Fucking Nikolai.

Leaning against the frost-laced railing like the edge of the world doesn’t faze him. His coat is open, collar turned up against the cold. Hair windblown. Expression unreadable.

He looks like he belongs here. Or maybe like he’s waiting for the world to let him go.

I should turn around.

I don’t.

“You always haunt cliffs like this?” I ask, stepping beside him.

He doesn’t seem surprised to see me.

“Only after school dances,” he replies without turning. “What’s your excuse?”

I lean closer. “Needed air.”

His jaw tightens. “Didn’t get enough when you slipped off to meet your godling?”

If it bothers me that he noticed, I keep it to myself. He was supposed to be too busy with Ta?sse.

“Didn’t realize you were taking attendance.”

“I wasn’t,” he says. “But when it comes to my wife, I notice things.”

“Deities have never cared about fidelity,” I snap. “Don’t act like it should matter now.”

I give a shiver, and Nikolai seamlessly drapes his coat over my shoulders. His gaze lingers a breath down my figure.

“Orange looks good on you.” It has nothing to do with our conversation, and seems more like something he’d been waiting to say.

I open my mouth to say something—something stupid, like, “Thank you,” or, “You didn’t have to notice.” But nothing comes out.

I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s like this.

When he’s not playing god.

When I’m not pretending I don’t care.

A long silence stretches between us.

Below, the ocean, so like his eyes, roars like it’s trying to claw its way up the rocks. The cold sinks through my tights and bones, but somehow the space between us feels… warm.

Not because of heat. Well, not just the heat.

Because of him.

Because he’s the only one who doesn’t ask me to explain myself.

Because for all his power and posturing, he doesn’t tug at me like I’m some prophecy to solve. He just… watches. Waits.

And sees more than he should.

He glances at me. No smirk. No smugness. Just something tired and strange behind his eyes—like he’s spent his whole life holding up a world that was never meant to love him back.

“Nari,” he says.

Just my name. But it lands different.

Heavy. Like a secret.

I stare at him. He stares back.

We don’t touch.

We don’t kiss.

But something passes between us anyway.

A thread. A tether.

Is it our binding that makes me want to stay here? Or just the way he carries the unbearable like it’s routine? Like the illusion of not being seen is the only armor he’s got left.

And here I am. Seeing it.

Wanting to see more.

He shifts slightly, like he might say something else.

Or step closer.

But instead, he turns his face back to the sea, jaw tight. And I realize, maybe I’m not the only one afraid of what this could mean.

If someone saw this moment, they’d assume something happened.

But they wouldn’t be wrong.

Not really.

#

When I finally make it back to the dorm, the hall is dim, the corridor hushed.

My heels click too loud on the stone—sharp little betrayals echoing through the quiet. Avril and Stella are already inside—probably asleep, or pretending to be. I don’t blame them.

The door creaks open on tired hinges.

Inside, the lamps are out.

But something’s waiting.

At first, I think it’s a trick of the shadows—some leftover scrap from Stella’s hair accessories, or a crumpled bit of tissue from our frantic, pre-festival wardrobe disaster.

But no. It’s placed too carefully.

A flower.

Dried. Wilted. Its petals shriveled to paper, the stem curling like a question mark.

Someone left it on my pillow.

No note. No glamour. Just a fragile little omen someone left to get under my skin.

I pick it up carefully, unsure if it will crumble.

It doesn’t.

Instead, as soon as my fingers close around the stem, something pulses.

Soft. Subtle.

Like breath.

And then—color.

The petals begin to unfurl. Not in a rush, but slowly. Deliberately. Like it’s waking from a spell.

Ink-dark violet bleeds into gold at the edges. The bloom opens wide in the palm of my hand—full, vivid, and very much alive.

Enchanted.

A hellebore. Winter’s rose. The first thing bold enough to bloom through snow.

My pulse stutters.

Ravi.

It has to be.

Only he would leave something like this. Something so quiet. So careful. So beautiful and impossible. Something that didn’t demand anything from me. No questions. No choices. Just… this.

Maybe it’s his way of apologizing for earlier.

All my thoughts about Nikolai slip away.

With a smile, I tuck the flower under my pillow.

And for the first time since I got here, I sleep all night.