Page 8 of Beast’s Surrender, Beauty’s Revenge

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALMAS

Percival.

The Percival of stories was a goddamn hero. He’d saved the North during the war, defeated the monster that’d struck out at innocents, kept our people safe. It was on his legend that Bellara was founded.

A coincidence. It had to be.

And still, a tingling unease swept up the back of my neck, and at night, as we sat across the campfire, I wondered if he could be that same man.

Surely not. Percival was human. He’d died centuries ago, and this—this person, who wasn’t quite as monstrous as I’d assumed, well, he was still the beast trapped in the tower. That legend had lasted generations.

Still, he was a mystery. He couldn’t be human, but he didn’t look like anything else—not a fae or a demon. His blood was as red as my own.

Gods, his blood.

He hadn’t meant to be a bother, he said, while I had forced him to go hiking through the woods without even a decent pair of shoes. His tattered trousers were all he had, and while I hardly had more at that particular moment, I did have shoes .

The shameful part was that I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d seen him— Percival —as some hardened, monstrous thing, not a person capable of being hurt.

My heart twisted as I wondered if the monster, then, was me. I’d come to him with nothing, demanded so much violence, and left him to bleed because of my own thoughtlessness. Had I always been this careless, this selfish, or was this some twisted new symptom of all my bottled rage?

Whatever the case, I felt dirty and horrible, stealing glances at Percival’s makeshift shoes to see if blood was seeping through the cloth.

I had to do better—I would do better—so when we finally saw a coil of smoke climbing above the trees, I set my mind to fixing what I could.

Admittedly, it wasn’t much. I had no money to purchase food or clothing. For days, we’d been eating what we could scavenge from the woods, though Percival had lunged through the brush once and come up with a squealing rabbit.

I hadn’t even seen it. It’d been the most impressive show of hunting I’d ever seen, and we’d eaten better that night than I had in weeks.

But now, we’d found a village—not my home, which was on open land, overseen by Lord Uther, but a smaller place were half a dozen families gathered, some never leaving the shadow of the woods in their whole lifetimes.

I told myself, as we sneaked through the woods at the edge of the village, that while they didn’t have much, I had nothing, and Percival had less. These people were settled, could replenish their stores more easily than we could. And—and none of it made my intentions any better, but guilt didn’t stay my hand either.

Percival needed shoes. Perhaps a shirt, even if I didn’t mind the sight of him without one.

“Stay here,” I insisted, squeezing his forearms for good measure. “I’ll only be gone long enough to grab a few things, and then we’ll be off again, yes? You’ll stay?”

Percival’s brow furrowed, but he nodded. In the end, I wasn’t sure if I left him behind because I thought he’d draw too much attention, because I didn’t trust him around people, or because I simply didn’t want him to witness me doing wrong.

Sneaking into the village at dusk was too easy, as was snatching clothing from clotheslines and muddy boots from beside someone’s back door. I even stole a loaf of bread, cooling in the window. My growling stomach wouldn’t let me leave it behind.

And with my haul bundled in the freshly laundered shirt, I scampered through the trees back to where I’d left Percival, only to find the tiny clearing empty.

I twisted around, checking fallen logs where he might’ve decided to sit and wait. Still, there was nothing.

“Percival?” I called.

A moment later, I heard a choked, guttural sound and rushed around a nearby tree. Its trunk was too thick for me to wrap my arms around, but there, on the other side, Percival was turned away, his forehead pressed into the tree’s rough bark, his eyes squeezed shut tight.

A cold shudder worked through me. Carefully, I reached out and came just short of touching his elbow. “What’s wrong?” My voice came out cracked and hoarse, and Percival didn’t lift his head.

I looked around for a clue, but I didn’t see a single thing except a tiny trail nearby—something I’d missed before, like a single person used it to cut through the brush.

Percival’s shoulders were heaving.

“Tingardian,” he ground out, finally.

That drew me up short. “What?”

“There was a—” Percival cut off in a growl and shook his head, his dark hair fanning around his shoulders.

“A Tingardian?” I finished for him, scowling. “Percival, that’s not—that’s not possible .”

He lifted his head, blinking owlishly at me, tremors still twitching the muscles in his arms and chest. “I saw?—”

“No,” I whispered. “I mean, Tingard is gone. The kingdom collapsed centuries ago. There’s only Bellara now. Everyone here is Bellaran.”

“Bellaran?” he echoed.

I nodded. “Bellaran. Bellara—that is our kingdom. It stretches all the way from the northern coast to the south. There are no Tingardians here. No Tingardians anywhere.”

Percival grimaced, almost like he wanted to argue with me. In the end, he swallowed whatever he wanted to say, his gaze drifting down to the bundle tucked under my left arm, tight against my side.

“Clothes,” I announced, lifting it up for him to see. It was a mess, mostly surrounded by the shirt I’d found for him, but once we unrolled it, there was plenty there to be delighted by. “I found you clothes and proper boots. And bread! Oh, it smelled amazing. I thought... well, you could get dressed, maybe we could put a little more distance between us and the village, then we’ll camp for the night. Try and rest. Pick up again tomorrow. What do you think?”

Percival sucked in his cheeks, looking past me to where the narrow path disappeared back toward the village. Another shudder worked through him, and he nodded. Then, he turned on the spot and started marching away, so I followed him.

If away was what he wanted, well, that suited me just fine.