Page 5

Chapter Five

C eryn spent most of the day exploring the castle. As Elodia predicted, it was never the same place twice. She swore she had traveled certain hallways but the end result was often different, leading her to new rooms and places to discover. She didn’t know how far she’d walked but when the sun was high in the sky, somehow she found herself at the great hall with a meal of bread, meat and cheese on the table, and fresh cool water to drink. On cue, her stomach rumbled, as if she hadn’t realized how hungry she’d been, and she fell on the meal, devouring it in due course. Yet Vael’Zhur didn’t make an appearance, though she sensed him near, as if stalking her every step.

Instead of feeling stalked or threatened, she felt safe, protected. Which made sense, given the story he’d shared. He was a protector—of the castle, of the orchard. And he’d been cursed for it.

Something about his story didn’t add up. Where did Aldaric fit in? How had he found out about the silverfruit? When would someone tell her the entire truth?

Sunlight streamed in the stained glass windows casting colored shadows on the stone floor. It was too nice a day to stay inside and she wasn’t learning enough about the curse to waste more time inside. The curse was tied to the orchard so she needed to return there and see if anything more was hidden among the trees. Besides, she felt an irresistible pull to the place, demanding her presence. She was tired of fighting it.

She walked among the trees but something drew her to the back corner. At the far end of the orchard, in the shadowed back, tucked away in an overgrown area of the orchard was a stone structure encased in vines and branches until it was almost completed obscured.

The air felt different here—thicker, older, heavier. The silverfruit trees grew gnarled and close together, their roots weaving through cracked stone and buried walls long reclaimed by moss and time. Vines clung to everything, tangling around broken columns and sunken arches, swallowing ruins the castle wanted forgotten.

At the base of a ruined wall half-swallowed by a copper-barked tree, she caught a glint of something smooth beneath the ivy. Her fingers reached for it instinctively, brushing back layers of leaves and brittle vines. The greenery resisted her, almost sentient in its grasp, but she yanked harder until the growth tore away. She brushed away the vines and tendrils to the ancient stone underneath, exposing the worn words and images carved into the gray stone. She traced the letters, mouthing them as she went.

Beneath it, carved into stone so weathered it bled dust at her touch, was a name.

At least, the remains of one.

AURE—

The rest had been gouged away, violently, as though something with claws had tried to erase it from the world. Deep rents scarred the stone, slicing through the letters, fracturing them like a scream.

But a name was there.

Barely.

“Auren,” she whispered aloud.

The word lingered in the air like a breath held too long.

A chill passed through her, followed by a heavy silence. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that presses against your back. Watches you.

“That name,” came a voice behind her, low and rough, “is not meant to be spoken. Ever.”

Ceryn turned slowly, heart in her throat.

He stood a few feet away, massive and unmoving, shadowed by the tree canopy. The light caught the gold in his fur, but there was no warmth in him now. His eyes were molten—anger and memory barely leashed.

She took a step back, the stone cold and rough, unyielding, against her back. “I didn’t mean to?—”

“But you did.” He stepped forward, claws curling slightly at his sides. He towered over her, menacing and dangerous, yet she was still not afraid. “You said it. My name.”

She swallowed hard. “Then it’s true.”

A long silence. The wind rustled, carrying the scent of fruit and something older—ash, perhaps. Grief.

“It was mine,” he said finally, voice softer. “Once. Auren.”

He looked past her, to the broken carving in the wall, and something in his shoulders shifted. Not anger. Not threat.

Something close to sorrow.

“Sylaine carved it there,” he said. “She marked this place when we thought it sacred. When it was still ours.”

Ceryn said nothing, afraid that if she moved, he might stop speaking.

“She loved me once,” he continued, eyes far away. “Or said she did. And I... I believed her. I gave her knowledge, truth, magic. I showed her the orchard when it was still young—before the fruit learned to bleed silver.”

His voice caught. Just barely.

“But it wasn’t enough. She wanted power. She wanted the fruit. I told her it was dangerous, that it could not be harvested without cost.”

He stepped past her, crouching near the stone. His clawed fingers hovered over the name, but didn’t touch it. He cleared the dirt and vines from the area, freeing the space to the light once again.

“So she cursed me.”

Ceryn stiffened. “With the name?”

He nodded once. “Names have power,” he said, turning to her. “There is an old magic—the First Tongue. It doesn’t just cast spells. It remakes truth.”

He looked at her then, and there was no fury in his face—just exhaustion.

“She spoke a name not meant for me. A name of fire and ruin. Vael’Zhur. And in that moment, the orchard changed. So did I. Sylaine spoke mine with hatred and rewrote my soul. You—” he hesitated, “—spoke it without knowing, and it did not burn me. She didn’t turn me into a beast. She named me one. And I became it.”

Ceryn dropped to her knees beside him, the words sinking in like cold water. “So when I said your real name...”

“It didn’t burn,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “That’s how I knew. You didn’t use it as a weapon.”

He looked down at the carving, eyes unreadable. “She did.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. Somewhere, a silverfruit dropped from a branch, hitting the earth with a soft thump.

“Why gouge it out?” she asked finally, her voice quiet.

His claws flexed. “Because it hurt to see it. The memory, the word.”

Another pause.

“Because I didn’t think anyone would ever speak it again. I couldn’t bear to hear it spoken aloud. There are none who know the name anymore. Save one.”

She met his gaze. “I didn’t know. But I felt it.”

He shifted closer. “You speak lies well. But your body tells me truth. You felt it. As I did.”

Her heart thundered. “And what did you feel?”

“That I was not alone,” he murmured. “That someone saw not the beast, but the man.” He reached out, claws hovering beside her cheek. “That I could want again.”

Ceryn’s breath caught. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But I can’t ignore this.” His hand dropped to his side. “And neither can you.”

The air between them crackled. Her fingers brushed the stone beside his. The trees bent closer as if responding to her very presence, the fruit on the end of the branch glowing bright. She turned to him, eyes wide.

“I didn’t mean to?—”

“You didn’t have to mean it,” he said. “This place knows desire.”

She rocked back on her heels. “What does that mean for me?”

“That you are no longer just a thief.” His voice deepened. “You are becoming something else. Something the orchard recognizes.”

Her pulse raced. “And what do you want from me?”

He leaned in. “The truth.”

Their lips nearly touched. But just before contact, he pulled away. “You’re not ready,” he said. “And neither am I.”

“Auren,” she said again, carefully. Intentionally.

His breath hitched.

“Do not say it unless you mean it.”

She met his gaze. “I wouldn’t.”

He got to his feet and disappeared into the orchard, leaving her alone among the trees that whispered her name and pulsed with knowledge she did not yet understand.

Ceryn exhaled, trembling. She had come for answers. But in the orchard’s quiet glow, she had found something far more dangerous.

Hope.

And something perilously close to longing.

* * *

V ael’Zhur stared at the dancing flames in the grate of his library, the mug of wine in his grasp all but forgotten as memories flooded his mind. Flashes of the past, of betrayals, of the long years of his life, haunted him, his regrets and misdeeds reminding him of who he was now and how his past was lost to him forever.

Dinner was many hours past. He had avoided Ceryn and the meal, even as he had demanded she not hide in her room for meals. Instead he was the coward who avoided her since the intimacy of their time in the orchard that afternoon, unable to face her, unwilling to answer what was sure to be painful questions about his past. The moon had risen, casting shadows outside. It was almost full now. Ceryn was sure to be asleep by now. He could leave the sanctuary of his study and answer the inextricable pull towards her, checking on her from the secret passages used by the once-living servants in the castle, now overgrown with webs and dust.

“So this is where you hide. Your castle was determined to keep me away from you tonight.”

Her voice came from the door behind him and he sighed heavily. “I’m not fit company tonight. Go back to your rooms and leave me in peace.”

She walked around until she stood in front of him, blocking the fire from his view. “After what I went through to find you? I think not. Now, pour me a glass of that wine and stop being an ass.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Most people are afraid of me, you know.”

She reached for the decanter and poured a generous portion into the second glass that appeared on the tray. Even his castle obeyed her wishes, ignoring his desire for privacy.

“Then you’ll have to remove me yourself. I dare you.” She eyed him, a hint of challenge in her eyes, and deliberately took a sip of her wine.

He grunted and resumed staring at the place where the fire should be, only he was left looking at her deep green velvet skirts with gold embroidery. She had changed from the more casual trousers and top she’d worn earlier into something richer, more formal—deep green velvet with gold embroidery that caught the firelight. The castle had provided it, no doubt. His home had always had a meddlesome will of its own. After a moment, she settled in the chair next to him. He tensed, waiting for her to speak, but she said nothing.

The silence stretched between them, not uncomfortable as it should have been, but oddly peaceful. The crackling fire and occasional clink of her glass against the side table were the only sounds. Her scent—forest and female and something indefinably her—teased his senses, more intoxicating than the wine he’d barely touched.

“You showed me the orchard today,” she said finally, her voice soft in the stillness. “You revealed secrets I suspect few living souls have witnessed.”

Vael’Zhur’s claws tightened around his goblet. The afternoon spent walking among the silverfruit trees, explaining their nature, watching her face as she understood the magnitude of what Aldaric truly sought had left him feeling exposed in ways violence never could.

“Knowledge is a double-edged blade,” he replied, still not looking at her. “What you choose to do with it will determine whether it cuts you or serves you.”

“And which would you prefer?” she asked, leaning forward slightly in her chair.

This time he did look at her, finding her eyes intent upon his face. Only curiosity and a hint of heat were reflected in her gaze. No fear, no revulsion, no pity. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of Ceryn. It had been far too long since a woman had looked at him with anything other than disgust.

“What I prefer ceased to matter centuries ago,” he said.

“I don’t believe that.” She set her glass down and regarded him steadily. “If your preferences truly didn’t matter, I would be dead. Or locked in a dungeon rather than drinking your wine in your private sanctuary.”

Vael’Zhur’s lips twitched despite himself. “Perhaps I simply find you more entertaining alive than dead.”

“Is that all I am to you? Entertainment?”

The directness of her question caught him off guard. In his long centuries, few had dared speak to him so boldly, even before the curse, when he had been merely a man. Powerful, feared, but a man nonetheless.

“You are...” he began, then paused, searching for words that would not reveal too much. “A curiosity. A puzzle I have not yet solved.”

“Liar,” she said, but there was no malice in the accusation, only a knowing smile that made an answering heat stir in his chest.

He growled softly. “Careful, little thief. You tread dangerous ground.”

“I’ve been on dangerous ground since the moment I scaled your orchard wall.” She rose from her chair, wine glass in hand, and began to wander the library, trailing fingertips over leather-bound spines. “These books—have you read them all?”

Vael’Zhur watched her move, the graceful sway of her skirts, the elegant line of her neck as she tilted her head to read titles. “Most. Time is something I have had in abundance.”

“Lonely occupation, reading.”

“Preferable to mindless bloodshed.”

She glanced back at him, eyebrow raised. “Is that what you did before? Mindless bloodshed?”

“Would it surprise you?” He set his goblet down and rose, his massive form casting long shadows as he approached her. “Would it shock you to learn that even before the curse, I was not a good man, Ceryn Vale?”

She stood her ground as he loomed over her, her face upturned to his. “Few truly good men achieve power in this world. And you were powerful once, weren’t you? Before Sylaine’s betrayal.”

Vael’Zhur’s breath caught. How much had she pieced together from their conversations, from the orchard, from the very nature of his curse?

“You presume much,” he said quietly.

“Am I wrong?”

He could smell the wine on her breath, see the pulse fluttering at her throat. She was not fearless—he could scent the adrenaline coursing through her veins—but neither was she cowed.

“No,” he admitted. “I was powerful once. A magister, first of my kind. Consulted by kings and lords of all kingdoms. I sought knowledge and power. Was greedy for it.” His voice dropped lower. “And yes, there was bloodshed. I killed for my knowledge. The things men do to secure their legacies.”

“And now?” she asked. “What legacy remains for the beast in the forgotten castle?”

The question struck deeper than she could know. Legacy. The very thing he had sacrificed everything to secure, now dust in the wind of centuries.

“None,” he said, turning away from her. “The man who sought a legacy died long ago. Only the beast remains.”

She moved suddenly, stepping in front of him, forcing him to halt or risk colliding with her. “Then why save me?” Her voice was urgent, almost angry. “Why show me the orchard? Why share your wine and your knowledge if nothing human remains within you?”

Vael’Zhur stared down at her, at this fragile mortal woman who dared challenge him, who looked past his monstrous exterior to demand answers from the man buried within. Who had haunted his thoughts since the moment he’d caught her scent in the forest.

“Because you—“ He stopped, uncertain how to finish that sentence without revealing too much.

“Because I what?” she pressed, moving closer until her skirts brushed against his legs. “What am I to you, Vael’Zhur? Truly?”

His name on her lips undid him. How long since anyone had spoken it? How long since it had been uttered with anything but fear or disgust?

“You are an impossibility,” he growled, his control fraying. “A woman who should flee but stands her ground. Who should tremble but challenges. Who should despise the monster but seeks the man.”

“Perhaps I see what others do not,” she whispered, close enough now that he could feel the heat of her body.

“And what do you see, Ceryn Vale?” His voice was raw, vulnerable in a way he had not allowed himself to be in centuries.

Her hand lifted, hesitated, then came to rest against his chest where a heart still beat beneath fur and flesh. “I see someone who has suffered. Who has lost. Who has been alone far too long.” Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. “I see someone who remembers what it was to be human, even as he denies it.”

Something broke within Vael’Zhur—a dam holding back emotions he had buried for lifetimes. Without conscious thought, his clawed hand rose to cover hers, engulfing it in his massive grasp.

“If you truly saw me,” he said hoarsely, “you would run. You would flee this castle and never look back.”

“I’ve never been very good at doing what I should,” she replied, the hint of a smile playing at her lips. “Why start now?”

The air between them seemed to compress, heavy with tension and possibility. Her scent changed subtly, desire threading through fear and defiance. She swayed toward him, or perhaps he toward her—he could not tell which. All he knew was that the distance between them was shrinking, her face tilted up to his, her eyes flickering from his eyes to his mouth and back again.

“This is madness,” he whispered, even as his hand moved of its own accord to cup her cheek, mindful of his claws against her delicate skin.

“Probably,” she agreed, leaning into his touch, her eyes half-closing. “Does it matter?”

It should. It should matter that she was Aldaric’s pawn, sent to steal the fruit’s power. It should matter that his curse made any connection between them impossible. It should matter that he was beast more than man, that his touch could tear her apart without meaning to.

But in that moment, with her warmth against him, her pulse quickening under his palm, nothing mattered but the ache of centuries of solitude and the promise of connection in her eyes.

“Ceryn,” he breathed, her name a prayer and a warning both.

She answered by rising on her toes, closing the final distance between them, and pressing her lips to his.

The shock of it froze him for an instant—the softness of her mouth against his, the scent of her overwhelming his senses, the impossible intimacy of the contact. Then instinct took over, and he was kissing her back, his massive form bending to accommodate her height, his hands moving to her waist to steady her.

The kiss was gentle at first, tentative—the beast afraid to harm, the woman afraid to be consumed. But as she wound her arms around his neck, as she pressed closer with a soft sound in her throat, gentleness gave way to hunger. Centuries of isolation, of touch denied, of humanity suppressed, all channeled into the desperate meeting of lips and breath.

Vael’Zhur lifted her effortlessly, one arm around her waist, the other tangling in her hair. She gasped against his mouth, then kissed him deeper, her fingers threading through the thick fur at his neck, finding the man beneath the beast as surely as if she could see through his cursed form to the soul within.

Time lost meaning. There was only her softness against him, her heartbeat thundering in time with his own, her taste—wine and woman and life itself—filling his senses until he was drunk on it. He backed her against a bookshelf, his massive body caging her smaller one, growling low in his throat when she nipped at his lower lip, bold even now.

The beast within him stirred, hungry for more than kisses, demanding possession, claiming, marking. And with a clarity that cut through the haze of desire like a blade, Vael’Zhur realized the danger of what they were doing.

He broke away abruptly, setting her down and stepping back, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. Ceryn stood dazed against the bookshelf, her lips swollen from his kisses, her eyes wide with confusion at the sudden withdrawal.

“Go,” he rasped, fists clenching at his sides to keep from reaching for her again. “Now.”

“Vael’Zhur—“

“GO!” he roared, the sound rattling the windows, his control slipping with every moment she remained within reach. “Before I forget myself entirely. Before the beast takes what the man knows it can never have.”

Hurt flashed across her face, quickly masked by a cool dignity that made him ache to bridge the distance he had just created. Without another word, she gathered her skirts and fled the library, the door slamming behind her with a finality that echoed in the sudden silence.

Vael’Zhur stood motionless, listening to her retreating footsteps, the rapid beat of her heart growing fainter as she put distance between them. When he could no longer hear her, he sank to his knees in the center of the room, head bowed, clawed hands pressed against the floor.

“What have I done?” he whispered to the empty air.

No answer came, save the quiet crackling of the fire and the relentless ticking of a clock marking time in a life that had long since lost its meaning.

Until now. Until her.

Ceryn Vale, who had kissed the beast and, for one impossible moment, found the man within.