Page 26

The wound should have killed him.

He knew it, and I knew it. The stench of virulent magic leaking from his shoulder all afternoon was proof enough. Whatever hurt him was tainted, meant to poison. We hadn’t spoken about it or how it almost took his life.

That damned injury that I pressed my own hands to, felt his blood gush through my fingers as I tried to help him.

I couldn’t fall asleep without listening to his ragged breathing, as if each inhale were a struggle.

I’d slept by his side on the library floor, feeling the pain shudder through him for hours and listening to the death rattle in his lungs despite his claim of being fine.

I hardly slept a wink that night, smelling the fetid rot on his fur as it tainted his blood and seeped through the bandages all night.

That putrid, smell mixed with the herb-spice of the salve, had turned my stomach.

Yet I remained at his side, tending to him.

Even when he grumbled and complained like a spoiled child.

As undignified as it was, there was something endearing about his behavior and the show of vulnerability.

Mavros wanted me to be with him, but he didn’t want to ask.

Almost as if it was assumed I would remain with him.

I did.

We hadn’t spoken about how the injury stopped bleeding by dawn. About how the next morning the foul scent of corruption in his blood vanished. No festering, no dark magic necrosis.

Not a word.

We ignored it as much as I’d ignored the dormant magic curling in my core, rousing like some ancient creature waking. Or the dreams I had. Nightmares of the red-clad wizard, chasing me with eyes like burning coals, panting noxious steam and slavering maw dripping with blood.

And I hadn’t brought up what attacked him again.

If I did, I would feel guilt over my own secrets and the fact I hadn’t told him about being cursed and hunted.

Saying it out loud made it real. That truth coiled up between us like a living thing, full of venom and hissing softly in the silence of our hidden truths.

A few days passed, and the weight of unspoken things grew too heavy to bear. Sharing his bed at night and finding comfort in his presence, in him being alive, didn’t suffocate the ache. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I wrapped a silk robe around my shoulders as I left Mavros’s room.

He’d jumped right back into his role as prince of the castle the morning after returning from the brink of death.

If not for his unprecedented healing, he might still be fighting for his life.

As if a new spark lit him from within, he spent sunup to sundown locked away, working on something he refused to speak about.

The halls were hushed, the sconces guttering low. I followed the familiar path to the library. I’d gone there almost every day since he offered to teach me to read. At first, I only went out of curiosity and because I was lonely. Then because I wanted to be near him.

Now I genuinely went for the books. That fool of a beast was lucky I’d read about healing techniques.

Some of the books were old enough that the ink bled into the pages, hand-written in curling, ancient scripts.

Some were full of illustrations—strange shadow monsters, half-remembered gods, maps of faded stars in foreign skies.

Some were stories of lost kingdoms, noble lords, women who turned into birds and flew away from horrid arrangements.

They made me ache in ways I couldn’t name. More human feelings.

The scent of parchment and dust almost pleased me.

The stillness was no longer an empty excuse for comfort.

It wasn’t the open sky, but it was peaceful.

And sometimes, when I looked up from a book and found Mavros watching me across the room, his face softened by the glow of sunset, I felt. .. something. Everything.

Mavros sat at our table, back turned, shoulders tense, staring down at scattered parchment and cracked maps he wasn’t reading.

He seemed distant. His tail flicked at the end, the only outward sign of his mood.

The sun was sinking low, casting long amber streaks through the high windows of the library and giving the beast prince a fiery silhouette, lighting him up like a burning eclipse.

Warmth pooled between my hips.

His gaze snapped up when the floorboard creaked beneath me.

Uncertainty gripped me, and I hovered at the corner shelf. Then I stepped closer.

“You should be resting,” he muttered. Despite the statement, his eyes glinted with dark heat as they roamed over the robe clinging to my body.

“So should you,” I volleyed back.

The tension between us was different. Not sharp or angry but wound tight with things unsaid. I crossed the room slowly, letting my fingers trail along the spines of the books, then his favored wingback chair in front of the fireplace.

“I like it here,” I said, meaning the library. Or maybe meaning with you .

But that was too close to an admission still buried in the back of my throat.

Mavros glanced at me with eyes shadowed, but keen.

“You’ve been learning quickly. We’ll have gone through the entire collection soon enough.” He waved a dismissive hand at the abandoned book on the table he last read to me. He hadn’t since the incident.

“Give or take a hundred years,” I teased.

He remained quiet.

“Besides, I prefer it when you read to me.”

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile, but a hint of warmth behind the brooding scowl. I crossed the distance and sat on the wide arm of his chair, deliberately close.

“You haven’t in a few days. I miss hearing your voice.” I bullied away the indulgence of an admission and sucked in a breath. “And you’ve been absent today.”

His fire-eyes slid from the expanse of my exposed thigh he’d been admiring. A muscle in his jaw feathered. I wanted to reach out and smooth the tension from his expression.

“Mavros, we need to talk.”

He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair and pulling it behind a fuzzy, pointed ear. “You’re right.”

My heart stuttered, and I waited.

“I want you to trust me,” he said in a hushed tone.

“I think I do.”

“But not enough to tell me the circumstances that brought you to me.”

I lowered my gaze. The ruddy light from the window slanted across the floor, sending golden beams over the wood and stone .

“I wasn’t ready,” I admitted. “But I might be.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might give him the answers I held hostage.

“I’ll go first.” That stunned me. Mavros rarely offered anything without being asked.

“My mother,” he began, “wasn’t from this world.”

I stifled a gasp. There had been enough clues, and my recent conversation with Domovoy came to mind.

“She fell through a portal a century ago. Landed in the Inferni King’s court like a star dropping into hell. He kept her. Claimed her. Called her his bride. Said it was love, but it was a cage.” The words were resentful. His lips twisted into something too bitter to be grief.

“She gave birth to me. A half-breed. Half-wrong, as my father said. I wasn’t even supposed to survive. Yet spite is a wonderful motivator, believe me. When she died, I made sure I took everything my father built and made it mine.”

I couldn’t speak right away. The sunlight was fading fast as he talked. Shadows were creeping up the stone walls around us, eager to listen and learn.

“She didn’t just die, she gave up. Do you understand?

My mother thought her life was the only thing she had left, and she took it into her own hands to decide her fate.

She tried to love me, but it wasn’t enough.

I am all that is left of her. The other demons wouldn’t accept me.

I was too human to be king. My father owed me his title, but I still had to take his power by force. I earned my place here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said at last. “For her. For you. She must’ve been strong to survive here. Even for a little while.” I laid a hand on his chest, over the healed wound. And I felt for his mother. Sympathetic and connected to how she’d felt; maybe the only being who truly could.

“She was strong,” he agreed, voice rough.

“And so are you.”

He looked at me. The flickering light from the fire made him seem less like a beast, and more like a man caught between worlds.

I saw it then. How truly different he was from the other Inferni.

Their strange bodies and incorporeal forms. There was something human about Mavros, regardless of the horns, claws, and tail.

“My father would have had me believe I was a mistake.”

“No,” I snapped, reaching for his hand. “You’re a fighter.”

His expression softened, but something coiled and taut lurked under the surface.

The silence returned. I could have left it there. Let his story hang between us. But I’d already taken so much from him. I owed him a response of equal caliber. And I trusted him. Cared for him.

“You deserve to know the truth. I’m tired of holding it in. It’s like a plague eating away at me.” I scoffed to hide the sob crawling up my throat. “It’s plainly obvious that I’m not from here, that I came from Earth. Like your mother, I suppose.”

Mavros nodded, seemingly holding his breath.

“It all began with a witch and an air spirit.” His eyes widened, but he remained silent.

“I am—was—a sylph. A witch, Aradia, stumbled upon me. Besides being the last of my kind, she told me there was a mage hunting creatures of magical origin. Hunting them to extinction.” I felt him stiffen beside me but continued.

“The Crimson Mage came for me. Aradia changed me, cursed me, into this body. She took my identity from me to save me. It used the last of her power and she died. I’m still not sure if I would thank her. ”

His eyes darkened with something I only witnessed in moments of violence. That look always accompanied blood on his claws and teeth. A frisson of fear skated up my spine.

“The… the Crimson Mage followed me. I fell through a portal ripped open between the worlds in the wake of Aradia’s death. But being in a new realm isn’t enough. It hasn’t been enough. I know he’s still hunting me.”

A monstrous snarl ripped from his chest. His claws scratched grooves on the armrest and his tail thrashed. “I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true.”

All the fears I’d suppressed surged up and plowed into me. A tide of panic and alarm washed over me, pulling me under and eager to drown me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know if I could trust you.” I slid off the chair. “If I’ve upset you—”

“Astoria—”

An iron grip curled around my wrist. Warmth cascaded up my arm, but didn’t reach the chill in my chest propelling words from my lips.

“I didn’t know if you’d hand me over to him if he showed up in this world or if you were in league with him. I’m sorry.”

His eyes flashed with something verging on anger tempered with possession. Another snarl rumbled through his chest, and I trembled from the echo of it in my bones.

“Do you truly think that after everything between us, I’d give you to him—to anyone?” the beast bellowed, claws dangerously close to pricking my skin.

“At the time, I didn’t know who you were or what you were capable of. I was alone and lost in this world, and everything was a threat to me. You must understand that.” My words were a plea, but I didn’t feel the need to run and hide. I stood firm, unflinching in his hold.

“Astoria, I would never.” He urged me closer until my thigh brushed the armrest I’d abandoned. “I didn’t know what you were when you arrived, but I knew it wasn’t fully human. No matter what form you take, you are mine. Always.”

A clawed hand cupped my cheek, and I leaned into that touch, seeking more of his heat and his presence.

His acceptance rushed through me, beating away the vestiges of fear in my blood and bones before leaving me sated and on the cusp of exhaustion.

I hadn’t realized how burdensome holding that truth had become.

Now it felt as if I could breathe for the first time in ages.

The beast prince pulled me into his lap, and I melted into him.

The solid muscle of his thighs, the breadth of his chest, his thick, toned arms wrapping around my waist. He was all around me, and I wanted more.

The last of the sun vanished beyond the horizon, leaving the library dim save for the soft glow in the fireplace.

We sat in silence for a long moment, individually coming to terms with the storm of information finally breaking over both of us.

His claws were threading through silver-blue locks of my hair when he spoke again. “I suppose I should divulge the source of my wound, then.”

I froze, staring at our joined hand in my lap.

“The night I returned injured, you were right. It wasn’t some freak incident. It wasn’t from a feral demon in the woods. It was him. The Crimson Mage. He’s already here in Infernus.”

Bile crawled up the back of my throat. I pulled back to meet Mavros’s searching gaze.

“And you fought him.” Not a question, but Mavros hummed in answer.

“Somehow I knew he was looking for you.” He traced a finger over the curve of my cheek, then down to my jaw. His voice was low, rich and full of dark promise. “His magic is dark and unnatural, but I won’t let him take you from me. You are mine to worship and protect.”

The world tipped beneath me, and I leaned further into his chest.

“The dreams and visions. He’s been tormenting me all this time, reaching out with his magic in search of me. He’ll come for me,” I whispered, shaking from the panic zapping under my skin.

Mavros gripped my chin and tipped my face to his. His breath was warm on my lips and a breathy sigh escaped me. A ribbon of desire curled deep and warm inside me.

“I hope he does,” the beast growled, and my thighs clenched. “Because I’m going to tear his heart from his chest and rip his head from his shoulders.”

“Mavros…” I couldn’t argue. Couldn’t protest. Undeterred by fear, I believed him. It almost frightened me more than the threat of the Crimson Mage. The monster knew the truth now. He knew me, he saw me, and after everything, he still wanted me.

I wanted to kiss him.

I wanted to care for him.

Mavros leaned close, whispering into my mouth, “I won’t let anyone take you from me, Astoria.” He kissed me soundly, intensely. It was a claiming and an affirmation of the tangible bond solidifying between us. A string of fate tied to our ribs and bringing us into one another’s orbit.

Oh, gods, I wanted to love him.