I nodded, starting down the empty corridor. “I know,” I said gruffly. “I know.”
That night we dined together.She answered my questions about what she was searching for in the books she requested. She wanted to know more about the Underfae. When they’d settled in Revelry and where. She wanted to know what they looked like, what habits they possessed. I was well aware I had no such books that could answer her questions. The Underfae had been little more than footnotes in faekind history. The most I’d ever found was that they dwelled in the Underrealm, preferring the dark cold stone to sunlight and fresh air.
But Reshina didn’t need to know I couldn’t help her. She only needed to know that I was trying. One day she’d grow impatient enough to truly leave. Until then, I’d discover all of her I could. The way she found humor in Piffle’s transformations. The way she cut into her food, spearing little more than a nibble, taking all the time in the world to eat just one meal.
I savored those dinners together as they continued. Each day for weeks, I looked forward to them when I woke and mournedthem when they ended each night. With Piffle’s help, I planned each one, just waiting to hear what she thought of the savory dishes and decadent desserts Piffle excelled in creating.
The Beast roamed the surface less and less each day, relinquishing his hold sooner so I could return to Reshina for our evening meal.
He ate less, complained less, and only looked forward to one thing.
The Hunt.
Everyday for three weeks, Reshina attempted an escape.
Most often when I slept, I’d wake to the Beast tearing through my room and rampaging up the stairs into the freshly fallen snow. Now, she’d tear into her skin well before he caught her, falling into the Underrealm as the Beast leapt after her, leaving me to transform, attempting to break her fall each and every time.
My back was sore muscles and dark bruises, never healing over before more appeared in tandem. I didn’t care. I’d take on more, forever, if it meant I could take a moment to breathe in the scent of her skin as we landed. If it meant I had an excuse to sift my fingers through her hair pulled tightly atop her head, but loosened in the fall.
After a month, it was routine. After a month, I resisted asking for more, taking more. After a month, I’d grown into a settling. And settling was a dangerous place to be.
CHAPTER 27
Reshina
The Beast wasunlike anything I’d ever brought beyond the Veil before. When the curse had arrived, I’d placed it in a vial as a dark, twisted thing, same as the others, but powerful, vibrating against the glass. From the start, it had been far more potent of a curse than what I usually carried to the poor soul who would need to endure it.
And as I hid in the frozen shrubbery not two hundred paces from the staircase leading out of the Underrealm, I took precious few moments to study the creature who, through sheer fate or irony, had trapped its bringer into the curse with it, wholly enjoying the chase and inevitable dripping of blood upon the snow.
The Beast was twice the size of any man, fae or human, with fur so dark, you’d think it black as a starless night unless you were a Ravenfae, prone to see details others could not. His fur matted in places—wavy, sometimes curling atop his massive head with two black horns segmented and sharp protruding from his skull.
I’d caught ahold of them once, attempting to yank his head to the side before he could bite down on my skin, but the creature was powerful, a monster built for one purpose—to hunt, to bite,to feed. I’d narrowly escaped his teeth that time, and I had been much more careful since.
The hunt meant more to this creature than I could have guessed, and though the Beast had not bitten me again, his teeth had scraped over my shoulder the day before, breaking my skin and leaving a tantrum of a wound to show for it.
The sting rose to the surface of my mind as I thought of it, keeping an eye on where the Beast sniffed the ground, his great black eyes searching for his prey.
He’d uncover my scent soon enough and bolt toward me, hidden between the needles of the shrubbery. My sharp nails were poised, ready to cut into my arm until the last moment. I’d questioned to myself many times why I still tried to escape—why I didn’t give in and search for another way to leave. The truth of it was, the Beast and Arthur… intrigued me.
A dichotomous being who would show its other side often enough, there were times Arthur proved a sharp tongue and beastly manners at our dinners together. If I ever attempted to leave a little early, he’d remind me not to tempt his strength against the Beast. Then he’d bring his chair right beside mine again, eating next to me in silent restraint.
And then there were times the Beast chased me down, but paused before his teeth dove toward my flesh as if the man inside held the willpower to stop him, giving me the few seconds I needed to rip at my skin and bleed onto the snow.
We found ourselves in a strange limbo, me doing what I could to find a way out of the curse, him reminding me there was a solution I could take.
But I had no immediate plans to kill Arthur. It would be a desperate day indeed for me to take a life from the Realm I was stationed to protect… especially his life.
The Beast caught my scent, rummaging through the snow, his black eyes darting to the line of shrubbery where I pulled my knees close to my chest, my heart racing in a thrill I’d never feltbefore. His lips curled upon his maw as he stalked toward me on all fours, keeping our gaze locked.
It excited me, the hunt.
At first, I attempted escape purely to do just that.
But somewhere around my twentieth attempt to leave, I found my body atop Arthur’s as he broke our fall and something stirred deep within me—something I knew well enough to name.
Lust.
I toiled over offering myself to him as a distraction for both of us while we researched together each evening and dined at the same table each night. I knew well enough that Arthur was curious to better know the woman he’d read about in that Goddessdamned book. Perhaps he saw me as a conquest, a woman to fuck and add to his line of warm bodies in his bed. A Goddess of the Veil would be quite the notch in his bedpost and a Beast the same in mine.
