Obviously, he doesn’t know he’s a beast—he thinks he’s just a man named Taliesin who clawed his way to the top of a pile of industrial trash.
But I can sense the power of his life force—his heart beats the desperate pulse of a creature that refuses to go quietly. And I can taste the predator in him, even as his nervous system short-circuits from the abyss I carry in my own marrow. Most men would have died from that palm-strike—their hearts simply forgetting how to beat.
But this man just went dark—temporarily.
Probably.
I stand over him in the pale, sickly yard light and feel the hum of the Null-Wards vibrating against my skin.
They are supposed to be the ultimate equalizer, the death of magic, but to my creature they are nothing but static on a radio. I draw my power from poison, the dark, fear, and the slow decay of the human spirit.
In this sun-starved pit, I am the only thing that can truly thrive. Be alive.
Apart from her.
My heart does a slow, heavy thump; it no longer beats as a mortal man, as I feel her eyes burn into me.
Aurora.
Her gaze is like needles of perfect ice piercing the back of my neck as she finally sees what a real predator, a real protector, looks like.
Even without looking, I know the exact shade of blue her eyes have turned—that electric hue she only gets when she is truly impassioned. My father thinks he can tame her storm with a cage, but old men are so unimaginative. Why try to domesticate a wild, beautiful creature when instead you can ride the maelstrom together?
Father also believes a marriage contract is a deed of ownership.Roi des cons.
My plan is that he’ll soon find that deed null and void. Unfortunately that relies on Cosmo Drakeward. The dragon is taking Father to court to regain guardianship of his sister. While I would never underestimate Cosmo in a battle of wits, the legal system is rigid and archaic.
So, while they bicker in the courts, I am here to ensure that when the gavel finally falls, Aurora is still in one piece to hear the verdict.
And I am so delighted to once more be in her company, though her face is a tapestry of bruises, purple and yellow blooming across that fine, aristocratic bone structure. My fists curl tightly at the sight of it.
Who dared lay their filthy, unrefined fingers on her skin?
Retribution will come, but for now, I shall contain my fury.
Ma chérie.
She seems to have lost that haughty mask she used to don. She’s raw now.
Not crude, she could never be that, but the gloss, the refinement, has been lost.
Is it because she has joined the underclass, not the Guild? That, I did not predict. I should have done, because she is, after all, a contrarian.
And one who has yet to understand my motivations.
She stares at me wide eyed, seeing only the son of Thomas Crankshawe, but that is only a fraction of who, and what I am.
But in one respect, I am indeed, my father’s son.
Our desire for Aurora Drakeward is unmatched.
Though my father wants her as a broken little doll. What a waste that would be.
A sacrilege.
I want her viscerally, I crave to be the reason she can’t breathe, to be the only thing she sees when she closes her eyes. She may still hate me, thrown off by the idea I took the knife from her to save my father.
But, of course, I did not. I was saving her.
