Chapter 57
Belle
My eyes fluttered open.
The rocky ceiling of a cavern arched above me, the shadows of the rough stone chased back by flickering torchlight. A dank chill hung in the air, but I was wrapped in something soft and warm—a folded cloak, draped across the cavern floor and tucked around me.
My vision shifted in and out as my eyes adjusted. A torch hung on the far wall, and beneath it, a man crouched in the shadows, watching me intently.
Valen.
Shivers skated down my spine.
Worry lines tugged at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes blazed in the sputtering torchlight like twin suns. Like the dragon’s eyes.
I jolted upright as memories flooded back. “You,” I hissed in accusation.
The king stood.
I cast off the cloak and scrambled backward across the floor of the cave, my heart pounding, my mind straining to make sense of everything. Our legends spoke of men who could turn into animals, but what I’d seen was beyond belief. And yet, I couldn’t deny my eyes.
“I saw you transform,” I whispered. “I don’t know how, but you’re the dragon.”
He stalked forward, each step measured. “I am.”
The words fell like lead from his lips, a truth weighed down by grief and anger and a dozen emotions I couldn’t place.
I stepped back. “Stay away from me.”
“You think I’d harm you?” His lips twisted in distaste. “I transformed to protect you from the beasts.”
“I don’t know what you’re planning to do with me. I don’t know a thing about you.”
“At this point, I think you know the most important thing about me.”
“That you’re a monster.”
He cracked a malicious grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “When it suits me.”
My foot slipped on metal as I retreated, and I caught myself against the cold wall, the stone biting into my palm. I glanced over my shoulder. Mounds of gold and precious things glittered in the light of the torch—treasure beyond anything I could imagine.
The shock of unbelievable wealth was nothing compared to the truth of what this was: a dragon’s hoard in a dragon’s lair.
His lair.
I reached for my magic, intending to pummel him with a thousand golden coins, but the collar around my neck lit on fire, strangling my connection. It was like my soul couldn’t breathe. I clawed at it, panic rising. “You left this thing on me?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react when you woke.” His gaze flicked across the pile of treasure, and then back. “It appears my judgment was sound.”
“Take it off!”
His body tensed. For a second, pain flickered across his expression, then it was gone, replaced by cold steel. “I’ll make you a deal, princess. You swear not to attack me with your magic, and I’ll take it off.”
I hesitated. There was no reason to trust him, but I was helpless without my magic. I narrowed my gaze. “I swear to the gods, if you try anything, I will bury you in gold and rubies.”
He chuckled darkly. “I have no doubt you would.”
Reluctantly, I tilted my neck, giving him access to the collar. He stepped forward cautiously, as if I were a deer that might bolt, then gently brushed my hair aside, his fingers grazing my skin. I ground my teeth, doing everything in my power to chase away the shivers that followed his touch.
“Why did you bring me here?” The question came out too quickly, too forced.
“This is the most convenient place to transform.” The smoke and spice of his scent were softer, his words a hushed caress. “It’s where I bring everything valuable to me.”
My stomach tumbled in a way I wanted to deny but couldn’t. Was I just a pretty trinket that he planned to keep locked away? Or something else?
I held my breath and fought the mounting urge to lean into his touch as he released the lock and parted the collar.
The strangling current of power around my neck vanished, and my magic came flooding back.
It was like opening my eyes from sleep to face the bright light of day.
Sensations I’d taken for granted or never noticed suddenly returned.
The objects in the cave prickled at the edge of my perception, each distinguishable by its own vibration—the torch, the thousands of gold coins, the precious objects in the hoard.
I narrowed my focus to a ruby hilted dagger embedded in the treasure pile, then forged a connection and tugged it toward me. Come. The dagger skated down the pile of gold and flipped into my open palm. I pressed it to his throat, the edge of the blade scraping against the stubble of his beard.
“I thought we had an agreement, princess,” Valen said, almost daring me to press a little harder.
“I agreed not to attack you with my magic. If I slit your throat, it’ll be with my own hand.”
Heat flashed in those honey eyes, and a slow smile curled across his lips as if he found my defiance amusing. “How sporting.”
“You’re an immortal and a dragon. This little blade won’t begin to balance the scales—let alone pierce through them.”
Without taking his gaze from mine, he discarded the collar on the pile of treasure. “I intend you no harm, princess.”
Visions flooded my mind. The dragon’s jaws spread wide, roaring and ready to devour me. The jet of flame that had consumed Varos. Valen rising into the air, Marcel and Gregoire clutched in his talons as he abandoned me to his beasts.
Anger flooded me, a torrent I could barely control.
“No harm?” I pressed the blade harder, drawing a bead of crimson blood. “I’m not falling for that. You and the dragon are the same. That means you attacked us in the woods the day we killed the beasts. You incinerated one of my companions. And you nearly killed me.”
He scoffed. “I saved you. The beasts would have torn you apart if I hadn’t forced them to stand down. The pack was closing in.”
“And yet you abducted Gregoire and Marcel and left me to fend for myself.”
“True.”
Faster than I could draw a breath, Valen seized my wrist and bent the dagger away from his throat. “In my defense, you’d just shot me with an arrow and were playing hard to get, so I wasn’t feeling patient enough to wait you out.”
My hand pinned in place, I trembled as outrage burned through me. “I nearly died! The beasts chased me through the forest. I barely made it here alive.”
Valen drew close, leaving nothing but an inch between us, and suddenly, all I could think of was the heat pulsing off his body, consuming me in a fever dream. “You’d be dead if the beasts had been chasing you. That was herding—exactly as I commanded them to do.”
My mouth fell open. “You ordered them to herd me to you?”
“It was less trouble than digging you out of that crack in the rock. There was no way I was going to let you go, not after seeing you. Not after you challenged me. I haven’t met anyone brave enough to stand their ground before the dragon…
” He paused, his eyes dipping to my mouth, assessing and approving. “Nor one so beautiful.”
His praise was like sweet wine slipping past my parched lips, and I despised myself for it. I wouldn’t let him toy with me this way again; not after all the lies and everything he’d done.
“I still have nightmares from that day.” I tried to pull free of his grasp. When that failed, I shoved him, but he was as immovable as a mountain. “Of running, of death behind me. That is what I dream of every night.”
The amusement dancing on his lips fell away. “Then you should have learned your lesson and stayed out of the woods. Obviously, you didn’t.” A muscle in his jaw tensed, and he released my wrist. “I should’ve realized that you’re too wild-hearted and indomitable to consider good sense.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you get some kind of sick pleasure from terrorizing people? Do you enjoy burning them alive and tearing them apart with your teeth and claws? Because it sure seems like it.”
His expression clouded with fury, and he bared his teeth.
“The dragon is a living, breathing cage around me. Its hunger never abates, even when I’m a man.
No matter how much blood I consume, I’m starving.
And when it becomes too much, the dragon takes control.
Blood and wine taste like ash, my dreams are haunted, and I spend my days clinging to what little humanity I have left. So, no, I do not enjoy it.”
He scooped his cloak off the ground, then walked toward the exit, leaving me holding the dagger. “Locke is the only other person who knows about this, and I intend it to stay that way. If you tell anyone the truth of what I am, I will kill them.”
The emotion in his words shook through me. Suffering. Resentment. Isolation. He carried so much pain.
I’d been furious and terrified, but now I was tumbling, grasping for handholds that weren’t there. I understood nothing about this male, and yet I couldn’t stay away.
I returned the dagger to the hoard. “What happened to you?”
He pulled the torch from its sconce but didn’t turn around. “Let’s go, princess.”
“You’re an immortal. How is it possible that you’re a shapeshifter as well?”
Silence. We left the cave, moving into a larger cavern. The torchlight didn’t reach the ceiling, but it danced across jutting spires of rock, rising like dragon’s teeth around me.
“Please, Valen. Tell me what happened.”
He came to an abrupt stop, his expression dark, the shadows clinging to him. “I’m cursed, the same as the beasts that roam the woods. That’s how. Now quit dragging your feet and hurry up.”
His words hit me off guard, and I hurried after him, trying to keep up with his long strides. “I don’t understand. You’re nothing like the beasts. You’re both immortal and a dragon, and you seem to be able to shift at will.”
He released a bitter laugh as we descended a narrow flight of stairs cut into the rock. “We may not share the same form, but one day I, too, will lose my humanity and become a dragon forever.”
My breath stilled. “Are you saying the beasts were once human?”
“Mortals that got lost in the woods and fell victim to its curse: peasants, travelers, and hunters alike.” He glanced back, his eyes as cold as I’d ever seen them. “That’s why I made it illegal to kill the beasts.”
My gods. Guilt cut through me, and my legs grew leaden.
Valen descended the stairs, but when I didn’t immediately follow, he turned back, impatience shadowing his features.
“I killed one of them,” I whispered, the words barely audible and yet damning all the same.
“You did.” His voice dripped with accusation. “But if it’s any consolation, I doubt that any shred of their humanity remains. Given the chance, the beasts wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”
It was no consolation. Beast or not, I’d murdered somebody’s lost mother or father or child, and I’d have to live with that forever.
Turning, he continued down, the torchlight illuminating endless steps before us. “It’ll be the same for me one day. The dragon will take over forever, and I’ll be gone.”
His anger from earlier was gone, replaced by dull acceptance and misery. He was a man living under a dwindling hourglass.
“What do you mean?” I asked, hurrying after him. “How long do you have?”
“Not long.” The gloom that hung around him was a stifling cloak.
The stairwell seemed colder, and I pulled my arms around myself.
His moods shouldn’t have affected me like this.
Shouldn’t have mattered so much. But the truth was, I preferred him fiery and angry.
Anything was better than seeing him concede to this gods-awful fate.
“And there’s no way to break the curse?” I asked.
“You know the way—and I just swore to you that I wouldn’t take it.”
“You had to kill Cassius and Ella to break your curse.”
“Yes.”
“There must be another way,” I said, my voice almost strangled. “A way to save yourself and to make the beasts human again.”
He huffed out a laugh without looking back.
“Locke and I spent years attempting to break it. We killed dozens of beasts trying with black magic and horrible experiments, but nothing will undo the transformation once it’s taken hold.
It was a fool’s dream to think otherwise—that’s why I’ve let them dwell under my protection.
Better to let them live their lives out as beasts than to torture them with hope. ”
Something close to helplessness twisted in my chest. “Are you talking about them or yourself?”
He didn’t answer. The silence confirmed what his words wouldn’t.