CHAPTER FOUR #3
“So you concede that betrayal is dependent on an individual’s definition?” he asked, his body still, his eyes watching my every step.
“Perhaps. But first, you must tell me what her definition of betrayal would be. Would she approve of you being someplace like this, with someone like me?”
He shook his head. “Truly, I could not say.”
“Right, because you don’t know her.”
“I don’t.” He frowned. “Nor does she know me, or my true intentions in coming here.”
“And those are…” My fingers danced across the table. “To keep your word to me that you would.”
“And to finish our conversation. To see if there was any way I could help you. To learn your intentions for me.”
My eyes narrowed. “Is your betrothed very beautiful?” I asked, shifting the topic.
“Why do you ask?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Is she?”
Brennan looked away. “Yes. She is … considered a great beauty by her people. And by mine. One of the most beautiful in the land.”
“Most beautiful in the land?” I raised my eyebrows, taking another step toward him. “That is quite impressive. Congratulations.”
He shook his head. “Even beauty is relative.” His eyes met mine, the green blazing, and this time he took a step toward me, his emotions opening so fiercely I was back in his mind.
Like your beauty. Because your beauty is—there are no words, he thought, even she cannot compare to you.
I bit my lip, my body surging as his emotions grew stronger. The Azete inside me was fully awake, drinking, devouring, demanding more.
But as he watched me, his eyes darkened with his own hunger, and my stomach sank.
I wasn’t even as beautiful as he thought I was.
I looked nothing like I appeared. My face was nothing more than an illusion, a glamour.
My features had all been distorted into something of my own invention.
By the Gods, old and new, I had to steal the lifeforce of the men around me just to maintain the way I looked.
I needed magic to hold onto these random features I’d cobbled together.
Of course, I wasn’t beautiful. I was a monster, an Azete.
I only looked this way because it helped me to hunt, to hide.
If he knew, if he knew the truth, if he saw what I actually looked like, saw my true face, my original form…
Brennan was standing before me though, and I was backing against the wall, and he was moving with me, his minted breath whispering against my lips. “I find your beauty, Samara, to be incomparable.”
His thoughts were still open to me though, growing stronger, clearer.
She doesn’t dance like you, she doesn’t speak like you, or laugh like you, or challenge me like you do.
I felt the truth of it in his emotions as I continued to feed, taking in more and more.
My heart thundered with the realization. He actually thought I was beautiful because of all the things that were me. Just me. The things I couldn’t change or alter, the parts of me that the Azete couldn’t touch, that the Demonos would never hold sway over.
“What now?” I asked. “What does your moral compass tell you?”
“I’m not sure if it’s working.” His brows furrowed. “Because all I know is I want to kiss you. And I want to help you. And I probably shouldn’t be doing either.”
“What if I told you I wanted to kiss you, too?” And I did, even more than I’d wanted to the night before. Every part of me wanted it. Every part of me felt alive with wanting it, needing it. Needing him.
He brushed a loose curl behind my ear. “What is this power you possess over me?”
I stood up on my toes, angling my face to his. “Kiss me, and you’ll find out.”
There was a crashing sound from downstairs, a loud boom I knew had to have come from the tavern’s entrance. But it didn’t sound like the door had been opened—it sounded like it had been barreled down.
The tavern shook, the walls of my bedroom rumbling. Brennan stumbled forward, and I caught him in my arms as the flames I’d stoked in the fireplace went out.
I’d been so focused on Brennan, I hadn’t noticed the robins outside my window, the ones that had chirped each night of the spring season, had gone silent.
Something twisted low in my belly, and my breath came in quick, short gasps, my body recognizing what was happening before my mind did. The robins had been acting strange the night before, too. Like they’d sensed something coming, something dangerous.
And then a scream of terror pierced through the walls, followed by another, and another even louder.
Finlay’s voice called out, his distinct yell rising above the others, carrying up the stairs and into my bedroom.
One word. The only one I never wanted to hear again. The one I’d learned to fear as a girl, the one that had haunted me since my exile.
Geoffrey’s Tavern was under attack by the most dangerous monsters in Eskalon. The ones that terrified even the witches. The ones in my nightmares. Nothing was more feared by women and men alike than these creatures.
Brennan paled, his green eyes widening as he whispered the source of my worst nightmare to me. “Chimera.”