"You're not going to die."
"You don't know that."
"No," he admits. "But you've survived more than any omega before you. The others who made it this far could barely walk, and they were all afraid of me. You're still standing, still fighting, still looking at me like you're planning my murder instead of your escape." Something flickers in his golden eyes. "There's something different about you, Kessa."
The sound of my name in his mouth makes my heart skip a beat. I hate it. "My grandmother always said I'm stubborn as all get out. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to die." I tap the book in my hands. "Your family has an interesting history."
"My family has a curse." He moves closer, bringing his scent with him, his warmth and the massive scale of his body. I hate how my pulse quickens at his nearness, at the memory of his broad hands holding me down, the taste of his skin on mytongue and the way his hips snapped as he found his pleasure in my body—and I found mine in his claiming of it. "You read about my great-grandfather's bargain with the War God yet?"
"It was the story I was looking for. He started all this." I watch his face as I speak. "Fertility in exchange for a feral rut. Divine magic with a price that keeps getting higher. Your great-grandfather killed one omega. Your grandfather killed three. Your father killed seven." I pause. "You've killed forty-seven."
Something flickers in his golden eyes. Pain, or exhaustion so deep it's carved channels in his soul.
"Three hundred years," he says softly. "Forty-seven omegas. I wish I could stop counting them, but they settle inside me so deep that I'll never forget."
"Seven to forty-seven is a big leap in number. Why has it gotten so much worse?"
"I don't know." He runs a hand through his damp hair—such a human gesture, so ordinary and simple for such a long-lived and powerful beast. "I've read every text in this library trying to answer that question. The curse grows stronger with each generation. The beast grows more feral with each failed bonding. But why I'm so much worse than my ancestors..." He stops. Swallows something bitter. "I don't know."
"My aunt," I say into the silence.
He goes absolutely still.
"She was one of your forty-seven. Ten years ago. The tribute from the border villages."
The silence stretches between us.
"Isla," he says finally, barely a whisper. "Her name was Isla. Dark hair. Kind eyes. Hands that smelled like growing things."
The fact that he remembers—knows her name without hesitation, knows details I'd nearly forgotten—does something strange to my chest.
"She lasted longer than most, long enough to make it back to the castle like you," he continues, something broken in his voice. "Two days. I thought—I let myself hope she might be the one. She talked to me during the quiet moments. Told me about her garden. About the niece she was leaving behind."
His throat works, but no sound comes out.
"Then I smelled her blood, and my rut hit again. And I couldn't—she couldn't?—"
He can't finish. Doesn't need to. I've read enough now to understand what the curse does during rut, how even the strongest omegas break beneath its weight.
I should feel vindicated. Should feel satisfaction that he's suffering, that Isla's death haunts him like it haunts me. It only seems fair that the lives he's taken weigh heavy on him.
Instead I just feel tired. Bone-deep exhausted by grief that's ten years old and still sharp enough to cut.
"Your mother," I say, changing the subject because I can't carry his grief on top of my own. "The book mentioned she died during your first rut."
His whole body goes rigid, and through the bond, I feel him slam a door shut in my face, hiding everything he feels.
"She did."
The words falls between us like a door slamming shut. He turns away from me, moving toward the window where gray morning light spills across the reading desk, and I watch the way his shoulders tighten beneath his shirt. The way his hands find the windowsill and grip it like he needs something solid to hold onto.
"Tell me what happened."
"Why?" He doesn't turn around. His voice is careful now, each word measured out like something that might cut if handled wrong. "So you can confirm what you already believe—that I'm the kind of monster who destroys everyone foolish enough to try and help him?"
"Because I need to understand what kind of monster you are, need to know what the curse is and how it takes shape." I set the book down on the desk between us, freeing my hands, though I'm not sure what I intend to do with them. "I'm a part of this now, Rhystan, and whether you like it or not I need the full truth of it all from the one person who knows how to answer my questions."
The silence stretches long enough that I think he won't answer. That he'll order me out of his library, his castle, his life. That he'll finally show me the beast everyone says he is.
