“How could you bring me here?” My voice wavers on the last word. “You’ve used me as bait!”
He shakes his head. “Lady Bethany and I thought we had this under control, that the beast could be contained under very specific rules and timing. But he’s getting stronger by the night, unpredictable, and…” He shakes his head. “Lyra, I love you. I would never,everput you in danger.”
“You knew what he was, didn’t you!” I cry, pointing at the door behind him. “And yet you still brought me here. Knowing my illness weakens me.”
“Your illness isn’t weakness. It’s power. And magic calls to magic.” He takes a single step toward me. “We had it all planned out. Don’t you remember? It wasyouridea from the beginning. You know I love you. Just as you know that I couldn’t marry you given our positions. I’m bound to the King, and because of my position I can never wed or have children. But this…?” He waves a hand out to the room around us. “This was our best chance.”
My eyes narrow. I can’t think through the pain pulsing in my head. “Best chance at what? You planned for me to win his hand?”
“Yes,” he hisses, another two steps closer. “And Lady Bethany was in on it, too. Your magic would undoubtedly lure the beast to you as his choice. His mate. You’d be dubbed Queen. Wed into riches beyond your imagination, and your family wouldn’t have to suffer ever again. You’d live here. Then you and I would be together forever, at last.”
I edge back farther, slipping further and further into the room. “How would you and I have been together, if I were wedded to someone else?”
Shaking his head like it’s all so easy, he says, “Cyrus wouldn’t have to know. The weeks he’d go to the Dragon Academy? Or traveling for royal business? You and I could spend all those days, nights, and weeks together.”
My hands begin to tremble, heat pulsing through me at a pace I’m struggling to slow. “You mean an affair?”
“He’s not a man that can love,” he says with a sigh. “His heart was taken long ago. As the days pass on, he becomes more beast than man. Dragons cannot love—they just mate.”
“He’s still a man. He still has a heart. You…you painted him as a monster. As a beast with no feelings and….” I swallow, shaking my head. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. This iswrong.”
He grabs my hand. “This wasyouridea, Lyra. You wanted to do this. You said?—”
“No!” I shake my head furiously, ripping my hand out of his. Not wanting to believe I would not only agree to a scandal like this, but to initiate it? How could the past me have been so careless?
“You said that our love knew no bounds,” he whispers gently, following me as I edge around the room.
“If you truly loved me?—”
“Then what?” He searches my eyes. “I would burn down kingdoms for you? I would kill for you? I would let you marry another man, so I might get asliverof your time? There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.” His voice hitches louder, desperate. “Can’t you see that?”
“That’s not me,” I whisper. “That’s not the person I want to be. If it was, she’s dead now. And I have no desire to bring her back.”
“Lyra, please,” he urges, trying to close the space between us again. He has me cornered in the room. “It was a mistake bringing you here, I know that now. We thought we could manage the dragon in Cyrus by feeding him human blood and drugging him. I should’ve known when I found him pressing you up into the marbled column that the beast would be too strong. We hadn’t known he would try to breed you so soon.”
My mouth drops open before I clench it shut. “Breedme so soon?” I hold out a hand, warning him to stay back. Anger bubbling inside of me at such an animalistic word. Like I’m nothing but a bitch to be bred.
“Yes. An heir is needed. Even if it weren’t physically possible for you to carry a dragon-human hybrid, you’d come to me. And I’d be the one who made you an heir.”
That thread tying me to the beast pulls eagerly, wanting to drag me through the walls. Beckoning me. The magic pulsing through my bloodstream heats at the call. My own magic crests and crashes, intermingling with the beast’s. Wanting more.Cravingmore.
“Release me,”the beast calls.“Let me free, and I will paint the walls with blood.”
My voice adopts that midpoint between mine and someone else’s. “I have to go.”
As I make my way to the door, Devin grabs me. “Lyra, stop! This isn’t you! He’s calling your magic! He’s too strong, he’ll destroy you!”
I rip out of his grip, trying to dodge him as he attempts to capture me. Iget two steps away before he seizes my forearm, and I twist. The heat of a fire within me roars to the surface, and I swing with my other arm and slap across his face.
Stunned, when he turns back to me, his cheek is blistered red. Four deep gouges rake across his face, blood welling then trickling.
Taking advantage of his shock, I run again for the door. As I capture the doorknob, he flings up against me, pinning me to the door with his chest as I try to scramble for the way out.
The beast roars in my head.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice,” Devin whispers in my ear. Ripping my arms back behind me in jerky movements, he pins them to my lower back and shoves my face against the wall. As the magic surges in me, prepared to do the unthinkable to get through the door, a cloth is shoved over my nose and mouth.
“Shh,” he hushes. “Close your eyes. It’ll all be over soon. I’ll keep you safe, love.” He presses a kiss to my temple.
