Chapter 717: Put that hand down
Because the look on his face held no hesitation at all.
His anger had already become something colder, deeper, and far more frightening. He was looking at her the way a lion looked at wounded meat that was already dead, only not yet finished.
That broke the last bit of space between instinct and action.
Ophelia finally made a sound.
It was not even a proper word at first, just a panicked noise torn from her throat because she had never seen the room turn this murderous so quickly in all the time she had lived here.
"Wait!"
No one listened to her.
No one could.
Because by then, Cyrus was already squeezing harder.
The scales along his tail dug into Zara’s clothes and skin. Her breath came in sharp broken little sounds. Her face had begun to redden from pressure and panic, and the more she fought, the worse it became. Beast strength was not something a woman in disguise could break through with petty struggling. His tail held her like a trap made of living iron.
"You tried to harm her," Cyrus said.
Each word came out lower.
More dangerous.
His whole chest was heaving now, and the strange quiet Cyrus usually carried around himself had been burned away completely. He looked like a male driven down to the most ancient part of himself. A serpent protecting his mate. A father protecting his young. No softness lived in him at that moment.
"You tried to harm my mate," he said again, and then his voice shook with fury, "and my hatchlings."
That last word hit the room even harder.
Because that was what it really was.
Not only Isabella.
The children too.
At once, Isabella’s mark burned hot against her chest.
She felt it very clearly now. Her mating mark was hot, almost painfully hot, reacting to Cyrus’s rage and to the bond between them. The heat of it raced through her body in little stabbing waves, and for one second even she shivered, because the force of his feeling reached her too strongly.
She could not let him kill Zara.
Not yet.
Not because Zara deserved mercy.
Zara deserved none.
But because death now would be too easy.
She wanted more than that. She wanted Zara to live long enough to watch every single one of her plans rot in front of her. She wanted her to realize that all the poison, all the schemes, all the pain she had caused others had brought her nothing. She wanted Zara awake for that suffering. Awake and breathing and unable to escape it.
So Isabella finally stood.
The movement was slower than everyone else’s because of her stomach, but the way the room reacted made it clear that her standing mattered more than all their violence combined.
She walked toward Cyrus.
On the way, she saw Zyran from the corner of her eye.
He was still half turned toward Zara, and that black magic on his fingertips had only grown darker. It swirled in a tight little storm around his hand, cruel and eager and very close to being unleashed. If he moved one finger, something inside Zara would probably burst.
So Isabella stopped just enough to shoot him a glare.
"Put that hand down."
Zyran immediately looked caught.
Then he pouted.
Actually pouted.
Which would have been almost funny if the room were not full of bloodthirst.
"Alright," he said, deeply dissatisfied.
Inside his head, however, he was sulking furiously.
"Gosh," he thought bitterly, "I should have been faster."
Isabella ignored him and kept walking until she stood before Cyrus.
Up close, he looked even worse.
Or rather, worse in the most frightening way.
His eyes had almost changed color entirely from their usual soft pink into something darker, bloodier, and so intense that even Isabella felt a real shiver travel down her back. The scales on his tail seemed brighter too, his whole body coiled with the kind of tension that only ended in blood.
"Cyrus," she said.
He looked at her.
The look in his eyes did not soften.
Not even a little.
That alone told her how close this was.
"Please keep her down," Isabella said.
Cyrus’s breathing stayed rough and hard.
"She tried to harm you."
His voice sounded like something torn from the bottom of a deep pit.
"She tried to harm you and my hatchlings. Why should I spare her?"
Every word shook with rage.
Every word held pain under it too.
Because this was not only anger. It was fear. Fear delayed by only one heartbeat. Fear that if he had moved more slowly, if he had trusted the wrong second, if he had not sensed it, then Isabella might have swallowed the soup and smiled and thanked him while death sat warm in the bowl before her.
That thought had already cut him too deeply to speak calmly.
So Isabella looked straight into those burning eyes and said, "Just listen to me."
He did not.
At least not fully.
Because even though he heard her, his coils only tightened again.
The sound Zara made after that was small and ugly and wet with terror.
"Cyrus," Isabella said again, more sharply now. "Put her down."
His chest rose and fell.
For one second, it truly looked as if he might refuse.
That alone made the room go even stiller.
Kian watched.
Zyran watched.
Osiris watched.
Everyone understood what kind of moment this was.
Then Isabella lost patience.
"Just put her down, damn it!"
That did it.
The sharpness in her voice hit him where nothing else could.
Cyrus’s whole body jerked once, as if the command had struck straight through rage and landed in the deepest part of him. His eyes stayed wild for one more breath. Then, because he could not bring himself to set Zara down gently after what she had done, he did something else.
He flung her.
There was no grace in it.
No softness.
Only force.
The red coils of his tail unwrapped in one brutal motion and hurled Zara across the room like dead weight. She hit the opposite wall with a sick, heavy sound that made several people flinch.
Then she dropped.
Her body crumpled to the floor below the wall, and a fresh mouthful of blood spilled from her lips.