The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts

Naturally, guards were placed around her room the moment she was gone.

Nobody even needed Isabella to say it clearly more than once. After this stunt, after the poison, after the lies, everyone knew that the healer would not be allowed to move freely again. Isabella said she wanted to have more of a conversation with her later, and that alone was enough to make the guards even more alert, because whenever Isabella said something in that soft tone, people had learned that whatever came next would probably be very unpleasant for the person she was speaking about.

Once Zara was gone, the room changed again.

The danger was still there, but now it no longer had a body standing in front of them.

Instead, all of it settled heavily into Cyrus.

He was still angry.

Very angry.

He had shifted more fully into his beast form now, and the sheer size of him made the room feel crowded. His scales caught the firelight in red flashes, and even though he had stopped lashing his tail, the force in him had not settled. Every now and then, a tiny shiver moved through his body like a wave of held-back violence. His jaw was hard. His eyes were still too bright. And when Isabella turned toward him, he deliberately looked away.

That made her pout at once.

Because she knew that look.

She knew he was still furious and frightened and hurt all at once.

So she walked toward him.

Or rather, she tried to.

Her body was heavy now, and after everything that had happened, even walking across the room felt like too much. Still, she went, and when she reached him, she found the problem she should have expected.

He was too big.

Way too big.

In his beast form, reaching up to him properly with her stomach in the way was almost insulting to her back.

She tried anyway.

Then she immediately hissed under her breath because it pulled too much.

"My back hurts when I try to reach up," she complained.

Cyrus still would not look at her.

That was because if he looked properly, he might weaken too quickly, and some part of him was still clinging to the anger because he felt he had earned it. Somebody had tried to poison his mate. Somebody had tried to poison the mother of his children. If he smiled too soon, it would feel wrong.

Still, hearing her voice, and especially hearing that little complaining tone, began cracking him already.

So Isabella added a few more soft words. "Don’t be mad, you know it makes me sad"

Then another.

Then she reached again, though more carefully this time, and made that small sad face she knew affected him more than it should.

Cyrus lasted a little longer.

Then his great head lowered.

Just a little at first.

Then more.

Until finally he bent down enough for her to reach him properly.

The moment he did, Isabella immediately wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could and kissed the side of his face.

"There," she said softly. "That’s better."

Cyrus’s body softened by one small degree.

Only one.

Still, Isabella felt it.

So she kissed him again.

And hugged him again.

And because Cyrus was Cyrus, and because he was extra clingy by nature, and because he was still so full of emotion that he could barely think straight, that was enough to start undoing him completely.

He let out a low sound in his throat, still unhappy, still angry, but already breaking.

Isabella smiled.

Then she made one more little coaxing sound at him, the kind she used only when she really wanted something from him, and that was the end.

Cyrus’s expression finally shifted.

The anger did not disappear completely, but his mouth moved into the smallest smile.

At once, Isabella looked pleased with herself.

Zyran, who had been watching this with deep jealousy, clicked his tongue and glared at them.

"He is so disgusting," he said. "I don’t think I want to eat anymore."

Isabella turned to him immediately. "Shut up."

Zyran put a hand on his chest like she had wounded him. "I speak only the truth. Look at him. He is melting."

Cyrus shot him a cold glance that said he was still capable of murder.

Zyran ignored it because he was already too busy being jealous.

That jealousy was actually very real. Watching Isabella soften Cyrus, kiss him, coax him, and pull that smile out of him with a few sweet sounds felt deeply unfair. Zyran wanted that too. In fact, he wanted it very much. So naturally he sat there looking like a black panther prince who had been denied something precious by fate itself.

The tension in the room lightened a little after that.

Only a little.

But enough.

Enough that Ophelia finally breathed more evenly.

Enough that Shelia’s shoulders loosened.

Enough that Luca, who had returned after escorting Zara and looked deeply irritated by the whole experience, no longer felt like he might have to clean blood off the floor tonight.

Then Osiris ruined it again.

He frowned, looked at Isabella very seriously, and said, "But was something wrong with your eyes?"

For one second, everyone in the room went still again.

Then Luca covered his face.

Shelia let out a breath through her nose.

Ophelia looked at him with actual disbelief.

Even Kian closed his eyes once, very slowly, as if gathering strength from somewhere high above.

Zyran just stared at Osiris with the exhausted expression of someone who had finally accepted that some minds were simply built wrong.

Honestly, at that point, some of them were beginning to wonder if Osiris was stupid on purpose. Because how could one person keep missing the shape of things this badly and still survive into adulthood?

Isabella looked at him for one long second.

Then she finally laughed.

And because she laughed, the room loosened the rest of the way, even if the danger of what had happened still lingered beneath everything else.