The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts

The bird beastman watched her face and clearly understood that whatever she was thinking, it had gone deeper than simple village politics.

"You are planning more than you were told to," he said quietly.

Zara looked at him, and the look in her eyes made even him stop talking for a second.

Then she said, very coldly, "Do your part and leave mine to me."

That answer told him enough.

He did not push further.

Perhaps because he knew better.

Perhaps because whatever she had in mind did not matter as much to him as the larger purpose. Either way, he accepted it.

Then he asked for one last thing.

"The signal?"

Zara thought for a moment and then gave him that too.

She gave him a time, a sign, and a path. The deeper part of her plan stayed locked in her chest.

When she finished, the room felt even colder than before.

The bird beastman stepped back toward the opening.

Before he changed, his eyes moved to her once more.

"You are certain?"

Zara’s lips curved in a smile that held no softness at all.

"I have never been more certain."

That was the truth.

Because if this failed too, then she would have nothing left except humiliation and a face that was not even truly hers.

The bird beastman transformed again.

His body folded inward, bones shifting, limbs tightening, feathers spilling over him in a smooth dark rush until the bird stood there once more, black and sharp and ugly against the weak glow of the dying brazier.

It spread its wings.

For one breath, the room filled with the soft heavy sound of feathers cutting air.

Then it leaped, slipped through the opening, and vanished into the snow-dark night.

Zara remained where she was for a while after that.

She did not return to the bed immediately.

She stood very still, one hand over her bruised ribs, and looked toward the opening long after the bird was gone. The cold air from outside touched her face, but she did not move to close it yet.

Instead, her thoughts turned inward again.

To Kian.

To Isabella.

To the attack still sleeping in the future.

To the moment the quiet of this place would break.

Then, at last, she turned away and let the room fall back into silence.

Outside, the snow kept falling.

Inside the palace, everyone else still slept, unaware that while the fire burned low and the night looked soft and harmless, a message had already flown out into the dark, and something unseen had begun moving toward them.

That winter morning, Isabella felt terrible.

Even though she was wrapped properly beneath thick furs, and even though the room was warm enough that the cold outside could not easily creep in, her body still felt wrong in a way that made sleep turn ugly.

Her forehead was damp with sweat, her breathing came out uneven, and a painful headache kept pressing against her skull as if someone had buried a stone inside her head and was now turning it slowly.

She shifted under the fur and let out a soft moan.

Her stomach felt uncomfortable too. It was not the usual heavy discomfort she had already grown used to while carrying the babies. This felt different. Stranger. There was a tightness inside her, and every now and then it made her brows pull together so hard that even in sleep, her face looked troubled.

"Cyrus..." she tried to call.

Her voice was weak and breathy, almost swallowed by the furs and the quiet crackling of the fire in the corner.

But Cyrus was not there.

The one in the room that morning was Zyran.

He had slept in his usual place, on the floor near one side of the room, because that shameless black panther always acted as if the whole world was his sleeping bed anyway.

Sometimes he stayed there through the night, and sometimes he disappeared back to the underworld like some unbothered ghost prince who came and went as he pleased. Thankfully, he had remained around this time.

So the moment he heard that weak little sound from the bed, his eyes opened at once.

There was not even the smallest trace of sleepiness in them after that.

Zyran sat up, black hair falling a little loosely around his face, and the lazy prince look that usually clung to him fell away so fast that it was almost shocking. He turned his head toward the bed, and the second he saw Isabella’s face, the expression in his red eyes changed.

She looked bad.

Very bad.

Her cheeks were flushed in a wrong way, her lashes were trembling against damp skin, and even from where he sat, he could tell that the smell in the room had changed. A beastman’s nose always noticed these things first.

Warm fur, sleeping female, firewood, herbs, winter air, all of those smells still existed, but now there was something else mixed inside. Something sharper. Something heavier. Something that made his instincts rise.

Zyran was on his feet immediately.

He crossed the room in a few fast steps and dropped beside the bed, one knee pressing into the fur while his sharp eyes searched Isabella’s face properly.

"Isabella," he called softly.

Usually, when he spoke to her, there was always some teasing hidden inside the words. Today there was none.

He reached out and touched her face lightly.

Her skin felt too warm.

Isabella stirred under the furs and let out another pained sound. Her lips moved as if she was trying to answer him, but the headache seemed too heavy. Even her beautiful brows had knotted together like she was fighting something inside her own body and losing badly.

Zyran’s expression darkened.

This was because he had seen many things in his life, and ordinary discomfort did not look like this. He did not smell fear on her, but he smelled distress.

He did not see blood, but he saw a body straining against something it did not know how to hold.