The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts

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

"What is this?" he muttered.

Then he stopped wasting time.

Dark power slid out from his fingertips in quiet black threads, soft and thin at first, like smoke with thought inside it. It moved over the furs, over Isabella’s body, and then sank gently into the space around her as Zyran checked what was wrong. Usually, his power felt cold, but this time the moment it touched the strange thing inside her, it gave back a faint pulse that made even him go still.

Demonic blood.

Zyran frowned.

At first, he thought he had made a mistake.

Because why would there be demonic blood inside Isabella?

He checked again.

The dark power sank deeper, and this time the scent became clearer. It was faint only because something had been suppressing it, pushing it down, making it quiet. Still, to someone like Zyran, whose own blood and power came from the underworld, that scent could never fully hide.

His red eyes narrowed.

For one second, confusion rose in him.

Then memory followed.

He had sensed something like this from Cyrus before.

Only in fragments.

Only in very faint traces.

Every now and then, there had been a strange undercurrent beneath Cyrus’s usual scent, something old and dark and powerful, but it always vanished so quickly that Zyran never pressed it too hard. Now, with Isabella burning beneath the fur and that same hidden scent rising from her, everything suddenly joined together.

He understood.

The reason he could never fully sense it from Cyrus was because Cyrus had been suppressing it.

And if Isabella’s body was giving it off now, then that meant the suppression had been reaching her through him.

Through food.

Zyran’s face changed completely after that.

Because if that was true, then Cyrus had been feeding Isabella things to keep this side of his bloodline down while she carried his child.

Which meant only one thing.

Cyrus was a demon.

Or at least carried demon blood strong enough to matter.

Zyran’s power moved lower, toward Isabella’s stomach, and the answer there was even clearer. The demonic scent was strongest around the babies. It was coming from them too, faint but powerful in a way that made the air around his fingers feel heavier.

His frown deepened.

"Damn snake," he muttered under his breath. "What were you thinking?"

The problem was not the blood itself.

The problem was Isabella’s body.

Her body was still human enough in many ways, still softer than a beastwoman’s, still not built to carry that kind of force without help. So if the suppression had slipped even a little, then of course she would feel it. Headache. Heat. Pressure in the stomach. Her body was trying to handle something much bigger than it could understand.

Zyran exhaled slowly and used more power.

This time, the darkness from his hand thickened, but he guided it carefully. He was reckless in many things, but he was never careless with Isabella. The power spread over her like a cool black veil and pressed down over the unstable demonic scent, easing it little by little. It did not remove it. It only pushed it back into place and stabilized the chaos enough that her body could breathe again.

At once, Isabella’s face loosened a little.

The tightness in her brows eased.

Her breathing became less ragged, though sweat still clung to her skin.

Zyran kept his hand there for a few breaths longer, his red eyes fixed on her stomach. Now that he knew what he was looking at, he could feel it very clearly. The babies inside her held strong blood. Very strong blood. And because they were growing bigger now, the pressure of that blood would only become harder to hide.

That meant this problem would not disappear by itself.

It would come again.

His mouth flattened.

Cyrus had told no one.

No one.

What exactly had that snake been planning to do, keep feeding her whatever he had been using and hope the whole thing stayed hidden until the babies came out? Was he crazy? No, more importantly, was he stupid?

Zyran’s tailbone almost ached with annoyance at the thought.

Then the door opened.

Cyrus entered so quickly that it was obvious he had come in a rush. His red hair was slightly disordered, his pink eyes were already full of alarm, and the moment he saw Zyran by the bed with black power still wrapped around Isabella’s body, he stopped.

Neither of them spoke.

Neither of them needed to.

Cyrus looked at Isabella once.

Then his eyes moved to Zyran.

Zyran looked back at him.

And in that one silent moment, everything was understood.

He knew.

Cyrus knew that he knew.

And Zyran, looking at the panic that had not fully left Cyrus’s face, understood another thing too.

This had already gone wrong enough that Cyrus had probably noticed before coming in. The only reason he was too late was because he had not been fast enough.

That alone would be eating him alive already.

Cyrus stepped closer to the bed.

The usual softness in him was still there, but now it had been sharpened by guilt and fear. His eyes rested on Isabella’s face, on the sweat at her temple, on the way she still looked weak even after Zyran stabilized the worst of it, and then his jaw tightened.

Zyran stood up slowly.

He left one last strand of dark power over Isabella to keep her steady for a few more moments, then turned fully toward Cyrus.

Cyrus’s chest rose and fell once.

He still said nothing.

That was because what was there to say first?

Sorry?

Explain?

Don’t tell them?

None of those would sound right standing beside a bed where Isabella had just lain sweating and in pain.

Zyran let the silence sit for one breath longer.

Then he said, very calmly, "We need to speak."

Cyrus’s pink eyes flickered once.

Then he nodded.

And the two of them stepped out.