Of Beast and Beauty Read Online Free Page B

not an it . I am a Desert Man. I have nineteen years. I have a son.
    I might have had a mate if there were no Yuan, no tunnel to dig, no scouting missions to take me away from my tribe over and over again. But Meer chose a different mate, and my son sleeps in another family’s hut.
    Now my son will die and be burned without ever knowing my face. Because of them!
     
    I roar again and hope it rattles the loose pieces of her brain. Stupid girl. Stupid Smooth Skin. Stupid—
    “Stop!” she shouts, hands lashing out. Her tiny fists hit my mouth, bruising my lip as they bounce off my teeth. Before I can react, her fingers return to my face, gentle this time, curious. I freeze, too shocked to pull away.
     
    “Hold your weapons,” she orders the soldiers. Boots shuffle forward, but she shouts, “I am Isra Yuejihua. My word is the word! Hold!”
     
    Yuejihua . The name of the ruling family. It can’t … Not this girl. This strange one.
     
    The guard closest breathes deeply; another gasps like a woman. A
    third says, “My lady—”
     
    “My word is the word and will one day be law. Hold your weapons.”
    Silence falls. In it, her fingers trace the outline of my lips, discover my nose, smooth around my eyes. When she reaches the scaled patches above my brows, she hesitates, but eventually moves on. She finds the place where my braid begins and smoothes a shaking hand down the ridge to the end falling over my shoulder. “It’s soft,” she whispers. “What color is it?”
     
    “You saw.”
     
    “I’m blind.” Her lids flutter. Her eyes are not brown or black like every other pair of eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re dark green, and as strange as the flowers in her garden. They are sightless now, but I would have sworn she saw me before. How else could she have known to run?
     
    “Black,” I snap, keeping one eye on the soldiers.
     
    “Like my people.” Her breath shudders out. “But you have very large teeth, I think.”
     
    “You think?”
     
    “I haven’t felt many teeth.” Her fingers come to her shoulder, covering the place where my claws pierced her skin. “Will the poison take effect soon?” she asks in a small voice.
     
    “Poison?”
     
    “In your claws.”
     
    The guards inch slowly closer, torn between obeying their princess and saving her life. I smile at them, baring my undoubtedly large, bone-white teeth. Now that I know how valuable this girl is, I have hope.
    Not much, but enough to make my voice smooth when I say, “Take me to the underground river and set me free. Before I go, I will tell you how to rid yourself of the poison.”
     
    “And if I don’t?”
     
    “You die.”
     
    “Maybe I’m already dead,” she whispers, her words as haunted as her eyes. “The roses are hungry. I felt it tonight.”
     
    She’s out of her mind. She makes me … afraid. That’s what I feel when I look into her vacant eyes. Fear, as foreign as shame. Why I should fear a girl I have pinned to the ground, I don’t know. She’s helpless, fragile. I should be afraid of her guards, and their weapons.
     
    The thought has barely formed when I feel it, the sharp jab of metal deep in the back of my thigh where there are no scales to protect me. I cry
    out and swipe at the guard with my claws. I graze his leg and reach for the spear, but the guards in front don’t give me time. One snatches the girl from beneath me and drags her across the stones while the second—a man with a knife longer than my claws—lunges for my throat.
     
    I knock him away with a growl that transforms to a howl of pain as the man behind wrenches his spear free of my leg. Blood rushes from the wound, and I scream.
     
    “No!” the girl cries. “Don’t kill him!”
     
    The guard drives his weapon into my other leg, just above the knee, hobbling me. I wail like the grieving at the funeral fires. It’s over. Even if I fight off the guards and get to my feet, I’ll never be able to run.
     
    “No! No!” The