A log in the fire popped. I willed it to hush.
“He imagined ...” Beast paused, darted a glance at me, then away again. “He imagined himself better than his brother. But he chased the same selfish dreams.”
How many times had I counted myself Astra’s superior?
Still, he was kinder than I. “I don’t believe that, Andre.”
His yellow eyes met mine.
“You revenged your crew at the risk of your life and with nothing to gain. Given choice, yours is not a heart that stays away from home.”
Whether it was to ease the burden on his mother or to chase his wayward brother, he must have felt he had no choice but to leave.
“Is yours?” he asked.
The log snapped, collapsing into the fire with a burst of sparks. I jumped.
“My family is fine,” I said, though it did not answer his question.
“Do you miss them?”
Something inside twisted, a silent cry, but I said, “No.”
He waited, and the pressure built.
I stood, my bare feet sinking in the fur rug. The spines of every book looked the same to me, but I grabbed one off the shelf anyway and flipped through it.
The pages were blank.
“Is this your doing?” I looked up at him with a narrow glare.
He only waited.
“My family would not want me home,” I said at last. “Not if they knew.”
“Why not?” he asked softly.
He had to know why not. It was obvious.
“My father would have to either marry me off or risk defending me at the cost of his own reputation.” I tried to keep my voice breezy, as if I were speaking of someone else, the way Beast had told me his own story under a different name. “My brother would say, ‘I warned you,’ because he did indeed warn me. My sister ...”
I thought of the spiteful kiss, of Astra’s firsthand witness.
“My sister would say I walked myself in,” I said. “And she would be right.”
Beast was silent. I felt my hands trembling, but when I looked, they were still as death.
“Bring me that book?”
I looked up in surprise. Beast was not one to suddenly change the topic or avoid a subject, but perhaps I’d made him uncomfortable. My cheeks heated.
I stepped forward to give him the volume, but when I extended it, his clawed hand did not lift.
He said, “I don’t want it after all.”
Nowmy hands trembled.
“If you did walk in,” he said, “it’s no obligation to stay.”
