Beloved Beast

Chapter Fifty-Two

Don carried Elle back to his bed and laid her gently among the furs. As he settled next to her, gazing fondly at her sleeping face—to his relief, a face more noticeably less swollen and bruised—he lovingly smoothed a tuft of dark hair away from her temple.

This moth is not afraid to burn.

A ghost of a smile flitted across his otherwise strained lips.

He may be the proverbial flame, but Elle could never be as unremarkable as some woodland moth. Indeed, she was unforgettable in a sea of mundane faces.

When he first spotted her in that evening hour, walking staff in hand, with a charming air of heavy starlight and a soothing harmony of chirping crickets, he had been enamored with her beauty. The sight of her alabaster skin and midnight hair had stopped him dead in his verdure course, coloring his insensible soul with warm, unnatural feelings, but it was the depths of her vulnerability beneath a quiet strength that had called to him, speaking a forlorn language his forsaken heart had recognized all too well.

They were similar in their loneliness. Like a waning light, or a small bird without a melody, they were an imperfect shade of blue on a dull canvas of black and white.

Seeing Elle for the first time solidified a desire within Don to know more about her, to learn everything there was about this maiden who wandered dauntlessly with unseeing eyes, detached from all the rest. But most of all, he yearned to know what motivated her to move so fearlessly in her shade of melancholy, whereas he was drowning in it.

The emotional pain from taking life was a self-inflicted dagger that lodged deeper every time his past resurfaced. The guilt and shame shackled him to dark, tortuous chambers where the self-loathing was a frothing beast all its own, clawing at his conscience—a fate worse than Sera's enduring curse.

Since meeting Elle, Don has come up for air.

Like a fresh breath personified, she made him feel lighter.

He had tried to discourage her feelings because how could she possibly love him when he failed to love himself? But even when met with his gruesome scars and nefarious past, her sentiments remained unchanged, and in true Elle fashion, she was determined to love him anyway; he just had to find the courage to love her without reservation.

His soul could never forget the atrocity he had committed against a small village—the lives he had unfairly ended, but he was remorseful, and whether that warranted forgiveness or not could only be determined by a higher power, but he would never regret loving and defending Elle the only way he knew how—with unequivocal intensity.

A soft rap on the door drove Don from his thoughts and, likewise, to his feet.

As Lucy entered the room, he instinctively moved to retrieve his cloak, the habit of concealing his face proving difficult to shake as he deviated for a tunic to cover his naked chest instead.

"How is she faring?" his newfound healer didn't seem to mind or notice his nakedness—or his exposed features, as she crossed the room to place a basin of water and a fresh set of linen bandages on the table.

"She has improved," Don replied, grimacing as he tugged the garment over his head and down his mangled back. "Much to you."

With a soft, pensive expression, Lucy made quick but delicate work of removing Elle's dressing. When her audible gasp sounded, a cold fear gripped his heart. "What is it?"