Beloved Beast

Chapter Thirty-Eight

"Where do you think your precious gold comes from?" Sera snarled emphatically, taking a slow, measured step forward, regarding Solomon with plain disgust.

Black smoke thickened around them; the combined smell of charred wood and ash permeated the air as searing, bright flames intensified with dramatic speed, growing hotter and taller, crawling up the trees and igniting their crowns.

Solomon shifted the knife, wedging the sharp blade firmly against her rapid pulse, her body tensing for the moment he opted to slash her throat, just as Sera had done to Abby.

Mercilessly, but swiftly.

Please let it be quick. Elle begged quietly.

"I will cut her from ear to belly." He warned, gutturally. "Give me the gold ye promised me, bitch, or I swear I will kill her."

She choked back a cry, clenching her eyes shut against the harsh, suffocating fumes, and the encroaching specter of death.

Her burning, watery eyes whirled to the spot where Esme had fled. It felt like a lifetime since her sister had escaped.

The fire there had gathered, sealing it shut with a fierce wall of flames.

It was an extraordinary, terrifying thing to behold, and it was blazing a fast path straight for her village.

Would Esme safely reach the village to warn the others?

Had those horrible creatures killed her?

Would she ever see her family again?

Would she ever see Don?

She raised teary eyes to the inviting sky, past the dark, sweltering clouds of smoke to the endless, ethereal blue transcending the fire's pervasive reach. As she focused on that tangible cerulean – that beautiful, concentrated color she had come to know intimately in her peculiar dreams, it engendered a small frisson of solace, somewhat eclipsing the danger hedging in, albeit not entirely.

The heat was unbearable. The air gritty and thick. The flames licking near.

In the moments that lagged, with her life hanging in the balance, Elle came to understand Abby's willingness to embrace death. To accept what could not be avoided. With no savior on the burning horizon and no means of escaping, it left little hope and a staggering, visceral awareness of the inevitable.

She was likely going to die in this cage of enemies and flames.

Faced with the likelihood of death, there was a peace of mind that was preferred to the panic and danger flanking her from all sides.

The need to surrender was almost too easy.

But that did not mean she wanted to die. She did not want to die – not like this, before having ever truly lived, before experiencing a real chance at happiness. Just as her fearless sister had vowed earlier with unflagging conviction, Elle decided that fighting for a life she deserved was far more favorable than accepting a gruesome fate. She would fight with her every lasting breath and do whatever it took to reunite with her family again.

No matter what it entailed.

"It comes from the earth," Sera stated, eerily unfazed by the leaping flames, and the disingenuous henchman intent on killing her.

The sky darkened with billowing, columns of smoke, her throat turning raw with every ragged breath of compromised air.

The witch inched closer, bridging the gap that separated them, her eyes resembling the fire fanning at her back.