Beloved Beast

Chapter Twenty-Nine

On the surface, one would best describe Veda de Ceville as ethereal, elegance personified, even incandescent in her billowing layers of white and the arctic blue of her all-knowing eyes, piercing and shrewd from beneath loose tendrils of flowing hair.

Unlike her sister who prolonged youth by means of pilfering bodies, the elder appeared to have aged prematurely given her forty-five summers. In lieu of the tawny-haired, lissome beauty of his former days, was a wraith-like, hollow-cheeked specter, chiseled of pasty planes and extruding bones; not a single strand of her once flaxen hair to be seen in the striking sheen of milk-white that spanned her frail shoulders and back like fine silk. Much like Seraphine, he suspected it was a direct result of channeling a power too great for mere flesh and bone.

But the unsettling eyes were the same, cutting to the core of its mark, disquieting in their regard, and Don was certain if one glimpsed long enough into that glacier stare, its remarkable color resembling the element sequestered there, they would descry the controlled glimmer of primitive power that rotated within.

Seraphine had always been reckless, compelled by uninhibited emotion, whereas Veda, the older of the two, was far more analytical, but vastly detached in that, no emotion could be found in the emphatic coolness that fashioned her lean visage. Contrary to her sister, Veda was not likely to disclose her inner musings, instead, she held fast to a tight-lipped, deadpan expression. However, beneath that unflappable, frigid demeanor, there was cause for alarm. He could remember a time when those icy eyes burned with unbridled rage and power, and there was no mistaking the incredible energy that lurked behind that wintry gaze or the irreparable damage it could inflict.

Next to harnessing the element of water, something he gathered the younger half resented, Veda was a natural clairvoyant, a rare and exceptional gift bestowed only to a few who were of otherworldly origins. Behind those penetrating, ice-blue eyes, prophetic visions materialized, the energy there enabling her to draw upon a second sight and glean knowledge in the form of fleeting images. It was an ability that allowed her to perceive the future, to discern events before they unfolded – a specific power, Sera, and their extraordinary mother before them, had not been favored with.

Recalling her sinister counterpart, Don whirled to find Seraphine gone, not a trace of her left in the shadowy remnants of his chambers.

He muttered an expletive, his muscles flexing with a strong and heedless urgency to give chase.

"You needn't worry," uttered the airy, impersonal voice at his rigid back. "Sera hasn't the strength to pursue your host, not without a new body."

Clenching his eyes shut, Don drew in a stuttered breath as her measured words struck his frantic, thudding heart with alarming veracity.

He recalled that one pivotal moment, just shortly after Sera had spouted her incantation, endowing Elle with sight, how those emerald eyes had flashed with a hidden revelation, and he knew then what he knew now to be disconcertingly true.

"She is the one Sera seeks." Don admitted as he turned and locked eyes with a gaze so unlike the fiery, restless green he had engaged moments prior.

Veda's mouth quirked into an unnatural grin, the aberrant gesture doing nothing for her unfeeling eyes as they slowly examined his misshapen face. "You already know the answer to that."

A cold sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead as every cell in his body recoiled in alarm, each tendon straining with the burning need to pursue and eliminate every conceivable threat to Elle, to ensure her safety. He was the utmost fool for having believed her safe, for thinking that his darkness would not have endangered her too. Had he known that Elle was the one Sera sought, he would have never sent her away. His efforts in garnering all of Sera's attention, in diverting that scrutiny away from Elle, so that she could return to her family safely, had put her at greater risk.