The beast and the blessed novel by Ashley Breanne novel Chapter 144

Thirty-Seven: Joselin

Joselin's P.O.V.

Dinner was a tense affair. Cyrus seemed uncomfortable trying to manipulate Rona into getting information from her, but he didn't have a choice.

She was obsessed with getting him to talk and spill his secrets. He was convinced she had actual feelings for him, even if it was only a physical attraction. Perhaps she would accidentally let something slip if he took advantage of that.

Even better would be if we took advantage of how close she let him and had him sedate her.

One quick slip of a needle and her magic could be blocked for hours. It would be the perfect way to question her. But if I was wrong about my suspicions of her, it could have catastrophic consequences when she was released. Killian wouldn't let me just kill her, no matter how badly I wanted to.

He insisted that we still had to follow the rules. He was trying to be a good leader, and he was. But that didn't make it any less frustrating when the rules were getting in the way of my job to protect him.

Cyrus agreed to try the more civil way first and attempt to get Rona to talk to him. He violently opposed my idea of resorting to drugs and torture, but

I was sick of waiting for someone to slip up and trying to be discrete as I searched for answers.

Someone who had been in the mountains the night before the war had built that altar and had performed the ritual to drain another of their life essence and magic. Someone powerful enough to perform that ritual on their own, if they were alone, shouldn't need more magic unless they were doing something big.

Cyrus was running for his life, needing protection from some unknown threat who wanted him dead. When I asked him about it during dinner, he confirmed the same thing he told me in the mountains.

He felt them.

He felt them pulling at his soul and magic, trying to separate the two. He looked haunted as he recalled the event that finally pushed him to ask for help. I had experienced something similar fifteen years ago, so I knew he remembered how much it hurt, with his experience being only a few months ago.

The pure and unbridled agony that came with that curse haunted me to this day, and I knew he would have to live with it for the rest of his life too.

When that didn't work, the mountain shook fiercely like it was about to come down on him. He said he was positive that if it wasn't someone powerful, it had to have been one of the Gods because he had never felt anything as strong or threatening.

His attacker had been livid by their failure, and it was only a matter of time before they tried again.

He had said, for a moment, he was sure he was about to die. It seemed to bother him more that he wouldn't have been able to face his killer before he was sent to meet the Goddess. Without embracing his powers, he would have died anyway. But getting the chance to see and face the person trying to kill him... no one deserved to be stabbed in the back.

If someone was going to murder another, it was only fitting that they do it face to face, not hiding in the shadows like a coward.

I had shared a look with Tobias that Cyrus seemed to pick up on immediately. It was then that we shared the story of how Rona's mother passed over store-bought lasagna.

It was the same method, less extreme, but still similar. Rona had cast a curse that allowed her to kill her mother using the distant absorption of her magic. Her mother, Melinda, didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. At that point, she was too weak to fight back. Rona drained her of everything, stealing her magic, life, and seat on the council. All while leaving no evidence behind to convict her.

My thoughts should have been on that. As I crawled into bed, my mind should have been dissecting every word that crossed Cyrus's mouth tonight, looking for hints or answers.

Instead, as Tobias pressed his warm body to mind, I couldn't think of anything other than our own future. I had been working hard enough for the past decade to save and protect everyone else. I didn't even feel guilty that

I was thinking about myself for a short while.

But those thoughts, the thoughts of us, only conjured more questions.

"You're thinking very loudly," Tobias spoke against the back of my neck, his nose nuzzling through my hair, his hot breath hitting my skin, making me shiver.

His arms tightened around me, pulling me against his bare chest.

"That is not true," I whispered, but he was right. Even if he couldn't hear my thoughts, I knew I was acting unusual. If I weren't, I would have been wrapped around him by now, just like every night before.

There was a deep, almost suffocating silence between us as he waited. He was patient, but it felt more like a silent demand for an explanation. I pressed my lips together until he placed a single kiss on the mark on my neck, and I felt myself crumbling.

"We never talked about kids," I mumbled, refusing to turn my head and look at him. Kids. The thought made my stomach turn because I didn't know what answer I wanted. I didn't even know if I wanted to have any.