Isabella snapped out of her thoughts.
She turned slowly, eyes narrowing. "Since you can do that," she said coolly, "why didn’t you simply do it earlier?"
"I simply watched over Ophelia like you told to," Cyrus said, his voice calm as ever, as if he were discussing the weather and not, say, guarding a bouncing bundle of chaos in soft braids.
Isabella let out a long sigh, the kind that ca from the soles of her feet. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "That’s not what I ant—ugh, never mind." Her shoulders slumped. "I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for another soap opera scene today."
"No need," she said instead, brushing past both of them with a hand wave. "I should check on the well."
But before she took more than three steps, Ophelia paused and raised her nose dramatically to the air like a curious bunny. She sniffed. Once. Twice.
"What’s that sweet scent?" she asked with all the innocence of a wide-eyed toddler discovering chocolate for the first ti.
Cyrus responded before Isabella could shut it down.
"It is Isabella," he said evenly.
Dead. She was dead. Soone bury her under a pile of magical dirt and plant a flower on her grave. Preferably Rose.
Isabella froze. A slow, mortified heat climbed up her neck and blood across her cheeks. She whipped around to glare at him. "Excuse ?"
Cyrus, the picture of serenity, stared back at her with that signature expression that sohow mixed nobility and cluelessness. Not a twitch of amusent on his face. Not even a smirk.
He was serious. Seriously annoying.
"Why would you say it like that? You make it sound like I... I produce sugar out of my pores!" Isabella hissed under her breath, flustered. "What’s next? ’Oh, the sky slls like Isabella’s shampoo?’"
Ophelia took another enthusiastic whiff and gasped. "Ooooh! The scent really is coming from you!"
"Yes, it is," Isabella muttered, rubbing her temples like she was massaging away the will to scream.
"But why are you hiding your natural scent?" Ophelia tilted her head with genuine confusion. "It’s not like I don’t like this one, but... don’t you want to attract a mate?"
At that, Isabella choked. "What—? No! That’s not—I’m not—We are not having this conversation!"
Too late.
Her brain promptly short-circuited. Wait... is that how it worked here? Was being on your period like, mating bait?
The thought spiraled. Oh my god... Should she bottle her hormonal imbalance and market it? ’Eau de Fertile.’ The Beastn would eat it up—literally.
(Eau de Fertile ans; fertility water in french)
No. Absolutely not. What was wrong with her?
Ophelia, oblivious to the ntal spiral she’d just triggered, leaned in again. "So what did you do? To sll this sweet?"
"It’s perfu," Isabella said flatly, staring off into the void like she was regretting every decision that brought her to this mont.
"Ohhh! Will you be making so more later?" Ophelia clapped her hands with unfiltered excitent.
Isabella blinked, forcing her mind to refocus. Yes... eventually. She had gathered enough from that eerie mountain—rare herbs, fragrant petals, and a few things she still couldn’t na—but all of it could wait.
None of it mattered until she found Shelia. Her gaze drifted east, just for a second, eyes narrowing with the quiet weight of suspicion.
’Sothing’s wrong. I can feel it.’
Her gut whispered sothing wasn’t right. It was too long. Too quiet. And Isabella had long since learned to trust when the quiet felt wrong.
"I just need to get better and check on the well," she said with a quick nod, already turning on her heel.
Cyrus stepped forward, arms casually lowering as if preparing to scoop her up again, but Isabella side-eyed him with a raised brow. "No need to carry this ti. I need to move, get my legs working again."
Her slipper touched the dirt with purpose as she started walking, arms loose at her sides, but posture sharp.
"It’s one thing to skip workouts and another to get too comfortable and morph into a couch potato."
She mumbled the last part mostly to herself, but Cyrus, who had the hearing of a predator, caught it.
To him, Isabella was anything but lazy. If anything, she was pushing herself too hard—again. But he didn’t say it out loud. He simply followed her steps with quiet vigilance.
Ophelia hopped beside Isabella, her pace bouncy and her smile so bright it could’ve powered a small city.
"When do you plan on getting a male?" she asked sweetly, eyes wide like the question wasn’t emotionally loaded in ten different ways.
Isabella glanced down at her, then looked ahead again, lips twitching.
The girl was simply excited because of her new crush. Floating on clouds. Probably hearing romantic background music wherever she walked. No wonder she was asking the question like it was the next natural step in breathing.
"I don’t know," Isabella muttered, adjusting her stride. "When one falls from the sky, wrapped in gold and carrying a cupcake, I’ll consider it."
Maybe.
Probably not.
She wasn’t even sure love in this beast world was ant for soone like her.
Isabella approached the clearing with brisk steps, eyes scanning the spot where the well had supposedly been completed.
The n were slouched around in loose clusters, laughing, tossing pebbles, or lounging like they were on vacation.
Typical.
But the mont they sensed her presence—whether by scent, sound, or sixth sense—they shot to their feet like guilty schoolboys caught skipping class. In one synchronized sweep, they parted to create a clear path for her.
Isabella raised a brow, lips quirking. "Well, well," she muttered under her breath, amused. The dramatic shift in posture was almost theatrical.
She strolled past them with unhurried grace, pretending not to notice the way their eyes avoided hers.
Then her gaze landed on the well.
Her breath caught.
The well was perfect.
"Wow," Isabella said, genuinely impressed. "You all did a really good job."
One of the n chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Eh, it was only because of the young man behind you that we were able to perfect it without your instructions."
Isabella blinked. Her steps slowed.
She turned slightly—
User Comments
0 comments from readers