The bowl in Isabella’s hands tilted dangerously.
Her entire body froze.
Even the warm steam rising from the soup seed to pause in the air.
For the smallest mont, she almost did not want to believe what she was seeing, because she was not stupid, and her instincts had already begun screaming that sothing ugly and deliberate had just happened.
Her mind moved fast, almost too fast. The woman had heard her voice. The timing was too exact. The angle was wrong. The whole thing was too convenient.
On Kian’s side, the change was imdiate.
His face had already been cold before Isabella entered, but the instant the woman landed where she was not supposed to be and he heard Isabella’s voice at the doorway, his whole expression turned murderous.
Not angry.
Not annoyed.
Murderous.
The cup of dicine that the woman had been holding spilled wildly as she "fell," so of it splashing over his chest and onto the hide skirt around his waist.
In the sa breath, Kian shoved her off.
He did not hesitate.
He did not soften it.
He did not care that she was a woman.
The woman hit the ground with a shocked sound, and the look on her face was so full of disbelief that it almost would have been funny if Isabella had not been too busy holding onto the bowl and processing the scene in front of her.
Inside the woman’s heart, bitterness surged at once.
Isabella realized it was Zara.
Zara had planned this perfectly, or at least she had believed it was perfect.
She had tid the mont, tilted her body, loosened her footing, and prepared her expression, because she knew Isabella’s voice the instant she heard it and understood at once that an opportunity had arrived.
She had imagined many possible outcos in a very short amount of ti. Perhaps Isabella would misunderstand. Perhaps Kian would catch her. Perhaps the room would beco tense in a useful way.
What she had not imagined, because apparently she had not suffered enough humiliation in life to develop realistic expectations, was that Kian would throw her off him like sothing dirty that had landed by accident.
The fall itself hurt less than the insult.
For one second, Zara’s mind went blank from shock.
What was wrong with this stupid man?
She had already given up so much.
She had changed her face.
She had endured pain, bargains, fear, and loss.
She was beautiful now, more beautiful than before, and yet this man’s treatnt of her had sohow beco even colder than it had been in the past.
Before, at least, she had been able to tell herself that there was room, so room, so crack in the wall of his indifference that she might soday widen.
Now?
Now he looked at her as though her very presence was contaminating the air.
That realization made her heart twist in hatred so quickly that it almost showed on her face.
But Zara had learned how to swallow poison and smile with it in her mouth.
So instead of revealing anything, she hurriedly rearranged her features into innocence and looked up at Kian with hurt in her eyes.
"My king," she said softly, "I only wanted to help ease your pain."
Kian did not even look at her for long.
His eyes had already gone to Isabella.
He was watching Isabella now with a focus so intense that it might have made another woman proud, but in this mont it only made Zara’s resentnt burn harder.
His entire attention had left her the instant Isabella appeared. It was as if Zara had beco furniture, inconvenient furniture, while Isabella had beco the only thing in the room with aning.
Kian had been in his room, preparing to go join Isabella for breakfast a few minutes ago when this healer had soone managed to get past the guards at the outer entrance and got to his room.
At first he did not want to be rude, to avoid causing trouble for Isabella since healers were respected in the beast world so he simply told her to leave.
And when she did not he only got visibly irritated.
He looked at her like he was hoping she would not misunderstand, while ignoring Zara completely.
That alone was enough to make Zara want to scream.
But she did not.
She simply kept her face ek.
At the doorway, Isabella stared at her.
She knew.
Of course she knew.
The whole thing reeked of intention so badly that even soone dropped from the sky into this room without context could probably feel it. Zara had heard her voice and fallen at exactly the right mont. It was so obvious that it bordered on insulting.
Still, Isabella said nothing at first.
Her silence ca from calculation, not confusion. She could feel Kian’s fury from where she stood, could see Zara’s little performance for what it was, and could also feel Glimora at her feet beginning to bristle.
The beast’s fur had risen along her back.
A low growl began in her throat.
She knew.
For whatever reason, in that deep, instinctive, beastly way, Glimora knew exactly who Zara was beneath that borrowed face, and she disliked her just as much as before.
The sound dragged Isabella’s attention down for a mont.
"Glimora," she said lightly, as if nothing in the room had exploded just now, "stop it. She’s a guest. Be nice."
Glimora looked up at her with the offended expression of a creature being asked to tolerate sothing deeply suspicious.
Her growl faded, but only because Isabella had spoken. If left to her own judgnt, she clearly would have preferred to keep growling until the intruder disappeared.
On the floor, Zara’s heart thudded once.
That beast had always made her uneasy.
The way it looked at her now made her skin crawl, because it felt too knowing.
Still, she forced herself to remain soft and harmless.
Then Isabella, to Zara’s great surprise, tilted her head and spoke in a sweet voice.
"Kian," she said, "why are you being an to the healer? She probably only wanted to help you."
The room changed again.
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