The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts

"Oh, someone finally decided to join us," Zyran drawled, lips curled into a grin so bright it might as well have come with a flash of teeth. The tone was cheerful, but the way his eyes sharpened? Yeah, no—this was not a welcome greeting. This was the verbal equivalent of tossing a gauntlet on the table.

Isabella shot him a side-eye that was part "don't start" and part "seriously, be normal for once."

"What are you doing here?" she asked, voice lifting with genuine excitement as she rose from her chair. She didn't even wait for an answer—her feet carried her across the room toward Kian like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Kian, true to form, moved with unhurried precision. No smile, no fanfare, no obvious emotion—just those icy blue eyes tracking her approach. When she reached him, she slipped into his arms without hesitation, hugging him like this was a reunion worth celebrating.

And that was when the air changed.

Jealousy didn't just creep in—it marched right up, slapped a flag in the middle of the room, and declared war.

Not from Cyrus. Sure, he felt a flicker of envy—he wasn't dead, after all—but it didn't dig its claws into him. As long as Isabella was happy, Cyrus could live with it.

But Zyran? Oh. Hell. Nah.

His smile stayed right where it was, pleasant and easy, but it was all camouflage. Because what he really wanted to do was peel Isabella off Kian like a sticker and slap her right back onto himself. He wanted her attention, her laugh, that spark in her eyes—hell, even the warm weight of her arm around his shoulders instead.

And the worst part? Kian wasn't even trying.

"I decided to eat with you today," Kian said, his voice as smooth and cold as a winter river. No inflection, no tell—just a simple statement that somehow landed like a challenge.

Isabella giggled, bright and unguarded, her head tilting back so she could look up at him. "But you never join me, and you love eating alone. What changed?"

She was smiling in that way she rarely smiled—eyes twinkling, lips curved without restraint. For a moment, she forgot the heaviness that had been sitting on her all day. Kian's gaze met hers, those icy eyes warming ever so slightly, like frost melting under the gentlest touch of sunlight.

Zyran, meanwhile, was internally combusting. He could practically hear the sound of his own ego taking damage.

"Got bored?" Isabella teased, nudging lightly at the silence between them.

Kian didn't answer right away. Instead, he just stared down at her, expression unreadable but undeniably focused, his hand settling more firmly at her waist. It was a subtle shift, but Zyran noticed—and oh, did he notice.

After what felt like a small eternity, Kian nodded. "Yes. It got lonely without you."

If the air had been tense before, it was now one second away from cracking like glass.

Isabella's smile softened, touched by the rare sentiment. She didn't get this side of Kian often—hell, no one did—and it was hard not to be affected when it showed itself, however fleetingly.

Meanwhile, Zyran sat there, still smiling, but mentally rehearsing exactly how fast he could vault over the table and drag her back to her seat without causing a diplomatic incident.

Kian's tone remained flat, matter-of-fact, but there was no mistaking the truth in his words. And that truth burned in a way Zyran hated—because it wasn't fake. It wasn't some flashy trick or flirtatious jab. It was quiet, genuine, and completely unshakable.

Well, almost completely.

Because the real reason Kian had shown up wasn't some noble desire to share a meal. No, it had roots in something far pettier.

Remember when he'd lied about his room being next to Isabella's? Just a little throwaway detail, casual as anything. Well, after that, he'd gone and made it true—moved in, settled down, claimed his spot like it was his birthright.

And then, just when he'd gotten comfortable, he'd heard it. Zyran's voice. Coming from her room.

That did not sit well with him.

At all.

So now here he was, standing in her room, holding her waist, and making it abundantly clear without ever raising his voice: he wasn't going anywhere.

Isabella's laughter still lingered in the air, but then—like a candle flame flickering in a draft—it softened. Her gaze dropped slightly, that bright curve of her lips dimming.

The memory of the attack slid into her mind uninvited, dragging its weight behind it. "What about the people?" she asked quietly, her tone laced with genuine concern. "How are they holding up?"

The question hit Kian harder than she could've known. A slow breath left him, quieter than before—not visibly enough for most people to catch, but enough for anyone watching him closely to notice that his usual unshakable rhythm had stuttered.

She was the only one. The only one who'd ever cared enough really to ask—not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She didn't have any ties to his people, no work owed to the clan , no benefits to reap. She just… cared.

And she always had, maybe even too much.

Even now, when she was supposed to be focused on her own life—her own world—she was here, thinking about his. Most women he'd met wouldn't have even asked. In their minds, that was a man's burden, a man's responsibility. Their role was to be taken care of, not to worry about who else needed taking care of.

But Isabella wasn't "most women."

She had a way of spreading her care around without keeping score, of folding other people's struggles into her own as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To Kian, that quality didn't just make her admirable—it made her dangerous. Because now, when he looked at her, he didn't just see Isabella.

He saw a queen.

Not just any queen. His queen.

His gaze lingered on her, unreadable to anyone who wasn't paying attention, but beneath the ice there was something steady and dangerous forming—a claim, whether spoken or not.

"I will speak to them tomorrow," Kian said finally, his voice dropping low, the kind of deep that wasn't meant to impress but to assure.

Isabella nodded, her expression softening further. The air between them shifted—warmer now, like something fragile and new was trying to take root.

And then—

Zyran cleared his throat. Loudly. Deliberately. The kind of sound that didn't just demand attention, it yanked it away.

It wasn't subtle. It wasn't polite. It was a verbal brick tossed right through the delicate little window of a moment Isabella and Kian had been standing in.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Zyran said in a tone that was absolutely not sorry. "I'd hate to interrupt the sudden rise of your epic romance arc here, but the soup is getting cold." He gestured toward the table with exaggerated flourish. "And I hate cold soup."

The pettiness in his voice could have been bottled and sold as seasoning.

Cyrus, sitting off to the side, lifted a brow but didn't comment—though the twitch at the corner of his mouth said he was at least amused by how blatant Zyran was being.

Kian didn't react, or at least not in any way most people would recognize. But the faint tightening of his jaw said enough.

Zyran leaned back in his chair, looking smug. If Kian wanted to stand there staring into Isabella's eyes like some romance novel cover model, fine—but not at the expense of his soup.