Heart of a Beast

Chapter 27 | Tiberius

The room was small and dim with thick curtains drawn over the closed window. A heavy stench hung in the air and Crystal gagged on it.

Tiberius recoiled at first, coughing against the bile that shot up his throat. Curling his lips back, he gritted his teeth and breathed through his mouth as he entered and paused a foot in.

A single bed with layers of old handmade quilts leaned up against the left wall. A little table stood by the head of it with an empty glass perched on top. A small antique dresser stood against the opposite wall with a vase of wilting red roses on top of it and a worn rug in the middle of the wooden floor. Potted shade-loving plants lined the edges of the walls. The room was otherwise bare of decoration and personality.

"Tiberius?" a weak voice called from the bed.

His throat rumbled in response. The disgust seeped from between his clenched teeth as the voice called out again, confused and a little put-off.

He stood back as Crystal approached the woman in the bed.

He didn't want to see Catherine. The smell of her made his stomach turn. Memories flashed through his mind and he clenched his paws into fists as his blood began to boil with rage.

"You." The accusation in that single word made Crystal flinch when she reached the side of the bed. "I didn't ask for you. I asked for Tiberius."

A snarl ripped through him as he rushed forward and pulled his mate away.

Crystal shouldn't have to face her, but he wanted to make sure Catherine knew her place.

He belonged with Crystal and only Crystal. Nothing Catherine said or did would ever change that.

You could at least be civil! he mentally raged as he pulled Crystal against him and smoothed his paw over her head.

Her heart was racing and when he peered down into her eyes, she wouldn't meet his gaze. His chest tightened.

Fucking witch!

Catherine gasped as he growled and pressed Crystal's face to his chest.

"Tiberius? Is that you?"

He growled as he looked down at her lying flat on her bed.

Catherine had been beautiful at one point, almost a mirror reflection of her father the last time Tiberius saw her, but now she was merely skin and bone waiting for Death to claim her. Skin stretched across protruding cheekbones. Sunken eyes ringed in shadows added to her skeletal appearance as her thin body was completely covered in quilts. No spark of life peered up through heavy lids as her brows knotted at the sight of him.

"Shift for me, baby," she said.

Crystal stiffened and Tiberius was ready to throw the witch against the wall. The rage within him surged forward with a roar that made the window rattle and Alexander to rush in.

The whimper in his arms snapped his attention back to his mate instead of the monster a few feet away.

His muscles relaxed and he pulled away, examining Crystal with his eyes and nose as her father huffed from the doorway.

"Honestly, son. If you can't check yourself—"

Tiberius cut him off with a sharp growl as Crystal's scrunched up face relaxed and the hurt that met him drew forth a whimper of apology. He pulled her gently to his chest and nuzzled her hair with his nose as he caressed her head with one paw and her back with the other.

I'm sorry, Beautiful. I didn't mean to hurt you or scare you. It's just... His throat rumbled in disgust. She has no fucking right to call me 'baby.' Ever.