Page 21 of Ruin & Desire
“Yes,”I answer, gripping his hand with certainty.It’swaiting. We step forward, side by sideandhearts joined, refusing to let darkness have the final word. Tonight,heno longerfacesthe monster alone. We are prepared. Trust is our armor, love our weapon. In the face of the coming stormof hell itself,togetherwe areenough.
Chapter eighteen
The Monster Unleashed
Lucien
“You’ve disobeyed the Crown,” the creature hisses as it stands at the threshold of chaos. Its silver mask gleams in the fractured torchlight, its posture fixed on me with predatory amusement. I can’t see its face, but I sense the curve of a cruel smile in the chill that settles between heartbeats. It’s a silent, patient promise of torment.
So this is the emissary they’ve sent.
The air vibrates with challenge, the castle itself listening as I bare my teeth.“Then come and takeme,”I snarl. My voice isvoice raw andthunderous,the words flung like a gauntlet at fate itself.
My defiance rings through the great hall, echoing off stone columns and shattered glass. Shadows flicker, recoiling and surging forward, drawn to conflict.The Serpent-Crown never refuses a challenge.
The emissary’s eyes glint, silver and merciless, as it lifts one elegant, death-pale hand,itsfingers curling in a gesture of command.
The darkness behind it swells, but it is not the gentle cloak of night; it moves with the weight of memory, a living thing crawling forth from the past. The air thickens, heavy and metallic, each breath filling my lungs with the acrid tang ofiron and smoke, damp earth,and old blood. The scent is unmistakable—thecottage,the place where everything I loved was unmade.
A shudder claws up my spine.“No.”The word is barely a whisper, but it is all I have. I stumbleback,mymuscles locked between fight and flight. Annabel’s hand finds mineand groundsme,her grip desperate and unyielding.
Her voice trembles as she asks,“What is it?”but I hear in her tone that shemightalready know.She is no stranger to pain or loss. Her courage is a lantern in the dark.
The floor splits open with a thunderous crack, ancient stone parting like the surface of a frozen lake shattering beneath sudden weight.
Black vines surge upward,aliveand feral,and looparound my legs, ribs,andthroat. They forma living cage, older and crueler than the thorns of my curse, andbite deep,with an authority that brooks no resistance. They are the chains of memory, the shackles of guilt.
The emissary’s words fall soft as silk and sharp as knives. “Remember,” it hisses.
The world fractures. Time collapses inward, dragging me down. I am no longer in the castlebutin the cottage again, the stench of bloodthickas fog.I am Lucien, husband, father, prince.Evangeline’s hand reaches for help that will not come. Grace lies unmoving, her lifeless form a wound thatwillnever heal. Thehorror is endless, looping. I try to inhale, but the airis full of screams. My ownscreams, ripped from somewhere deeper than voice or reason, the sound of a soulrendingin two.
The thorns beneath my skin do not grow. Theyerupt. Pain lances through bone and muscle as my body twists, transforming against my will.My horns lengthen, curling wider, monstrous.My claws thicken,myhands warping into claws that belong to nothing human.My vision stains red, rage and grief crashing together, obliterating everything but the hunger to destroy, to rend,andto escape the pain.
Annabel’s voice slices through the maelstrom.“Lucien!”Her scream is desperate, but it is a lifeline, a thread pulling me from the abyss.
The sound of my name tears through the storm in my mind. For a heartbeat, I am not only the Beast;I am still the man who loves her, who remembershermercy.
The emissary tilts its head, eyes narrowing with curiosity as if studying an experimentgoneawry.“Yes,”ithisses, hunger curling in its tone.“Become what you were meant to be.”
Pain devours thought. I am drowning, not slipping,submerged in annihilation. My claws slam into the stone, splinteringtheancient marble. The castlegroans,the roses outside shrieking,shadows cavort, eager for blood.
Annabel does not retreat. Her courage isreckless,incandescent. She steps forward, defiant against the storm.
“Annabel,RUN!”My voice is monstrousandsplintered, unrecognizable even to my own ears. But she does not run. Instead, her hands burn against my face, anchoring me to this moment, this body, this self I am losing.
“Look at me!”sheshouts,hervoice crisp and commanding, refusing to yield to terror. The bond between us detonates, white-hot, a sun flaring between agony and oblivion.
The emissary watches, its silver mask reflecting the firestorm of our struggle. “Interesting,” it murmurs, but the words are distant, irrelevant. Then it turns toward Annabel, louder, more in the now it exclaims, “Break him!”
The thorns surge, wild and ravenous,and tryto tear Annabel from me, to shatter the hope she brings.I lunge, desperate to destroy anything that threatens its dominion,even her. Especially her.
The emissary speaks again.“Embrace the finalityif becominga true Beast.It will be less painful.”Silence fills theroomthen it speaks again.“It will be easy,” it coaxes.
Terror floods me, real and visceral. I can’t stem the tide. I feel myself slipping, falling. No, I’m sinking into the darkness where the Beast reigns.
Annabel leans in, her forehead pressed to mine, her breath hot and trembling. Her voice softens, gentle as rain.“Iamhere.”
Three words. A shield against oblivion. The storm inside me falters, the Beast snarling in confusion. The curse recoils, wounded by hope. Hopeis apoison toitsdarkness, a force itcan’tunderstand,can’ttolerate.
