Waiting for the mercy of death, because living like this, without her, without hope, without anything but rage and despair and the crushing weight of my own monstrosity, is worse than any poison, any wound, any death could ever be.
I am the monster in her story. And monsters don't get happy endings.
The bond suddenly flares to life, bright and burning and furious. I lift my head, confused, my massive body tensing. What—
I'm coming for you.
Her voice, down the bond, filled with rage and murder and something that might be betrayal.
I'm coming, and you better be ready. You better have a damn good explanation for why you abandoned me. For why you let them take me and did nothing.
Abandoned her? Let them take her? I nearly died. I did everything I could—
Because when I find you, I'm going to kill you too.
The bond pulses with her fury, her pain, her absolute conviction.
And for the first time in months, I feel something other than despair.
Terror.
She's coming. My Adelaide is coming, and she thinks I abandoned her? She thinks I left her there on purpose? I surge to my feet, my wings spreading despite their tattered state. I have to explain. I have to make her understand. I have to—
But what can I say? What explanation could possibly be enough?
I didn't protect her. That's the truth. I failed her when she needed me most.
And now she's coming to kill me.
Maybe that's what I deserve. Maybe that's the ending this story always needed.
The monster, slain by the princess he tried to keep.
Justice, at last.
I wait in the ruins of my castle, my massive body trembling, my heart pounding in my chest like a war drum.
She's coming.
And I don't know if I'll fight back or let her end this.
I don't know if I want to live or die.
I only know that I'll see her again, one last time.
And maybe that's enough.
Maybe that's all a monster like me deserves.
CHAPTER 13
THE PRINCESS
The bond pulls like a fishhook lodged in my stomach, dragging me forward through another endless forest. Three weeks. Three weeks of following this cursed thread that connects me to him, sleeping in ditches and hollow trees, eating whatever I can forage or steal from villages I pass through like a ghost. My feet bleed through my stolen boots. My dress, the one I put on after killing Benedict, hangs in tatters.
I should have died a dozen times over. Should have frozen in the mountain pass. But I didn't die. I couldn't. Because this thing inside me, this connection I never asked for, won't let me rest until I find him.
Until I kill him.
