“Marry my niece!” Montoni laughed without humor. “I think we’re past that, don’t you? No, monsieur. This will leave your inheritance to me. You will not see a penny.”
I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, glaring at him. “Fine. I’ll sign.”
Montoni lifted an eyebrow. He stepped forward and handed me the document.
I signed it and threw the pen back at him.
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” Montoni said, retrieving the pen and pocketing the document. He turned to walk down the staircase. “Enjoy your meal, nephew.”
“Uncle?” Henri called, voice rising.
Montoni paused on the stairs and glanced back at us. “I never said I’d let you go if this was signed. But I appreciate your cooperation, marquis.” He laughed at my stunned face. “Enjoy your final week.” He continued down a step before turning to us once more. “Oh, and if you find yourself wishing for a friendly face, you need only look out your window.”
He disappeared from sight, and we listened as he locked the turret door, trapping us inside together.
I turned to meet Henri’s eyes. They swam with tears, but he tried for a smile, even during this unspeakable time. The boy who now held my heart, after such a painstaking journey to unravel all of his secrets, who in a week would destroy me through no fault of his own.
“I’m sorry, Emile,” he choked out, running a hand across my cheek. “I’m so, so sorry. I thought I’d be able to get you to safety, yet I’ve only made things worse. Again. Maybe that’s my real curse. Never being good enough to save the day.”
“Stop that,” I ordered him, slapping his hand away. “We’ve been in bad situations before.”
“But this is so much worse, Emile. I can’t … I won’t be reasoned with when I change. I’ll …” He swallowed hard, his eyes watery. “Emile, I …”
I shook my head, unable to speak. We would find a way out of this situation. Wehadto.
I got to my feet and stumbled over to the sole window in the room and gripped the bars fastened there. The blue sky and the mountains seemed to mock me from my prison before my eyes fell on something just outside the window. A pike peeked up from a neighboring rampart with something run through it.
A cry caught in my throat, and Henri was beside me in an instant, holding me as we gazed out over the ghastly sight together.
A head was perched atop the pike, its barbed end sticking out cruelly from its skull at an angle. Its eyes were rolled up in its head, its mouth hanging open, revealing a bloated, purple tongue. But even in this state, I recognized the face of the man staged before us like some ungodly totem.
It was Bram.
The only respite from the cold, claustrophobic prison we occupied was that single window to the east, but I couldn’t peer through it, no matter how much I needed a glimpse of blue sky, a sliver of hope, for the mocking head of my former suitor awaited me there.
When I closed my eyes, I still saw it, the gleaming bone dangling from his neck, the skin torn from where it had been rent from the rest of his body, much like that hand I’d found on my first week at Château le Blanc. It must have been a horrible, painful death, and I hadn’t been conscious to even offer him some comfort with my presence. He’d died alone in a vain attempt to aid me, a man who didn’t even return his affections as before.
Guilt and pain ate away at me so that I almost didn’t mind the fact that in just a few more days, I would be murdered by my other suitor. At least then I wouldn’t keep imagining my friend’s final agonizing moments.
I could only hope that, at the very least, Annette had escaped.
Henri tried forcing his way out from the turret, changing into a half-wolf, half-human monstrosity with chocolate-brown fur, and using his sizable strength, but it wasn’t enough. The door could have been a part of the stone wall itself for all it moved.
I sighed as he climbed the stairs up to me once more, looking defeated. Even covered in fur, I could tell how he was feeling.
“How can you stand to look at me?” he asked after he transformed back into his human self from the half-wolf. “I’m monstrous. And now you see how truly monstrous I am. I never exaggerated that point.”
I put a hand to his shoulder, smiling lightly as I looked up at him, my brave, tortured boy. “It’s only when you’ve treated me poorly that you’ve been a monster, Henri.”
Henri looked away. “I … I know. And I will regret those moments of weakness for the rest of my life. Long after …” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I will be better.”
“I know you will.”
“But Emile, I cannot vanquish the beast. The actual beast that lives in my bones and my muscle. It will not be denied on the full moon.”
“I don’t suppose the lunar goddesses will have any say?”
“The lunar goddesses laugh at our pain and misfortune.” Henri scowled. “They are like all gods, fickle and careless. They did this to my family, then left, probably never thinking of us again.”
