Chapter one
The Confession
Lucien
They whisper about me in taverns and parlors, in candlelit halls where courage is easy because I am not there to hear it—the Beast, the cursed prince, the ruin that stalks the forest. They tell themselves I am a fable, even question if I am real. They fear me even though they do not know for sure what I am. Is it really me they fear, or just the unknown?
It’s me they should fear. Of that, I am sure.
But I am no story or fairytale, no charmed prince who is handsome or kind. I am horns, claws, and a shadow made from rotting flesh. I am darkness and pain, and my heart is dead.
I was not cursed by some shimmering enchantress. No, my curse grew from within me and me alone. The curse that pulses through my veins was born. It grew from despair and rot the night I lost my family.Evangeline. Grace. Their names prick my thoughts like thorns on a vine. My beautiful wife and daughter.My sun and my star. My light and my life. Without them, I am nothing. Without them, I truly am the Beast they all fear.
I remember that fateful night as if it were yesterday. How can one not remember the one night when their whole world burns and their life becomes nothing but ash.
I did as they asked.They had takenmy family:my wife,Evangeline,andour precious daughter,Grace.I did not know why or where they were being held, but I wasdesperateand did what theyaskedme. Who had taken them, I did not know. At the time,I did not care.Itdid notmatter.All that matteredto mewas the return of my family, mylife.
I paid the ransom they had demanded,thrustmy goldinto uncaring hands.They gave medirections toasecretcottage in the woods.When I arrived, I did not hesitate.I did not knock.Itore the cottage door from its hinges with desperate hope clawing at my insides. But hope died the instant I saw them. The sightof their lifeless bodiesscorched everything human fromwithinme. Evangeline lay sprawled and ruined upon the blood-stained floor, her body bearing marks of unspeakable violence. Her wristswerebound, her face bruised, but even in death,her hand reached blindly for our daughter. Grace, my radiant little girl, lay beside her mother, her chest unmoving,herlips blue,and hercurls tangled around her still face. The echo of her laughter, once the music of our home, was lost in the silenceof her death, snuffed out forever.
Grief wracked my body with savageintensity;it felt as though the darkness inside me was tearing itself free, desperate to be known. My bones twisted and cracked as horns erupted from my skull,jaggedand gnarled, branching upward like the limbs of a cursed tree forced through poisoned soil.
My hands spasmed,ligaments and tendonssplitting and stretching until wicked claws burst from my fingertips, eacha talon shaped by agony. Fire seared through my chestlikea merciless inferno as thorns drove themselves into my heart. Each stabbing pain anchoredmytorment deeper,until it tookrootand bloomedsuffering with every beat.
My sobs were guttural, half human, half animal. They echoed through the ruined cottage until even the shadows recoiled.
Lucien, the lovinghusband, father,andbelovedprinceof thekingdom,was obliterated in that moment, consumed entirely by grief so profound,itshattered every piece of me that was ever gentle or good.Lucien,the man,died onthatfloor. Lucien,the Beast, rose in his place,born from devastation, forged in the horror of loss, and left to howl in a world emptied of love.
Not only was I transformed, butso waseverything around me.Every ounce of happiness or pleasure was lost to me. Mycastle,my home thathadoncebeena place of joy and beauty,becamenothing buta corpse of stone, saturated with my curse and grief. The towers loom above the forest like broken bones, their spirescracked and veined with creeping ivy that never flowers. Its walls do not merely stand; they shudder and moan with the weight of sorrow, breathing in tandem with my anguish.
In the dead hoursof the night, the corridors twist and shift,creatingalabyrinth aliveandpulsing,like intestines in a giant’s belly.Sometimes theyfoldin on themselves,so every step brings disorientation and dreadfor all who dwell here. Doors never obey; they groan open only when theychooseand slamshut on a whim, sealing rooms in perpetual gloom. The windows leak shadows instead of light, and moonbeams paint the floors with shifting patches of cold silver. Everywhere, the portraits of my ancestors hang, their colors faded to bruises, each painted mouth gaping in a silent scream whenever the moon wanes.
Their suffering echoes my own.
But the roses, they are the curse’s cruelest joke above all else. They climb the walls and spill through shattered windows, blooming redder than blood, their petals slick and wet as fresh wounds. Their beauty is intoxicating, and it draws people in. But once they get close, their thorns twitch and gnash like rows of hungry teeth writhing in anticipation. These monstrous flowers crave trespassers, their roots thriving on fear and flesh. And I, the broken prince, the Beast, allow them to feed with every soul foolish enough to cross my threshold. And worse, I don’t only allow it; I thrive on it.
Over the last fifteen years, many have become lost here, entranced by the deadly allure of the grounds,only to never leave again.
Yes, I am cursed.Andthe most damning truth isthatat one time,I longed to be freeofthe curse.But the longer I am left to wallow in my eternal damnation, the less I want to be free.
I will never be free, for there is nothing on this earth that has theabilitytoreleaseme from this hell.
Chapter two
The Bargain
Lucien
The forest awakens me, pulling me from the thin grasp of sleep with a violence that unsettles even my monstrous heart. Branches within shiver and sigh, leaves whispering as if warning me of what crawls beneath their cover. Tonight, the ash falls heavier than ever, swirling in choking clouds that blanket every surface in a pall of decay. My roses, ever vigilant, hiss their warning, petals quivering and thorns rattling like the bones of restless ghosts.
Something is wrong. Thecastlethrums with a dark, hungry pleasure, its stones vibrating beneath me, eager and impatient. I know the reason before I rise from mybed: someone has daredbreachthe boundaryof my castle.Excitementand anticipationempowersme.We have an intruder.
I can sense him. I can smell himeven before I see or hear him. His scent is sharp, a discordant melody that cuts through the damp air. I smell the burning lantern oil, the sour tang ofsweat, and something desperate, frantic, like the coppery taste of fear.I grin with anticipation as itbounces offthe walls, winding through the corridorsandwormingits way into my lungs with every breath. I feel his heartbeat echoing through the stones, each thud betraying his panic as hestumbles deeper into my domain. He does not belonghere,yet he advances, driven by some foolish hope or need that blinds him to the danger coiled aroundhim.
As I stalktowardhim through the twisting passages, suspense coilstightlywithin me.He plucks a single rose, andI taste the arrogance of his trespass, the bitter thrill of his theft.He toremy rosefromthe bed where it feasted on grief andsilence,its roots steeped in centuries of sorrow. I can almost hear its scream as the stemis ripped free, a cry that awakens my hunger and ignites my fury. Why has he come? Is it for love,a promise, or simply greed? Does he know what price such a theft demands?
The forest, sensinghistrespass, grows hostileandtightensits grip. Branches twist and entwine,androots buckle the earth beneath his feet, threatening to swallow him whole. The very air thickenswith dread. The gates, ancient and merciless, rise from the ground like ribs wrenched from a dying beast. Black iron vines writhe and knot together, forming a cage that closes around him with finality. He istrapped,a trembling animal caught in the jaws of my curse. Suspense hangsheavyfor him, for me,and especiallyfor the roses that thirst forhisblood.
At the core of it all, I linger, waiting patiently at the heart of the darkness he now can’t escape.
