Page 31 of Our Monstrous Hearts

Movement in the castle breaks my slumber—a sound too loud to be a stray animal. When I turn, my bones crack after resting like an unchanging corpse, and my nostrils flare as I catch the faint yet undeniable aroma of blood.

It has to be her. My divine love has returned.

My chest shakes as if I can still feel the echoes of my frozen heart beating. My hand quivers when I press it over my heart, checking to see if she has somehow managed to revive a long dead man.

The moon shines through the glass as I call the shadows hiding in the turret to my fingertips. Tendrils of them crawl up my arms, slithering around like whispers of black smoke as they consume my body. My vision blurs, darkness surrounding me as I become one with it and I concentrate on my destination—the center of my universe. I let the shadows envelop me until I arrive where I need to be.

The shadows retreat, curling back into the crevices where they belong, and my vision clears.

My world has returned.

Cassandra grins her bloody victory, a dark goddess perched on her throne, slick blood defiling the floor where she rests her bloody trophy—a decapitated head.

She greets me from where she lounges, impervious to the chilled air, clad only in her strength and beauty.

My eyes have never seen anything more beautiful, and if my heart could beat, it would thunder out of my chest from seeing the happiness that radiates from her. Her face I commit to memory, taking a second to immortalize this glorious moment.

Redness fills my eyes, blurring my sight, and I feel the wetness of tears splatter against my cheeks. I cry in joy, and satisfaction, that she has come into her strength.

I would say that Cassandra is ethereal, but even that word does not do her justice. No word in the human language can accurately summarize her beauty. She is everything. My everything.

Before her, I drop to my knees. “My queen.”

A lifetime will not be enough to give her everything she deserves, but I will try.

Chapter XXII

Cassandra

Izcacus falls to his knees, and I feel overwhelmed by the gratitude that I have for this lovable monster who saved me from my home. Izcacus would say that he didn’t save me, but he did. He saved me by showing me what it is to be loved, and to know kindness.

“Come here,” I command.

My still heart melts at the streaks of red streaming down his face. Pulling him close, I kiss him, raw and messy. The time apart has made us both ravenous. Breaking the kiss, he tenderly cups my cheek, resting his forehead against mine. My eyes flutter shut in peace.

I have found home.

“My love,” Izcacus murmurs. “Did you accomplish your task?”

I smile softly, kissing his palm. “I’m free.”

Izcacus lifts me, knocking over Myles’s head so it rolls down the stairs with wet thuds. My legs wrap around him as I greedily take everything he’s offering.

“I love you,” he rumbles.

“I love you too.”

The smile he gives me is wide, the biggest smile I’ve ever seen from him.

It’s a crazy kind of love, but it’s ours, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Epilogue

The Monster

The smell of sex and blood thrums through the air as the man screams. He desperately pulls on the ropes that bind him to the raised stone slab in the middle of the great hall. Moonlight streams through the stained glass windows, casting red shadows that dance with dark tendrils of smoke from the pillar candles that are clustered around the room.

Heated tension permeates through the hall as my eternal love straddles the restrained human, her breasts bouncing. I bite back a groan. It is not desire that drives her onto him, but fury, and the need to enact justice upon an evil man. To rid this world of someone who does not deserve life.