Page 30 of Our Monstrous Hearts

“Come on, Myles, I haven’t finished.”

Bones crack between my hands as I tear his arms apart and they splinter like dry wood. His body convulses, twitching violently, and I wrench flesh from bone as Myles takes his final breath. My teeth chew through gristle, shredding muscle into ribbons. As I go, pulling him apart, I drink in his warm blood, which spills down my throat and chin, coating my chest in rusty slickness.

Deadwood Forest pulses a neon scarlet glow.

An idea starts to form.

Collecting his arms and shoving back organs that have sloshed out onto the soil, I grab his leg and begin to walk in the direction of Rose Falls.

It doesn’t take me long to reach the entrance, even with the moon hidden from sight. I belong to the darkness now.

Laying Myles out, I use my knife to sever his legs, throwing them and his entrails out so that the town can see what has become of him.

I saw through his neck, severing muscle and fat until bone fractures.

His head rolls onto the dirt with a thud.

His congealing blood oozes from the open wound, covering the soil in a deluge of gore.

“I curse you, Rose Falls. Only your sins will keep you company as hunger knocks at your door, and your shadows will haunt you until bones crumble to dust. This crown of wrath will be your undoing.”

I slip off my ruined nightgown, leaving it beside Myles’s remains. With his head in hand, I walk back to the castle, ready to begin my new life. A free woman.

Chapter XXI

The Monster

Waiting for Cassandra to return feels like torture. Like I’ve been shackled by my wrists to hang and bleed, suffering every minute without reprieve for eternity.

Each second drags as I wander the halls of our home like a ghost without purpose—aimless, mind-numbed, left only to exist.

When my bride left, she took all color with her. My world is now shades of melancholy and desolation.

Cassandra is strong and vicious; I do not worry for her or what she sets out to do. She will become even stronger when she believes in herself, if she does not already. Cassandra will be unstoppable.

With this belief, I am sure that she will return. It feels like torture to wait, but I would suffer for her endlessly. She is worthy of my death.

With Cassandra’s presence, the castle feels alive, as if it has been returned to its golden glory—those days when splendor followed a royal court. Now, with candles refusing to stay lit, stony hallways darken. Every room is a crypt, the air damp and choked with misery.

Even I felt alive with her.

The rain pours hard, hammering angrily against the grandly arched window as I stare into the foggy distance.

A thick, grey mist engulfs the surrounding woods, rendering the towering trees of Deadwood Forest invisible. The weather joins me in mourning her absence. It is a wonder that I have managed to survive this long without her.

In the tallest tower of the castle, the cold air pierces through the cracks of stone and the turret gently sways, dangerously high into the sky. The wind whistles. This is the place where I come to feel my mortality. Against the sky, I am but a man again. Sometimes, this reminder is cruel and stark. Other times, it is comforting to know there is a force greater than me.

The window opens with a creak, metal grazing against stone. From this height, as I stare down with rain and wind pelting my skin, I cannot see the ground.

I picture the last queen of this castle standing in this same arch, pausing before she throws herself from the tower into the grim fog, free-falling to her demise. Stories say she did so because she could not be with her lover.

Until now, I never understood her choice. But if something steals Cassandra from me—if something prevents me from being with her—I will choose the same.

A life without her is no life I want.

It could be hours or days before she returns. I do not know.

All I do is wait.