Tempted By Monstrous Lovers

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

THE ESCAPE

Dead leaves and sharp twigs dug into the soles of Sylvi’s tattered slippers, piercing the soft skin around her ankles and between her toes.

The cool, damp air had long since seeped into her flesh during her days traversing the Wretched Woods beneath the mountains.

Had she not lived among the snowy peaks her whole life, she might have succumbed to the persistent ache in her limbs and cold in her lungs, but her years smothered beneath heaps of snow and ice made her hardy enough to survive the unforgiving forest during her desperate escape.

Or, she supposed, what remained of the forest.

Sylvi staggered to a stop and propped herself against the trunk of a dying pine, chest heaving.

Her hands trembled, and her stomach growled in persistent protest. The escape hadn’t been planned.

She hadn’t squirreled away provisions or worn practical shoes.

Bone-deep fear had inspired her miserable run from an impending wedding and wandering hands.

Somehow, despite the lack of planning, she had managed to not only survive the wilds, but also the relentless pursuit of her betrothed’s guard.

Her nose wrinkled at the thought of her supposed husband-to-be. Viggo. A handsome man with cold, violent hands who wanted to conquer the continent one massacred clan at a time. She’d rather perish in the cursed lands of Espa Brus than suffer a life chained to him any longer.

The early rays of sunrise spiked through the gnarled remains of the forest ahead, and Sylvi pulled in deep breaths as she slumped against the pine.

A decade prior, she had ridden through this same forest with her father filled to the brim with fear of the keep nestled along the coast of the fjord beyond the forest. Now?

Well, now she willingly ran to that very place.

Because if everything had gone to plan all those years ago, the land wouldn’t be dying. If she had married the cursed boy from the forests, the mountains wouldn’t have been conquered by morally corrupt vermin like Viggo and his miserable family.

If the entirety of the royal family hadn’t been slaughtered by the very demon they made, everything would be different.

If her father hadn’t forced her to leave Elias behind—

Sylvi gripped the crumbling bark, wincing as splinters dug beneath her nails, and forced the thoughts of if only away. Thinking that way would not erase what had already been taken. The only thing to do now was attempt to understand what had happened in Espa Brus all those years ago.

With her bottom lip between her teeth, Sylvi dug into the well of magic within her bones and allowed it to flood into the pine.

The trees up on the mountain had been full of life still, but this one wasn’t dying as she previously believed.

It was dead. The further from the mountain she ran, and the closer she traveled toward the hold of the fallen royal family, the less life she found in the trees.

The energy from the trees had been the only thing keeping her alive in her mad escape, and now that resource was gone.

The silver lining—if there could be one—was the surrounding death meant she was almost to the keep. Her dread at the distance between herself and her destination was almost heavier than the cold burrowing into her bones.

Sylvi focused on the terrain ahead. The aftermath of a landslide gave her a clear view of an old road below through the broken trunks and splintered timber.

Most merchants never traveled through Espa Brus anymore, and the path had long since been overtaken with fallen tree limbs.

But beyond that road, she would see the coast and ocean inlets.

Castle Mourem, the old seat of the former royal line, would loom like a giant beside the water.

All she had to do was make it there. Back to the place where her last happy memories lingered in stone corridors and courtyard gardens.

“Oi! I see her. Just there! Arve, the bitch is in the trees.”

“Drat.” Sylvi glanced over her shoulder, only to be greeted by the bobbing flames of magic in the distance.

Unfortunately for her, Viggo’s clan possessed powerful fire magic, which was uniquely effective against the plant magic she’d inherited from her mother.

It also gave them unlimited access to light, and she so desperately needed the dark.

She’d lost them a few times over the past days, but they always found her again.

Arve, Viggo’s brother and commander of his personal guard, would never let her rest.

Quick, hard footfalls in dead leaves forced her away from the pine and into a staggering run down the slope heading closer to the fallen keep.

The pursuit had gone on for several nights, and she’d had yet to experience the blissful relief of a moment’s rest. Fatigue pulled at her limbs, and an endless ache hung deep in her chest. What remained of her wedding gown hung in tatters at her knees and her golden hair had long since darkened with mud and grime.

Her stomach cramped with a hunger so fierce that magic from the earth would no longer sustain her, and the little rainwater gifted by the sky had left her thirsty for more.

The only instinct driving Sylvi forward was the hopeless yearning for something better. If she only ran faster, tried harder, perhaps things could be different. Perhaps she would find answers at the castle.

Maybe Elias wasn’t dead.

If she didn’t make it, she would only have a life tied to Viggo and his horde of fire magicians to look forward to. That miserable existence wouldn’t be much of a life at all.

“Idiot woman,” the sharp voice of Arve called out. “The dead of Espa Brus cannot save you!”

Heat scorched the backs of her legs and the ground shook beneath her feet.

Weakened by hunger and exhaustion, Sylvi stumbled and pitched forward.

Her face smashed against the ground, pushing forest undergrowth between her chapped lips, and her torso twisted painfully.

She rolled in a furious heap down a knotted, root-turned hill, body smashing into exposed rocks and felled tree limbs.

Agony splintered down her arms as she clawed at the ground. It wasn’t until her body caught nothing but air that she gained clarity, and even then, she could do nothing until her form crashed into the ground again, finally still against flat earth.

Stunned and disoriented, Sylvi pawed at the dew-covered grass. The roll down the hill likely bought her some time as Arve and his partner took careful, measured steps to chase her down, but the time gained was vanishing the longer she lay helpless.

“Where did you go, Lady Sylvi?” Arve called out. “Stop this foolish waste of my time.”

Dazed, she pushed herself from the ground. Sharp, fiery pain shot up her left arm, and she cradled it close.

“Lady Sylvi…” Arve taunted, voice pitched into a song. “Lady Sylvi, my brother awaits you. What sort of wife leaves her husband on their wedding day?”

With tears pricking her eyes, she spun on panicked feet, frantically searching for the looming keep she knew stood close—

There.

Her heart stuttered as the stone crags of the ancient gates parted the thick fog rolling through the fjord.

Tall and adorned with rusted pikes, it still took her breath away, just as it had the first time she saw it at nine years old.

Castle Mourem echoed her home in the mountains insofar that it was a beastly thing made of stone and iron, but instead of being nestled in ice and snow, the bulk of it partially bathed in the water of the inlet.

Once the home of thick ivy and families of seagulls, the residence now sat lifeless, no greenery to be seen.

The still waters of the sea lay beyond it, a dreary backdrop to an already despondent place.

Blood flooded her mouth and dripped from her lips.

The desire to reach the keep, to survive without Viggo, gave her the strength to keep moving when all she wanted was rest. She ignored the burn in her arm as it jostled against her side.

A broken arm wouldn’t much matter if she were caught.

The humiliating trip back to the mountains, the nights trapped beside—or under—Viggo in his cold bed, would pale in comparison to the pain she felt now.

Reaching the castle became something more than hope as she cleared the last line of dead, gnarled trees.

Haloed by the rising sun, the dark and forbidden castle of her memories became more clear.

No red banners hung from the parapets, and the once-bustling town around it lay in shambles, charred skeletons of a time since past in a kingdom that had fallen to a curse no one understood.

The dissonance between her memories and her reality would have brought her to her knees another time, but in the present, she had no choice but to push ahead.

Run, run, run.

Heat brushed the backs of her legs. A ball of fire crashed into the forgotten, rotted remains of a house’s frame. Wood exploded around her. Shards of splintered pine cut into her ankles, biting into the soft, exposed skin. She stumbled, regained her balance, and continued, pushing toward the gate.

Her vision clouded. Were these to be her last moments? Even so, Sylvi found herself strangely detached. Like a puppet on a string, she was powered by a master greater than pain. Fear guided her now, pulling her legs up and down and up again—

—Until her strings were cut.

Sharp agony bit into her palms as they collided with debris-covered cobblestone, and a resounding crack filled her ears.

She might’ve screamed, but the pain shooting up her arm kept her from hearing it.

Flames batted ever so closely to her face, beckoning her closer in a bid to end the misery eating her alive.

“Oh, hells. We’re going to give her back to Viggo broken.” Now that they were closer, she recognized the second voice: Tor—Viggo’s cousin. “He’s going to be furious.”

“Bones heal, you fuckwit.” Arve bit out. “Sylvi, you wretched woman, stop this nonsense.”

Sylvi heard the footsteps behind her, but she couldn’t stop. She pushed to her knees and crawled toward the gate, dragging her weary form along the overgrown cobblestones. The dead grass before her erupted into flame, and she froze before it with a quivering chin.

“If we bring her back broken and burnt, Viggo will have our heads! You might be his damned brother, but I have no such protection.” Tor’s voice, shrill and panicked, echoed in the empty expanse around them. “She’s the last of her line. Sylvi’s magic ends with her. Viggo—”

“Exactly, Tor. She’s the last.” Arve scoffed. “It’s better to bring her back broken and burnt than never bring her back at all then, isn’t it?”

“I dunno. I just think you could be more careful—”

“Fine, you useless idiot. I’ll grab the bitch and we’ll get to go home.”

The fire billowed before her, the final obstacle before the remains of the gate. If she crawled through, she would burn. If she turned away, if she left the castle and marched back to Viggo, she would still die. One way or another, she would never live again.

A shadow fell over her and booted feet emerged in her periphery. Fingers tangled in her hair and yanked, giving her no choice but to look at the man holding her head aloft. Arve, with his painted face and shorn scalp, stared back.

“You’ve put me through days of trouble, Sylvi.

” His light eyes, stark against the black paint smeared across them, sent a bolt of resignation through her.

Arve looked so much like Viggo, especially in his hatred, it made her stomach churn.

“What did you think you’d do, eh? Find salvation in a haunted castle? ”

She inhaled deep. “I’d hoped.”

“Death lingers here. No salvation to be found.” Arve shook her just enough to send a bite through the hair at her temples. “Two steps closer and you would’ve belonged to the Demon of Espa Brus.”

“Perhaps the Demon of Espa Brus is a fate easier to stomach.”

“Perhaps you’re a stupid woman.” Arve released her hair. “I ought to do my brother a favor, I think.”

“And kill me?”

“Maybe. Sounds a bit too simple though.” Arve pressed his booted foot into her chest, easily sending her battered body to the ground once more. “Maybe something more…thorough.”

The warmth of the fire touched her scalp. It was so close. So, so close. All she would need to do is heave herself back just a few inches and she could be free of all of this. Of Viggo and Arve. Of her dying mountain and the endless famine.

Of her relentless guilt for her family’s abandonment of the monster boy in the cage the fateful night everything changed.

Arve stepped closer, heedless of the growing flames. He reached forward, fingers outstretched and curled, seeking her throat. “Now, hold still—”

“Goddess save us! It’s the demon!” Tor cried. “Arve—”

A sharp, frantic scream rent the surrounding fog. Arve jerked back, eyes wide as blood streaked across the bridge of his nose and along his throat. A hulking shadow, a malevolent mountain much like her home, hung over Arve, looming.

Fire erupted in Arve’s palm as the shadow grew taller still.

A man she believed she’d never see again darted between her and her captor.

Horns. Hair like blood.

The last image to grace her consciousness was that of Arve’s head separating from his neck.

And she smiled right as the world went dark.