Chapter Twenty-Three #2
The front door was unlocked, the electric lights cold and dark.
Lyssa made her way down the hall, climbing over boxes that looked like they had been dragged out of the parlor and half organized before being abandoned.
As though Alderic had begun going through the things he had collected throughout his long life and had been overwhelmed by the task.
Stop it, she scolded herself. Stop thinking about him. It’ll only make your job harder. Think of the Beast and what it did to Eddie, instead.
Shove the rest down deep.
You can break later.
The last door on the right opened onto an iron staircase that spiraled down into darkness.
Lyssa felt her way carefully down the steps, gripping the cold railing so tightly that when she reached the bottom, it took a moment to convince her hand to uncurl.
She stood now before another door, this one made of reinforced metal.
It, too, was unlocked, and opened onto another door, another layer of protection against the Beast’s escape.
Lyssa thought of the manor’s outer walls, taller than any living thing could jump, the tops lined with spikes just in case.
The forest full of thorned trees to ward away trespassers.
As if Alderic wanted to ensure that he would never kill anyone again.
If only he had done that sooner, she thought bitterly.
The second door opened onto what looked like a dungeon—complete with shackles on the walls and drains in the floor, just as Alderic had said all those weeks ago.
He was fiddling with one of the shackles, his back to her. He flinched at the screech of the door being opened, and when he turned and saw Lyssa, his face brightened. She was surprised by how much it hurt, the slash of his smile cutting deeper than any blade.
Then his face fell, the smile dying on his lips. “You’re early,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to watch me transform.”
Her traitorous heart ached to see how awful he looked, with dark bruises beneath his bloodshot eyes, as if he hadn’t slept since they’d parted.
“The timing isn’t exact,” she reminded him stiffly. But she had hoped the same thing—it was harder, seeing him like this, knowing what was about to happen. What she was about to do to him.
He won’t look like Alderic when you do it, she told herself. He’ll be the Beast, and there will be no more doubt in your mind.
“I know you said not to make it easy on you,” Alderic told her, gesturing to the shackles on the wall.
“But I want to die knowing I did no harm to my savior. Hate me for that, if you want. You already hate me plenty, so what’s one more item added to the list of my transgressions?
” He laughed weakly, and she realized with a start that he was nervous.
“They’re magic,” he said in a breathless rush.
“It took me centuries to find someone capable of forging something that could contain the Beast. A man with faerie blood in his veins made them for me, down in Dansk. At least, he said he had faerie blood. I don’t know if it’s true.
But what does it matter? It’s partly because of him that I haven’t killed anyone since Buxton Fields.
I…” He shook his head, as though he realized that he was rambling, then nodded at the sword strapped to her back. “Is that it, then?”
“Yes.”
“May I … see it?”
Wordlessly, she unsheathed the sword and held it out on the palms of her hands for him to inspect.
Alderic shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself; he looked like he was going to be sick. Once, Lyssa had wanted him to be afraid of her. Had felt unsettled by the fact that he wasn’t. Now, his fear was like a physical pain in her heart.
“It’s not as beautiful as your knives,” he said softly.
“Embellishment didn’t seem … appropriate.” She hesitated, knowing she shouldn’t ask but unable to help herself. “Alderic?”
His eyes darted to hers. “Yes?”
“Why did you buy me that house?”
The corner of his lips curved up. “Because of the way your face looked, when we were there. Like you would give anything to stay a minute longer.” He dropped his gaze back to the sword.
“If it’s too painful for you to live there, you can sell it or rent it.
And don’t worry about Mrs. Jensen and her daughter. I paid them handsomely to relocate.”
“Of course you did.” She sheathed the sword that would end his life, and his shoulders sagged, as if it was a relief to not have to look at it. “We don’t have much time left,” she told him, and his eyes widened with panic.
“Wait,” he said. “Before I change, I want you to know…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t remember that night. The circus, I mean.”
“Alderic, don’t,” she breathed, dismayed. The idiot was going to make this even more difficult for her. But he plunged ahead, his voice rushed and stammering, and for some reason, she didn’t stop him.
“I am not … conscious of myself, when I am the Beast. The first solstice after I was cursed, I woke up in the forest outside the palace covered in blood and pillow-down. I stumbled home, with no memory of what had happened, to find the entire court in an uproar. I had slaughtered the girl I had slept with the night before. I had been cursed in front of everyone, you see, at a banquet in my honor, and it became a sort of … game … to see who might be able to break it before the next turn of the seasons. But after that first death…” His expression was wretched.
“All of us—myself included—realized how dangerous I actually was.”
“Alderic, you don’t have to—” Lyssa started, but he shook his head.
“Please. I didn’t think it would matter—it’s not going to change anything—but now that you’re here, I … I want you to know the truth, before I die.”
She didn’t want to. She was tired of revelations, of feeling her black-and-white world dissolve into gray around her. But he looked so desperate, so hopeless. So, she gave a curt nod, and he continued.
“My family planned to hide at Bellgaard until it all blew over, but weeks turned into months and things only got worse. The girl I had killed was the daughter of one of the king’s most trusted advisors, and her family wanted my head.
The king, after a time, agreed that I should pay for her death with my own.
My father and Desmond were inclined to hand me over in exchange for their own absolution.
Desmond had a promising military career to think of, and couldn’t afford for his name to be dragged through the mud alongside mine.
My father had clawed his way to power and was not eager to relinquish it over his disappointment of a second son.
” A tear rolled down Alderic’s cheek, and he wiped it away absently.
“I was haunted by what I had done, despite being unable to remember it. But I was afraid. The king’s methods of execution were not exactly humane, so I …
I tried to take the coward’s way out. It was only when I watched my wrists heal themselves as I sat in a bathtub full of my own blood that another aspect of the curse revealed itself to me.
“When I told my father, he was furious. I had denied him the only way to save face with the king. But Desmond was a brutal warrior, and became convinced that he would be able to kill me. So, when the next equinox came, he tied me to my bed and waited for the transformation to occur, sword in hand, ready to run me through. Except, the moment I became the Beast, I snapped the ropes he had bound me with.” He drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, wiping away another tear.
“Later, my father told me that I had eviscerated my brother so thoroughly that he was unrecognizable. You would think I would remember doing something so hideous, but I don’t.
I came back to myself the next morning, with flames eating my skin as Bellgaard burned around me. ”
He wrapped his arms tighter around himself, his gaze fixed on the stone floor.
“My father was the one who destroyed the evidence of what I was. Every record he could get his hands on, every confession I made, every court document detailing my various executions. All he cared about was our reputation. It didn’t matter to him that I wanted to be held accountable for what I had done.
It would be too much of a stain on the family name.
After he died, I realized that confessions didn’t matter, anyway, unless they led to justice.
So, I took matters into my own hands, instead.
” He drew in a shaky breath. “The circus was Henrik’s idea—the …
the man in the stripes. I hired him to kill me and he ended up discovering the truth.
Decided to help me meet my end, in exchange for everything I owned.
I should have known the cage wouldn’t hold me, but I was desperate, and he was certain that it would work.
I had tried a thousand other methods, and I thought maybe—” His eyes flew to meet hers, and widened in fear.
“Alderic?” Lyssa took a step toward him, and he doubled over in pain, a scream ripping from his throat.
It was happening. He was turning. She had been so transfixed by his story that she had forgotten how little time they had left.
He screamed again, and the dungeon echoed with the sound of cracking bone. “Put me in the chains,” he gasped. “I don’t want … to hurt … Fuck!” he cried.
It was too late. His lips peeled back, his teeth lengthening into fangs, his jaw cracking to fit the curve of the tusks now jutting from it.
His body bent at unnatural angles as it grew, and his clothing seemed to melt into thick hide before fur unspooled from it, the shape of the man Lyssa knew blurring and stretching as he became the Beast that Lyssa had sworn to kill.