Chapter XII
Cassandra
Like an animal I buck wildly against the thick arms that ensconce me. My nails claw at their skin as I fight desperately to escape. Noises that I barely recognize as my own screech from my mouth and I thrash against the immovable body behind me. The townspeople cannot have me. I would rather die.
“Let go of me!” I scream.
I’m lifted higher off the ground, closer to my assailant’s chest, almost as a mother would cradle a babe. Through the untamed panic clouding my mind in a noxious fog, I recognize the presence. It’s like coming home. Izcacus.
My body immediately curls into him, seeking safety.
I cling to his jacket, needing to be as close as possible, yearning to crawl into his ribcage and shelter against the merciless storm.
I suddenly feel so very cold. Sobs tear through my throat like shattered glass as I begin the arduous process of coming down from the rush of adrenaline that flooded my body while I killed my husband.
I just killed a man in cold blood. My husband. I killed my husband.
“I’m a monster,” I quietly answer myself. But before I can spiral any further at the thought of what I’ve done or what that now makes me, Izcacus gently tilts my head so I’m forced to look into his familiar red eyes.
Confusion flickers across my face as my fingers lightly trace trails of blood streaming down his face. It’s as if he’s been crying.
“You are a goddess. I have never witnessed anything more utterly divine.”
I twist around to witness in its entirety the carnage I carved into Clayton’s flesh. This is the first time I’m seeing it with clear eyes, and I am disturbed by what I find. I panic, screaming at him to look at what I’ve done. Oh, god. What do I do now?
His body lies mangled, unrecognizable, shredded beneath my knife with blood splattered across the room in a hurricane of red. Human pulp oozes against the kitchen floor, a butcher shop peddling chunks of Clayton’s flesh. Despair sets in as I fully process what I’m seeing—it’s a crime scene.
Imagined shackles bite at my ankles. I’ll be locked away, or worse, sentenced to death. I haven’t earned my freedom at all.
I slump, utterly exhausted by the fight for my right to exist.
Izcacus gently returns me to the ground before kneeling before me. He holds my hands as he keeps me upright, my knees knocking together with tremors as I threaten to buckle under the weight of what I’ve done and what awaits me.
“I’m stupid. A stupid, foolish woman,” I cry in a whisper.
“No. You are a warrior. My warrior. Become my bride, Cassandra. Take me as yours, rule as my queen, and let me serve you, let me worship you from now until the end of the world. Let me be your beautiful nightmare—the monster you crave in the dark. You do not need me to save you, but let me offer you protection, a place to go.”
My blinks come rapidly, chest rising and falling frantically as I try to understand what he’s offering. Our hands entwine, and I focus on the way his finger caresses my skin. Izcacus’s gentle touch soothes me, like he’s returning my broken spirit to the world.
“You are the light to my eternal darkness, the sweetest dream, and although I told you that I would not be your savior, you became mine, breaking the chains of the endless loneliness that I thought I was destined to bear. Even if you do not ever claim me as yours, I shall always belong to you.”
My heart begins to break anew. How many years has he spent alone, haunting the cold halls of his castle? He craves connection, someone to love, someone to hold in his dark, empty crypt. The twisted connection that I feel for Izcacus is undeniable, as if there is a greater force binding us together.
I cannot stay purely for him.
I need to do it for myself.
There is a lot of uncertainty around the life Izcacus is offering.
Maybe it helps that he isn’t a man, but a monster with a penchant for both blood and kindness.
With him, there could be a future in which I no longer need to fear anything or anyone.
Maybe I can find a way to be like him—horrifying and monstrous, so we can belong to no one but each other. We could be a match made in hell.
The thought is seductive. To plunge further into darkness, into his violent world…
If it means being free instead of sentenced for the crimes I committed tonight, I will do anything.
And it’s not just that, I realize as I look at Izcacus kneeling before me, where he awaits my answer with his head bowed and neck exposed.
Somehow, this tender-hearted monster has broken through the chains wrapped around my heart and nestled himself inside.
“Yes, Izcacus. Yes. I’ll be your bride, your queen if that’s what you wish. But if you ever think to harm me, I’ll tear you apart with my own hands, and I’ll enjoy it. I’ll gut you and wear your viscera as a crown.”
Perhaps the adrenaline of killing a man has made me bolder, because I have never spoken so brutally or cruelly before.
But I make a vow to myself in this very moment: I will not let any man, or monster, hurt me ever again.
If I have to become a terrible force to make that true, then that’s what I will become.
“Good. A queen should be feared, even by her king. Now let us go home, my ferocious bride.”