Ruin & Desire (Thorne Chronicles #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

The Confession

Lucien

They whisper about me in taverns and parlors, in candlelit halls where courage is easy because I am not there to hear it—the Beast, the cursed prince, the ruin that stalks the forest. They tell themselves I am a fable, even question if I am real.

They fear me even though they do not know for sure what I am.

Is it really me they fear, or just the unknown?

It’s me they should fear. Of that, I am sure.

But I am no story or fairytale, no charmed prince who is handsome or kind. I am horns, claws, and a shadow made from rotting flesh. I am darkness and pain, and my heart is dead.

I was not cursed by some shimmering enchantress.

No, my curse grew from within me and me alone.

The curse that pulses through my veins was born.

It grew from despair and rot the night I lost my family.

Evangeline. Grace. Their names prick my thoughts like thorns on a vine.

My beautiful wife and daughter. My sun and my star.

My light and my life. Without them, I am nothing.

Without them, I truly am the Beast they all fear.

I remember that fateful night as if it were yesterday. How can one not remember the one night when their whole world burns and their life becomes nothing but ash.

I did as they asked. They had taken my family: my wife, Evangeline, and our precious daughter, Grace.

I did not know why or where they were being held, but I was desperate and did what they asked me.

Who had taken them, I did not know. At the time, I did not care.

It did not matter. All that mattered to me was the return of my family, my life.

I paid the ransom they had demanded, thrust my gold into uncaring hands.

They gave me directions to a secret cottage in the woods.

When I arrived, I did not hesitate. I did not knock.

I tore the cottage door from its hinges with desperate hope clawing at my insides.

But hope died the instant I saw them. The sight of their lifeless bodies scorched everything human from within me.

Evangeline lay sprawled and ruined upon the blood-stained floor, her body bearing marks of unspeakable violence.

Her wrists were bound, her face bruised, but even in death, her hand reached blindly for our daughter.

Grace, my radiant little girl, lay beside her mother, her chest unmoving, her lips blue, and her curls tangled around her still face.

The echo of her laughter, once the music of our home, was lost in the silence of her death, snuffed out forever.

Grief wracked my body with savage intensity; it felt as though the darkness inside me was tearing itself free, desperate to be known. My bones twisted and cracked as horns erupted from my skull, jagged and gnarled, branching upward like the limbs of a cursed tree forced through poisoned soil.

My hands spasmed, ligaments and tendons splitting and stretching until wicked claws burst from my fingertips, each a talon shaped by agony.

Fire seared through my chest like a merciless inferno as thorns drove themselves into my heart.

Each stabbing pain anchored my torment deeper, until it took root and bloomed suffering with every beat.

My sobs were guttural, half human, half animal. They echoed through the ruined cottage until even the shadows recoiled.

Lucien, the loving husband, father, and beloved prince of the kingdom, was obliterated in that moment, consumed entirely by grief so profound, it shattered every piece of me that was ever gentle or good.

Lucien, the man, died on that floor. Lucien, the Beast, rose in his place, born from devastation, forged in the horror of loss, and left to howl in a world emptied of love.

Not only was I transformed, but so was everything around me.

Every ounce of happiness or pleasure was lost to me.

My castle, my home that had once been a place of joy and beauty, became nothing but a corpse of stone, saturated with my curse and grief.

The towers loom above the forest like broken bones, their spires cracked and veined with creeping ivy that never flowers.

Its walls do not merely stand; they shudder and moan with the weight of sorrow, breathing in tandem with my anguish.

In the dead hours of the night, the corridors twist and shift, creating a labyrinth alive and pulsing, like intestines in a giant’s belly.

Sometimes they fold in on themselves, so every step brings disorientation and dread for all who dwell here.

Doors never obey; they groan open only when they choose and slam shut on a whim, sealing rooms in perpetual gloom.

The windows leak shadows instead of light, and moonbeams paint the floors with shifting patches of cold silver.

Everywhere, the portraits of my ancestors hang, their colors faded to bruises, each painted mouth gaping in a silent scream whenever the moon wanes.

Their suffering echoes my own.

But the roses, they are the curse’s cruelest joke above all else.

They climb the walls and spill through shattered windows, blooming redder than blood, their petals slick and wet as fresh wounds.

Their beauty is intoxicating, and it draws people in.

But once they get close, their thorns twitch and gnash like rows of hungry teeth writhing in anticipation.

These monstrous flowers crave trespassers, their roots thriving on fear and flesh.

And I, the broken prince, the Beast, allow them to feed with every soul foolish enough to cross my threshold.

And worse, I don’t only allow it; I thrive on it.

Over the last fifteen years, many have become lost here, entranced by the deadly allure of the grounds, only to never leave again.

Yes, I am cursed. And the most damning truth is that at one time, I longed to be free of the curse. But the longer I am left to wallow in my eternal damnation, the less I want to be free.

I will never be free, for there is nothing on this earth that has the ability to release me from this hell.