Page 93 of Kill the Beast
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 changeanything—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 thenext 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.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
THE GLYPH BLAZEDto life on the Beast’s chest, the blue-white glow searing Lyssa’s eyes. But that wasn’t the reason her vision blurred with tears.
Alderic was gone, and with him, the dim hope Lyssa hadn’t even known she’d been harboring. That maybe he wouldn’t transform. That maybe her doubts at the forge meant she could solve this without driving a sword through his heart.
She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was.
The Beast lunged.
Lyssa’s instincts screamed at her to stab it, to run it through with the witch’s blade, to get her revenge at last. But she hesitated. And in that moment, the Beast slammed into her, pinning her to the wall, one of its tusks piercing her left shoulder.
She screamed as white fire seared through her, kept screaming as the Beast yanked its tusk out of her with a wet squelch and a glut of blood. With her sword in her other hand, there was no way to put pressure on the wound, and it bled freely as she swayed on her feet, shock taking the place of fury.
Alderic would never have hurt you.
The thought came unbidden, but the realization was like a knife in her heart as the monster lowered its head for another attack.
