I remembered Hastings accusing those two students at King’s College of following him as a prank, and Edward telling me later the Beast had been stalking a doctor. It had been Hastings—and this is why the Beast hadn’t killed him.
For me.
“Nothing you’re saying is true,” I spat. “We aren’t anything alike, and the sooner Edward is rid of you the better.” I slapped my hand across his face, but he barely flinched. The chains rustled as he strained against them, jingling and clanking. To my horror, he pulled an arm free.
He grabbed my wrist before I could run.
The Beast smiled in the moonlight, and dislocated his shoulder.
HIS BODY CONTORTED AS one by one the chains fell to the ground, unbroken. He didn’t let go of my wrist for a moment.
I’d been wrong. I’d been so, so wrong.
“No!” I said, trying to pull away. “I put valerian in your tea only days ago; it should have lasted. And the padlock—you can’t break it.”
“Come, come, my love. You think I didn’t know about the tea?” He leaned closer until I could feel his warm breath. “And the chains, well. I’ve always been able to free myself of the chains.”
My hand went slack with shock. “But in the attic . . . you were contained. You didn’t kill for days.”
“Of course I did. I slipped my chains and hid the bodies so you wouldn’t find out. Don’t you see? It’s all been for you.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this!” I pulled the knife from my boot and slashed across his arm with all my force. He barely flinched, nearly impossible to hurt, but I was able to pull away. I scrambled over rocks, splashing into the creek, but a hand closed over my ankle. I clawed at the dirt, grabbed for the plants, but it was useless. The Beast’s hands found my calf, then my thigh, then my waist, and he spun me around, pinning me to the earth, laughing. Laughing, like this was a game.
Where was Montgomery?
His eyes glowed yellow. Edward’s face, Edward’s body, though it no longer belonged to him.
“Let me go!” I cried, but he dragged me to the center of the flowers with superhuman strength.
“You think we’re not the same?” he said. “You think we don’t belong together? I could have caught you a thousand times. I could have killed you, tasted your blood—and how badly I wanted to. I’m done being patient with you. I’ll have you, or no one will.” He dug a knee against my thigh, and I cried out with pain. “Doesn’t a monster deserve a chance at redemption?” he continued. “Doesn’t a monster deserve a mate? You were so quick to help Edward, but what about me?”
I flexed my fingers behind my back, which were even now starting to pop and shift, triggered by his own transformation. “You’re the monster, not Edward!”
“But you’re a little monster too, aren’t you?” His breath came hot on my face as he leaned closer to whisper. “If I’m to be punished, love, so should you.”
“You’re insane,” I hissed. He’d crossed into madness, into savagery. My only chance was the knife, but where was it? With my head pressed into the dirt all I could see were the flowers, with their cloying aroma, their soft petals grating against my skin.
He ripped my dress along the shoulder seam, pulling it down over my arm. I could feel the bones in his hands shifting to make room for the claws that lay buried in his flesh, as my own body responded with its familiar symptoms and aches. It was his lips that found my skin first, kissing my neck, running his teeth over my shoulder as though he wanted to take a bite out of me. I tried to twist away but he growled and pinned me harder.
“You taste so sweet,” he whispered in my ear, “all the sweeter when you struggle.”
He kissed me hard while one hand found the hem of my dress, drawing it up over my thigh. His fingers grazed the soft skin by my knee, which popped in the socket.
A sound like metal against metal came, and I realized his claws were emerging.
Sweat rolled off his forehead and onto mine. “One last chance, love. Say the word and I shall bring Hastings to you, and we can end him together, the pair of us as we are meant to be.”
For a second an image flashed in my head of Hastings’s dead body, blood trickling from a slit in his throat, and I was glad of it. Hungry for it. He’d caused me such misery, and what of the other girls he’d abused? Because I knew there must be others.
I was tempted, but I wasn’t a fool. My hand closed over a rock, my sweating fingers slick on its surface, as I gritted my teeth. Only one chance. Aim for the temple, aim to disorient.
I squeezed the rock as the Beast ran his claw down my cheek, drawing a line of blood, stinging me with pain.
“Well, love?”
Wind pushed against the windows, making the entire structure sway and creak. The Beast glanced up, which gave me just enough time to slam the rock into his temple, knocking him off of me as his blood spilled on my dress.
At the same time, the world shattered in an explosion of glass.
THIRTY-ONE
I SCREAMED AND COVERED my head with my arms. Showers of glass rained to the bed of flowers, clinking in the brook like terrifying music, just as a burst of steam formed a thick cloud around us.
Beside me, the Beast groaned and clutched his head. I glanced over just long enough to see the claws were gone; he was shrinking in size slowly, shifting back into human form.
An icy gust of wind ruffled my dress. I managed to sit, shaking, as frigid winter air poured in through a shattered glass panel next to the grotto. A man crouched in the middle of the glass, half hidden in fog, white shirt latticed with cuts on his arms and shoulders that already seeped blood.