Her Dark Curiosity (28 page)

I could only stare at him. I wanted to tell myself there was no truth in what he was saying. I
desperately
wanted a cure—I’d die without one. Even now a stiffness spread up my arms to the pit of my elbow, and my head throbbed behind my left eye.

“Without a cure I’ll go into a coma.”

“Will you? You really have no idea what will happen, do you? All you have is your father’s speculation, and we both know his arrogance was far greater than his actual talent.” He grinned. “You’re dying of curiosity—that’s why some deep part of you is sabotaging any attempts for a cure. You’re desperate to know what you’ll become, and as far as Edward goes, let’s just come out with the truth, shall we? You don’t want to cure him, either, not deep down, because the one who fascinates you is
me.”

I tried to shake my head, but my neck had gone stiff.

“Montgomery,” I whispered. “Montgomery will be here any moment.”

“I even saw you eyeing that hideous little dog,” he whispered as though I hadn’t even spoken. “You were thinking about it, weren’t you? Cutting him open, seeing what lays within.”

“No!” I shook my head violently. “I would never.”

“I’d wager your father made that same magnanimous claim a long time ago. You’ll change your mind just as he did. Haven’t you wondered why that fool Dr. Hastings isn’t dead yet? I’ve saved him for you, my love. You’ve dreamed about repaying his cruelty for months, and I couldn’t rob you of that joy. Consider him a gift.”

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.

H
IS 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.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

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.

“Montgomery!” I choked, crawling toward him over broken glass, heedless of the sharp pain in my palms and knees. He’d thrown
himself
through the glass.

“Juliet,” he breathed, straining with the weight of his wounds. One hand held a pistol and the other a hunting knife, but he threw his bloody arms around me. “We were held up. A fire on Eastwick and all the roads shut down, blocked by police. We couldn’t get the carriage through so I came on foot as fast as I could. I feared I’d be too late.”

“My God, you’re bleeding everywhere.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No—I dazed him, at least for now.” I pulled away, gasping at the sight of blood dripping down the crown of his head, glass still tangled in his hair. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

Montgomery shook his head. “Not before we finish with Edward.”

“There are chains attached to that palm tree. He can’t break through them, but he can dislocate his joints and free himself, so we’ll have to take care.”

I tripped on my torn skirt as we hurried with the chains. The Beast was fading back into what was left of Edward, though he moaned in pain.

“Let me handle him,” Montgomery said. “Run outside and fetch Balthazar. By now he’ll have found his way to the gate with the carriage. I can’t carry the Beast by myself.”

I started to turn toward the broken glass panel, but paused. A cold blast of air pushed through my thin dress.

“Juliet, what are you waiting for? We must hurry.”

I had once sworn that Edward Prince would not have another chance to kill anyone else I loved. I’d been so drunk on anger, right after the professor’s death.

And yet.

I couldn’t shake the Beast’s words.
That one was not me,
love.
He was the type to revel in lies, and yet there’d been no mirth on his face when he’d denied killing the professor.

It was madness, surely—but I actually almost believed him.

“You’ll kill him once I go,” I whispered.

Montgomery raised an eyebrow. When he didn’t deny it, I grabbed a handful of his torn shirt. “Promise me you won’t,” I said.

“He was about to
kill
you. This is what we agreed to.”

“Maybe he deserves to die, maybe he doesn’t. Edward knew this was a trap but came anyway to turn himself in. He assumed his darker half had killed the professor, but the Beast swore he didn’t do it. I know it’s probably a lie, but I don’t want it to end like this. I want to take him back to the professor’s house and decide his fate there.” At Montgomery’s silence, I shook him again. “Promise me!”

“All right!” Montgomery dragged me toward the broken panel, one hand on his pistol. “You have my word.” His eyes were angry, but they were honest.

I climbed over the tangling ferns and away from that terrible grotto of
Plumeria selva.
My skirt was in tatters; I’d lost a boot somewhere. As I ducked through the broken pane, my bare toes didn’t even feel the cold—every sensation I had was fixated on the urgency of the moment. I darted across the bridge to where Balthazar waited by the gate.

“Come quickly,” I said. “We need your help!”

Balthazar hitched the horses to a post and climbed the fence with surprising agility for a man of his size, and we raced back to the greenhouse. I smelled the traces of chloroform in the air and saw a rag tucked into Montgomery’s pocket. One glance at Edward’s slowly rising chest told me he was unconscious but still alive. Montgomery had managed to wind the chains in a pattern around his limbs so that no matter of shifting bones could set him free.

“Can you carry him?” Montgomery asked Balthazar, who nodded and slung Edward over his shoulder as though he was a sack of oats. All together we raced to the carriage, back into a city I’d never felt I belonged in, but that I greeted now as an old friend.

Balthazar climbed the fence and helped lift Edward’s body over. Montgomery made a stirrup of his blood-soaked hands to help me scale the fence, and we both landed on the other side and climbed into the back of the carriage while Balthazar took the driver’s seat. With a crack of the whip, we were off.

I looked around the carriage for some scrap of fabric and settled on the curtains, which I ripped down to staunch the bleeding on Montgomery’s face.

“We don’t have much time,” I said. “You need medical attention, and there’s no telling how long the chloroform will keep Edward sedated.”

My own bleeding hands shook uncontrollably as I let out a single sob. Montgomery took the torn curtains from my hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “We got Edward before he could kill anyone else, and before the King’s Club could get their hands on him. It’s over.”

I ran a hand over my face. “It’s not over! They’re negotiating with the French military. Spending a fortune on shipping crates for the creatures. They aren’t going to just give up.”

His big hand smoothed my hair back. “For tonight, at least, it’s over.”

Before I knew it, his lips found mine. He tasted of blood and sweat, and it twisted my insides into sharp angles. Tears started down my face but he kissed them away, cupping my cheek, trailing rough fingers along the smooth skin of my neck.

“I was so afraid I’d be too late,” he whispered into my hair. “I would have torn him apart if he’d hurt you.”

I let my eyes sink closed so I could exist in this single instant. I’d had few moments in my life that felt so right. The last time I’d felt this way had been on the island, before I knew of Father’s gruesome crimes, and I had thought we could be a family again. I’d been wrong then, naive. Surely I wasn’t wrong now, too. . . .

I kissed him again, silencing those thoughts. I didn’t want to think about Father, or Edward, or what would become of him. For months I’d dreamed of Montgomery, and he was here now, wrapping an arm around me as we rode in an exhausted silence. Every bone in my body ached, reminding me that I was just as cursed as Edward—though my affliction stayed buried deep beneath my skin.

It’s a part of you now,
the Beast had said.
What will you be without it
?

I pushed aside the curtain, focusing on the city outside, rows of storefronts with holiday wreaths, quiet streets spotted with snow, until at last we arrived at the professor’s. I stumbled out of the carriage and pounded on the front door, while Balthazar and Montgomery dragged Edward, unconscious and chained, out of the back. I tried to run my stiff fingers through my hair, but it was useless. My dress was torn and covered in bloodstains; Elizabeth would instantly know we were in trouble.

And yet Elizabeth didn’t answer. I pounded again, called her name, peered in the front window.

“She must be asleep,” I called back to Montgomery. “I’ll climb in through my window.”

Once I was up the trellis and in my bedroom, however, there was no sign of Elizabeth, only an eerie silence in the big dark rooms, and her keys missing from the front door.