To Love A Monster

by Marina Simcoe

  Walking down the stairs from the second floor, I took all of him in. His fur spiked with frost—the waistband of his jeans dark from icy water. He must’ve been swimming then run all the way from the river when he sensed my arrival.

  My Monster.

  Not anymore. He only looked like him.

  “It’s you,” I croaked, reaching the main floor. Speaking proved suddenly extremely difficult. “And all this time . . . you’ve said nothing.”

  “Sophie,” he exhaled, his shoulders slumped.

  He took a step to me, and I scurried backwards until my back hit the wall, letting the paper in my hand fall to the floor.

  I couldn’t let him touch me. Monster’s touch had the power to make me weak in the knees. It had the magic to deprive me of sanity, driving me mad with desire. Now more than ever I needed strength and a clear mind.

  No, this man’s touch causes nightmares that last for years.

  I shuddered.

  “Sophie.” He shook his head slowly. “Please, don’t be afraid of me.”

  I splayed my hands on the cool timber of the wall behind me to stop them from trembling.

  “How could I not be afraid of you? You have been the main cause of my fear for the past eight years. You made me scared of the dark, terrified of the night and my own shadow. And I . . . I’ve been alone with you here. I’ve trusted you . . . I’ve . . .”

  Hurt burnt in my throat.

  “Sophie, it’s still me—”

  “Who is me?” I interrupted him. “As far as I know you are a fake and everything you told me about yourself is a lie.”

  “All my feelings for you are real. Every single one of them.”

  “They can’t be true. How could you deceive me if you truly cared?”

  “How long would you have stayed anywhere near me had you known my real name?” He raised his voice, making me flinch. “What would be the chances of you spending even a minute under the same roof with Hunter Reed, not to mention a whole night? You would’ve run the moment you learned who I was, fuck the twisted ankle!”

  “So, you lied to me. You made me believe you were someone else. Why? Because you were bored and lonely, and you thought I’d be easy to trick into keeping you company here? Because you needed a connection to the world, someone to improve your life in here, and you figured I was weak enough to be manipulated into doing things for you?”

  “No, Sophie. No. Your kindness is your strength, not your weakness.” He paced agitatedly in front of me, fingers deep in his mane. “When I asked you to bring things for me, I simply devised excuses to see you again. The first time I saw you that night—really saw you—I didn’t think you weak.” He stopped in his tracks, fixing me with his stare. “Years ago, I took your confidence, your faith in yourself. And I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry, Sophie. But what I did to you, it didn’t change who you are. The monster I was could not take your strength. You are smart, kind, and strong. Even faced with certain death from exposure in the woods that night, you kept fighting, determined to survive. That was the person I saw.”

  His words echoed in my head but hardly registered. I couldn’t allow myself to believe him anymore.

  “And you did improve my life. Infinitely,” he continued. “But you did so, so much more. Sophie, I love you—”

  “Don’t.” I shook my head vehemently. “Don’t even say that word right now. It’s wrong . . . Cruel.”

  Despite what he’d said, I didn’t feel strong at the moment. Not at all. I felt like a trembling pile of nerves, ready to collapse any minute.

  He lowered his head and stepped closer to me. I pressed my back into the wall behind me, with no way of getting away from him now.

  “You think it’s wrong for me to love you?” His voice was grave.

  The familiar smell of him hit my senses, and I struggled to remember who really was in front of me. His physical proximity overwhelmed me.

  It was all a lie.

  “The man I love doesn’t exist,” I said firmly. “Hunter Reed has always been a selfish, entitled monster. And you are a liar and manipulator. You’ve never changed. Do you understand what you’ve done? You’ve pretended to be someone I could love, but it was all a lie. It’s as if you stole the love of my life from me!”

  The air in the house got scarce, and I gasped for oxygen. The sound came out more like a sob.

  My hand to my chest, I exhaled, “I need to go.”

  A low snarl, deep inside his throat alerted me, an icy jolt of adrenaline shooting through my system.

  His expression grew dark. His features hardened.

  I inched towards the front door along the wall.

  He lunged for me, closing the distance between us. With a loud thud, his claws sank into the wood of the wall on each side of my head, making me jump.

  “No!” he growled, hulking over me, his brilliant hazel eyes dark, a storm brewing inside.

  “I—I have to get out of here.” I swallowed hard, fighting for my next breath. The dense, heavy cloud of his presence suffocated me. Everything that I had worked so hard to overcome during the past weeks threatened to come crushing down.

  “You can’t leave!” He thundered, shoving with force against the wall as if trying to break through it. “You took from me whatever life I had, and became my entire world instead. If you leave now, I’ll have nothing.”

  I froze in the face of his rage and fought the impulse to squeeze my eyes shut and block the view of his bared teeth and of the fire in his eyes. My whole body shook with nerves and emotions, but I stood straight, holding my head high.

  “I need to go,” I said low but firm. “I can’t stay here.”

  I heard his horns hit the wall above me as his forehead touched mine. The soft tendrils of his mane caressed my face.

  “A bigger man, a better man, would let you go.” His voice grew much deeper with a growl rolling through each word. “But I’m not a man, am I? I’m a monster. And you’re mine.”

  I stopped being afraid of Monster long ago. However, this was not he in front of me now.

  Hunter Reed never earned my trust.

  All I felt was betrayal and fear. Thick, sticky, nauseating fear that urged me to the front door to escape my tormentor.

  “You are mine.” The firm conviction in the hollow rumble of his voice slithered cold along my spine. “And you’re staying.” The side of his face rubbed against mine, and his hips rocked into me.

  My breathing turned shallow, and my head swam at the tsunami of feelings I no longer knew how to handle—an unexpected wisp of arousal from his familiar scent and closeness laced through the rising panic and fear.

  My mind knew to run away, but my body still recognized him as mine.

  Hurt at the loss of what I thought I had speared my heart.

  Afraid I would either faint or explode into a million little pieces if I stayed another moment longer, I squeezed through my teeth, “Let. Me. Go.”

  He leaned away from me a little, and I felt the soft caress of the calloused pads of his fingers against my cheek.

  “I could make you stay with me.” His words were still alarming, but infinite sadness drowned the threat in his voice. “But your mind, your soul, and your heart would be forever lost to me. And I want everything. I need all of you, princess.”

  “Let me go,” I repeated, this time louder.

  He still didn’t appear to hear me. He sounded as if he was talking to himself now.

  “Small and fragile. And so incredibly strong.” He yanked his claws out of the wall behind me suddenly then slammed them hard in again. “You bring me to my knees.” With a loud noise of his claws cutting deep grooves through the wood, he slowly sank to his knees at my feet. “Every. Single. Time.”

  His head bent, he groaned out one word, “Stay.”

  I didn’t know what was harder to resist for me—the plea in his submissive pose or the dominant command of that one word.

  Trembling like a leaf, my throat painfully tight, I no long
er trusted myself to speak. Silently, I made a move along the wall in the direction of the front door. My hip bumped into his arm blocking my escape with claws deep in the wall.

  Without looking up, he dropped his arm to his side, setting me free.

  “Go,” he rasped. “Run before I stop you.”

  I rushed to the door.

  But I couldn’t resist one last glance back at him before going outside. He remained seated on his haunches, facing the wall, both arms at his sides, his head down.

  He was not my Monster anymore—he was the monster of my nightmares—I felt betrayed, afraid and confused, but no matter what, I still couldn’t leave him like that.

  “Mon—” I stopped myself in time. I couldn’t call him that anymore, could I? He had a name, a real name. I sighed, getting ready to say it out loud once again.

  “Hunter.”

  His shoulders stiffened.

  “Cecilia wanted me to tell you she is sorry about what she did to you.” My voice rang hollow, empty even to my own ears. “She accepted your apology.”

  Unless the apology was a lie, just like everything else.

  The thought twisted my insides.

  He lifted his head. The pain and devastation on his face made my heart bleed with a memory of the one I thought I loved—the one who was never real.

  It was the last straw. With a sob, I ran out into the cold.

  As I drove away, whatever little control I had over my emotions finally snapped, letting hot tears run down my face.

  How could I mourn someone who never existed? How could I accept that the biggest—the only—love of my love was nothing but a lie, a trap?

  Through the haze of my tears in the receding light of the early evening, I looked straight ahead. I didn’t search the woods for a large, furry shape running through the trees, but I felt his eyes on me and knew he followed the truck.

  The feeling stayed with me as I turned from the driveway onto the road and continued along the chain-link fence. And when the fence ended at the south-west corner of the property, I felt the string that attached me to the place stretch impossibly thin the further I drove away, threatening to break for good.

  Then a long, blood-curling howl of a beast reached me. As deafening and terrifying as ever, it was full of sorrow and eternal longing.

  Chapter 38

  MONSTER

  She was gone.

  His love. His light. His life.

  And he had no one to blame but himself.

  Whatever true happiness he ever had in his life was with her and because of her. And he cowardly stole every little bit of it, hiding behind his curse as if it could shield him from his past forever.

  The desperate longing reaped another howling roar from his chest as he watched the truck disappear behind the trees, knowing that this time there was little hope of her ever coming back. This time, she was leaving without a promise to return.

  The thought that it might be all he’d ever see of her filled him with chilling fear. Then the old rage slammed into him, and he let it reign, surrendering his control to the familiar anger because she was no longer here to sooth it.

  And without her what was the point in fighting it?

  Without her, there was no longer a point to anything. She’d given a purpose to his life, and now there was none.

  “Sophie!” A pained cry tore through his insides and he threw himself against the hated fence. The impact sent him flying back, flinging him against the frozen ground with force.

  The crushing pain came as a relief from the agony of loss stabbing him from the inside. Physical pain was so much easier to handle. The internal one was unbearable.

  He sprang to his feet immediately and lunged back at the fence again, with renewed force. Propelled in the air, he landed flat on his back this time. The blow knocked all air out of his lungs. His muscles screamed with pain, but his soul demanded more.

  More.

  His body could take it. It was his heart that couldn’t. It was torn and shredded in a million little pieces. Destroyed.

  His own scorching need for destruction burnt through him.

  With another roar he attacked the nearby tree, punching it with his fist, then shoved at it with both hands . . .

  No, not hands.

  Paws.

  What came into his vision were two ugly, furry animal paws, complete with a full set of black claws. Only she could ever think of them as a man’s hands.

  Another spear of raw pain shot through him, sending him into a mad run. Sprinting through the trees, he ran faster and faster, until the woods around him smudged into a blur dashing by in his peripherals.

  Hardly slowing down, he darted through the open door into the house.

  Her scent greeted him. Everything inside was filled with her spirit.

  But she was gone.

  A heavy armchair fell into his line of sight, and he sent it flying cross the room with a swing of his arm, new upholstery torn to shreds by his claws.

  Next was the bar stool in the kitchen, thrown through the air it slammed into the opposite wall. Its loud crash against the timber made the beast pause.

  She wasn’t here.

  The house remained. The furniture, her things upstairs were still here. But she was gone. And taking his madness out on the lifeless objects would not ease the excruciating emptiness she left behind.

  He leaned with his back against one of the support posts and slid to the floor, suddenly drained.

  She was not coming back. Because he hurt her. Again.

  His actions eight years ago defined him in her eyes, stripping him from any chance of redemption.

  He dared to believe that he could make her happy. He hoped he could help her, rescue her. But he was never meant to be her knight in shining armour. In her life, he was doomed to remain the dragon to be slayed.

  Even in his own story, he turned out to be not the hero but the villain. Someone who hurt people. And the more he loved, the stronger he wanted to protect, the more pain he ended up inflicting.

  The villain never got the girl at the end—his redemption was only through death and oblivion.

  Chapter 39

  I HAD NO IDEA WHERE I was going. The intense need to get away drove me out without any clear destination in mind.

  I made it to Rocky River after nightfall and would have kept driving if I hadn’t felt like I’d collapse with exhaustion after days of travelling and hardly any sleep.

  Instead, I crashed on the couch in Jo’s apartment in town, intending to take the first flight out I could.

  Lying in the dark, listening to Jo’s soft snoring from her bedroom, I couldn’t sleep despite being bone tired.

  The turmoil of emotion inside me twisted and writhed, keeping me awake.

  I thought I’d never see him again. After he graduated high school and left the city, I hoped I’d never have to hear about Hunter Reed. I carefully avoided anyone who might know of his whereabouts. And until yesterday, I was extremely cautious when using social media, steering away from any mention of him.

  Meanwhile, I had let him come so close to me that I often felt we were one. Crashing through all my defences, he climbed deep into my very heart. Now that his lies had exploded, they left nothing behind but utter devastation. Everything, my heart, my very soul, had been annihilated.

  I could feel the darkness rising from the house in the woods, reaching out for me, threatening to suffocate me with panic all over again. Huddling under the covers, I curled into a ball, counting my breaths again, waiting for the sun to come up.

  I wished I could crawl under a rock somewhere on an undiscovered planet or at least on an uninhibited island—somewhere where no one would look at me or care to speak to me, where I could be invisible until I could regain the ability to face life.

  A ping from a new email came sometime after five in the morning, and I opened a message from Madam Besson.

  Henri had another stroke, which left him fully paralyzed and unable to speak. Doct
ors feared that due to complications, he didn’t have much time left.

  The phrase ‘your presence here is not required’ was not there this time, but it didn’t matter even if it were. I realized I didn’t want the yelling in the heat of the argument to be the last words my father heard from me in his life.

  France. I’m going to France.

  Chapter 40

  “BONJOUR, MADEMOISELLE Morel. I’m really glad to see you again. Your room is ready.” Madame Besson stepped to the side, opening the front door of the chateau wider to let me in with my suitcase. She motioned at it. “I’ll have someone to bring your luggage upstairs for you.”

  Like always, she looked poised and professional in her uniform. Her raven dark hair had much more silver in it since I saw her last, but her eyes shone with the familiar smile.

  “It’s very nice to see you too, Madame Besson.” I fought the desire to enclose her in a hug, knowing all too well it would not be welcomed. Madame Besson had lasted as long as she did in the Morel household and survived working under the numerous Madames Morels in part because she maintained her distance and professionalism at all times.

  “Monsieur Morel is in his room,” she informed me. “I’ll ask Mademoiselle Perrin, his day nurse, when would be the best time for you to see him.”

  “Um . . .” I came with the intention to see Henri. However, now that I was about to do it, nervous anxiety filled me

  She spun on her heel to face me again, raising an enquiring eyebrow.

  “How is he?” I asked. “I mean. Are you sure he wants to see me? I wouldn’t want to upset him.”

  “Mademoiselle, if you want to say goodbye to him, do it for your sake, not for his. He will be gone soon. Make sure you’re not left with regrets. Besides.” She pursed her lips for a moment. Her eyes narrowed in thought then met mine with more warmth than before. “Give him a chance, too, because he is not in a position to take action himself now.”

  AS SOON AS I SETTLED in the room I had always stayed in when visiting my father, I sent a quick email to my mom, letting her know I had arrived at the chateau safely.