Twenty-Nine
"Ada, what are you doing?" Hendric asked, rushing to catch up to me as I raced back to the horses.
"We have to go back, Hendric. Didn't you hear Bromm? They're going to kill Beast—" I slid down the hill and dived to start untangling the wires and bands from around the horses to detach the carriage. "I have to stop them."
Hendric seized my fussing hands. "Ada, just let them take care of it. It'll be easier for us if he's gone."
I snapped my head to look at him. "How dare you." I wrenched my hands back in disgust. "That man may be a beast, but he is not a monster. He has risked his life for me, protected me, and gave me back you when I thought you were as good as dead. Or have you forgotten what he's done for you, too?" I resumed removing the horses again, but he just stood there watching me. I glanced up at him again. "If you love me, you will help me."
He frowned. Before he could move, another set of hands quickly joined mine, smaller and much faster. I smiled down at Kenji as he grinned up at me. "I love you, Ada," he said warmly.
I bent down and kissed the top of his head. "I know you do, bub." I shot Hendric a pointed glare as I pulled the horse around. "I'll go alone, it'll be much faster."
Hendric snatched the reins. "I promised him I wouldn't let you go back up the mountain."
"Oh, so now you care about honoring him? If he dies, there won't be a promise." Clutching onto the mare's long hair, I swept my leg over into her back and yanked the reins from his grip. He remained still with a glare on his face. I paused, waiting for him to say something. "I don't expect you to understand, but I need to stop them. Gabriel isn't just going to kill Beast, he'll kill Coggington and Mrs. Potter— even Lumea." His frown flipped at her name, his eyes widen in a fraction.
"Do you love Beast, Ada?" Kenji said from below me.
My grip tightened on the reins, my back straightened. And for the first time, the words love and Beast didn't startle me into a minor panic attack. Instead, I lifted my chin and said as adamantly as I could manage: "Yes. I do." And as I said it, I looked directly at Hendric. Surprisingly, he didn't flinch like I half expected him to. "Which is why I need to save him." I stared at him hopefully now, my eyes burning at the thought of losing Beast or any of them up there. "Please, Hendric. Help me save them. Just open the gate."
We stood there for several long minutes in a world of utter silence. He stared at me and I stared at him, my gaze much more desperate than his. Finally, he cracked a thin smile and nodded. "Okay." He dashed over to the gate and unlatched the lock, quickly pulling it back. But as I marched my horse up to the gate, it reared back at the curvy silhouette lingering in the entryway.
I squinted through the light. "Lumea?" I was stunned. She stood there at the entrance to our town in nothing but a long-sleeved shirt and dark pants that hugged her legs, always unaware of the cold just like her brother. Hendric whirled to face her, his jaw slacking into the snow. "What are you doing here?"
She released a heavy breath at the sight of us, but her gaze lingered on my brother. "I had to make sure you all got here safely." She smiled at him warmly. Something passed between them, intimate and so loving that I realized I didn't want to know.
I hated to be the one to interrupt them. "Lumea, we don't have much time. Gabriel has led the town up the mountain. They're going to kill Beast."
Her eyes snapped to me. Her mouth parted in shock, the color draining from her skin. "We won't make it in time."
"Well, we have to try." I reached my hand down for her as I passed her, and without a moment's hesitation she grabbed latched onto it and lifted herself onto the horse, her arms latching around my waist. I gave the horse a quick kick and held on as she shot back up the mountain.
Wind blared in our ears and whipped our hair all around. The cold raked tears from my eyes, the chill clawing at my skin until I could barely feel my fingers gripping the reins. Lumea held me tighter as if to share her warmth, but being in front forced me to take most of the brutal wind.
"Why did you come back with us?" I shouted above the screeching wind.
She brought her mouth to my ear, and even when she yelled I could barely hear her. "I had to make sure you were safe!" Did she mean safe from Gabriel? "Why did you go back to Kinnot?"
"We had to say goodbye!" The mare reared her large head, snorting roughly as she trekked through the heavy snow and cold. She remained silent after, burying her face into my back to avoid the harsh gusts. I swallowed her words that we would never make it and silently prayed that we would. "I never would have left!" I screamed. I felt her shuffle and lean closer to hear me.
She nodded. "I know."
We rode hard for hours. The sky faded from its afternoon daylight to the dark red of the sun setting over the mountain's horizon. The mare slowed, trotting carefully through the deep sea of snow and ice, care to avoid falling. By the time we reached a familiar clearing, I could no longer feel my face or the reins gripped between my red fingers. Completely unfazed by the cold, Lumea climbed down from the horse's back and shivered when she sank into the snow. She caught me as I slid off and down to the ground beside her. "We'll be faster on foot from here," she said quietly, her breath steaming in front of her in glittering white clouds. She slapped the horse and watched as it wandered back down the mountain.
Hugging myself, I followed her the rest of the way. The sun disappeared altogether, drenching is in a black sky of brewing storm clouds. Snow raged with the wind and showered down on us. My teeth chattered so hard that I feared I wouldn't have any left at the end of this night. And if the cold didn't kill me, the paralyzing fear that we were going to be too late would. What if he was already gone? What if Gabriel really had killed him? The tears that formed in my eyes turned to ice the second they drilled down my cheeks. And what about Mrs. Potter and Coggington? Would the townspeople kill them too? The thoughts forced my feet to move faster and my body work harder to not shut down. The cold seeped deeper into my bones from every possible direction, freezing my joints and muscles and slowing me down no matter how hard I begged them to push. No, I chastised myself. He's not dead. He can't die. Not before I tell him I—
"Get down!" Lumea suddenly yanked me down to my knees, burying us in snow. My teeth chattered louder. I didn't have time to ask her what the hell was the matter with her. Before I could open my frozen lips, voices lifted in the wind, headed straight for us.
"I thought you said you could get us in there," growled a deep voice, and it took me a moment to clear through the haze of shock to realize who it belonged to. "We're going to freeze to death out here." Moma stepped up behind a taller, leaner shadow and grabbed his shoulder. "I didn't convince these people to follow you to their deaths, I promised them their lives. You said if we killed him, there wouldn't be any more offerings—"
"And I meant what I said!" Gabriel's deep voice snapped, as he whirled back to glare at him. There was a dark glint of madness in his black eyes. I felt a twinge of guilt for him— had I done this? "There's four of them in there— the beast and his bitch sister, and an elderly couple. Do what you want to the others and take what you can carry, but leave the beast to me. I am going to make him pay for taking what's mine."
I flinched. Despite everything that Gabriel had done— from destroying the greenhouse and almost ending Beast's and the others' lives, to kissing me and nearly killing me— I hoped that the boy I had grown up with was still somewhere inside him. Under all the anger and pain and blind lust, I prayed that the boy who had given me those three crystals on my thirteenth birthday was still alive. And if he wasn't, could I bring him back?
"There," Lumea whispered, pointing a pale finger off to a large round rock some distance from the castle's main doors. "We'll take the tunnels into the palace and get everyone out." Her eyes caught on something above our heads and her face became whiter than a sheet of ice.
"What, what is it?" I whispered back at her, snapping my gaze to look at what had terrified her. My body tensed at the thought that perhaps someone was in the tree watching us, but my confusion only deepened when I only caught sight of the snow-covered limbs and not a pair of eyes.
"It's... a full moon," she stammered coldly. "Be— Tonight's the night." She suddenly grabbed my arm in the hardest grip I'd ever felt before, but the urgency in her blue eyes pierced right through the pain. Her hand trembled as she pulled my eyes down to hers. "When he changes, Adaira, he won't come back. He won't be able to control himself. He'll kill us all."
My heart lurched into my throat. The pulse of it strangled any air from entering my lungs. Somehow, I found my voice and pulled out of her grasp. "Then we have to hurry." I sounded more confident than I felt. She nodded, cast a final glance up at the moon, and shot off toward the round rock, ducking behind a tree. She motioned for me to follow, lifting a finger to her lips and motioning toward the gathering crowd mere feet from where we hid. "Help me push. The tunnel leads into the cellar. Once we're inside we'll fi—"
Her body suddenly tore backwards with a loud cry of agony. A deafening blast echoed across the mountain, my scream buried in the chaos of more shots firing and splitting into the tree I hid behind. I don't know which sensation kicked in first, fear or instinct, that made me drop to my knees and curl into the tightest ball I could force upon my frozen muscles, cowering in the snow with my arms wrapped around my head. My ears rang with the pops of bullet after bullet, my body vibrated with the feeling of so much adrenaline pounding inside me. My brain staggered to process what just happened, but when it did I couldn't stop the scream that erupted from my cracked lips.
"STOP!"
The gunshots slowed to a halt. Snow crunched all around me. Boots kicked snow at me. Eyes burned into every inch of me. Something warm pressed into my temple. "Get up," someone growled. It wasn't until I heard the loud click that I realized what was against my head. A gun.
Slowly, I lowered my arms from around myself and lifted my eyes. My head spun with nausea and shock. Every fiber inside my body wanted to scream at them to stop this and turn back, to save themselves before someone got hurt, but any fight I had instantly died when my gaze landed on the large stain of crimson oozing into the snow around Lumea's body. Blood streamed from her breast and turned the mountain red. A gag pressed at my throat. A whimper escaped my lips.
"Just in time," a dark voice snarled. Tears blurred my vision, but I didn't need to look to know who the voice belonged to. Hands wrapped around my upper arms and wrenched me to my feet. Gabriel stood in front of me with a manic grin on his pale lips. He reached a calloused hand to stroke the hair from my face and out of my eyes. His own dark irises glowed back at me, wild and dangerous. Something had snapped inside him, a darkness unleashed. A beast loosed from its cage. "Without a way in, we would have frozen to death."
"Gabriel, I'm begging you. Don't do this."
"And let him continue to kill us off?" He snorted. His grip tightened around a fistful of my hair. "We're tired of bending over for him. We've lost too many people already. Haven't you?" He tugged my head back until my neck was entirely exposed. Pain shot through my skull. "He's taken too much. Taking you was too far. He can't take all that I have left."
Heat rose with the anger building inside me. I snapped my head to shake off his touch. "That's where you're wrong, Gabriel. You never had me in the first place."
"And that's where you're wrong, Ada. Your father promised you to me a long time ago, made me swear to love you always and keep you safe. I can't do that if that bastard has you all to himself, warping your mind. He has to go. And you're going to take us to him."
"Go to hell." Rage burned in my veins. Struggling against Moma and Posha's hold, I launched my feet out in the hopes that one would catch him square in his manhood. He easily side stepped out of the way and shook his head disapprovingly. "I'll die first before I let you hurt him."
Feet pounded in the back of my knees, sending me into the snow once again. Rope fervently twined around my wrists. Gabriel took a step closer. His fingers angrily grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at him. "I don't want to kill you, Adaira; I want to kill him. This way we can be together forever just like we promised we would be. Just like your father would have wanted."
Scathing heat burned through the skin of my face. "My father would have wanted me to be happy and marry a man I loved, not an unhinged psychopath—"
Pain streaked across my jaw. I stumbled back before I was yanked upright again. Through my spotty vision I saw him flex his reddening hand. "At some point, Ada, you're going to have to get that temper of yours under control. No man wants to marry a woman whose tongue is as sharp as his knife, because eventually he will have no choice but to cut it off."
"At least I'll never have to worry about saying 'I do' to a man like you."
I knew my words had hurt him. His nostrils flared, his already black eyes darkening even more. Narrowing them, he turned back to the door and pounded his fists on the large palace doors. Posha and Moma dragged me behind him. "Open up, Beast, I have a present for you!" he called.
"Go to hell!" Mrs. Potter's voice yelled.
Gabriel laughed and curled his hands into fists. "Open the door, old lady. We aren't here for you, we're here for the beast."
"Oh, well in that case—" another bolt latched "— you can still go to hell"
I snickered— a noise I instantly regretted when he spun to face me again, this time grinning. I recognized the way his eyes opened wider, his face spreading in a realization. He smiled down at me, but his words weren't meant for me. "Are you sure about that? Because if I go, so does Adaira."
A pause. The blizzard raged harder. Then, "You're lying."
But I heard the uncertainty in her voice, and so did Gabriel.
"Am I?" Lifting his arm, he shoved the barrel of a pistol into my forehead. "Scream for me."
I hocked saliva to my tongue and spat it into his face. "I'm not your damsel."
Wiping the spit from his eye, he scoffed. "No, you're not." He flicked the hammer of the pistol down. "You're his bitch." Holding out his hand, he snatched up a torch from one of the others and pulled the pistol from my skin. "Last chance, old lady!" he shouted.
Mrs. Potter remained silent.
Sighing, Gabriel lowered the torch and held the nose of the pistol over the flames. All the while his eyes remained trained on me. I started to squirm. The barrel lightened in color, the tip glowing a bright orange. He handed the torch back, admiring the blazing metal. Then he tore down the collar of my shirt and crushed the barrel into the skin of my chest. "Scream."
Pain seared through every nerve in my body. My body stiffened and my eyes squeezed so hard I thought I would squash them. But I couldn't help it. I screamed.
Darkness filled my vision, and when I opened my eyes again, I was in the palace foyer watching the bodies pour through the door around me and set upon Mrs. Potter and Coggington. More shots fired. I opened my mouth to beg them to stop, but my head lolled against my chest and my throat was too raw to utter anything. My body reverberated in agony. Gabriel held me firm against his chest as we marched through the palace halls. I staggered to every door that he looked in, my heart beating harder and harder with each one he opened, not knowing if he would be behind it. We came to the winding stone staircase and my feet subconsciously protested, my knees locking. Gabriel chuckled. "Got him."
I fought through the pain and kicked with every ounce of strength I had in me— which, unfortunately, was very little. His fist snared around a handful of my hair and tugged me the rest of the way up the stairs. When we reached the top, it was only a matter of guessing for him to figure out which room was Beast's, and when he saw the large black double doors that loomed in the corridor, he headed straight for it.
"Knock knock!" His foot crashed down on the crack of the doors. They opened with an eerie groan, slamming open and revealing hell behind them.
Beast stood at his fireplace with his back to us. His shoulders sagged in sorrow as if he were already grieving Lumea's death. The image of her body made me flinch. "Get out," he said, but even his threat sounded weak and completely the opposite of beastly. He lifted a glass cup to his red lips, the same one we'd used that night I apologized to him when we called a truce; the first time I'd ever been inside his bedroom and felt my stomach flutter with nerves. Now I was here again, this time with Gabriel, and my stomach was in knots for a completely different reason. "I said leave me. You've done enough... " His voice dropped off as if someone was stepping on his throat. He lifted the glass again and finished the brown drink, but I already knew it wasn't the tea we'd shared that night.
My heart drove my feet forward. Before I could move more than a foot, Gabriel yanked me back by my hair. A small groan left my throat, but it was enough to make Beast snap around to face us. His eyes widened at me, his mouth opening in shock. He took a step forward. "Adaira—"
"Ah ah!" Gabriel tutted, waving the pistol at him and jerking me back against him. He wagged the gun to force Beast back against the crackling fireplace. Those silver eyes that I had grown so in love with never left my face as we moved along with him, circling the room. Gabriel kicked the doors shut with his foot. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this. To slay the beast of the mountain, to have the girl of my dreams." He held my hair tighter so that I backed up completely into him, my balled fists rubbing his waist. The ropes chafed my wrists the more I tried to yank free of their hold, but Moma had spent years tying the sacrifices to the poles; he was an expert at knots.
Beast held my gaze, completely ignoring Gabriel's presence. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice even and calm. He made it so easy to forget that we were all about to die.
I wanted to tell him yes, I was fine despite the burning hole on my chest. But it wasn't even the pain of being branded that hurt me, it was him. It felt like days had passed since he had sent me on my way home against my will and told me he didn't love me, but it had only been this morning. Mere hours, not days. The pain of it all came tumbling down all over again. My chest tightened with new tears. "You left me," I said dejectedly. "You promised to never hurt me and you did. You sent me away."
His face fell back into its mournful sag. Damn him, he even made grief look beautiful. "I had no choice. I didn't want you to see me become that... thing. I was trying to protect you."
My chin raised, the stubborn side of me rearing. "I never asked you to! I didn't want your protection, Beast, I wanted you. Just you. I still do."
His eyes gleamed. "Really?"
"Of course she does," Gabriel growled, startling both of us. It had been so easy to forget he was even here, regardless of his hand pulling my hair out. The world faded away when I was with Beast, including the pain of being in it. "I didn't come here to deliver her to you, beast, I came to make sure she would never come running back to you again."
"And I would in a heartbeat rather than marry you," I snarled.
Beast still watched me. "You would?"
I nodded, my stomach fluttering with a million different sensations. "Yes. Yes, I would."
Gabriel yanked harder. "Can't say the same for your sister, though." Beast's gaze snapped to him. "Thanks to Posha's spot-on aim, the world has just been rid of one less monster."
Beast roared as he lunged. His advance was cut short with the weight of the pistol against my temple. He instantly froze, but his rage never disappeared. His fists curled at his sides, his nostrils pumped air faster. I could see his body vibrating and glanced outside at the moon shaded by clouds. If he changed he wouldn't come back. He'd kill us all. But how else would he get out of this alive? Maybe he'd been right when he said there was no happy ending for me here. For any of us.
"I can promise you this," Beast heaved angrily, his breaths short and raging. "You will never leave this mountain alive. Even if you kill me, I swear I will find you in death and deliver you yours. Let Adaira go and give me your best shot. This is between you and me."
Gabriel didn't speak. He was pondering the deal, and damn him, he was always ready to prove his strength.
"No!" I shouted, leaping and grimacing when he tugged. "I'll do it! I'll do it, Gabriel. I'll marry you."
Beast narrowed his eyes. "Adaira, stop—"
"Shut up, Beast!" I whirled to face Gabriel's impassive expression with my own pleading one. "I'll marry you, Gabriel. Just let them go and I swear I'm yours."
Something flashed behind his eyes— anger? I thought it was what he wanted, to win not just me but over Beast, but my words only seemed to anger him more. "You're already mine, Adaira. I just want him to see it." He smashed his mouth to mine. His lips clashed with mine so forcefully, his teeth biting so hard I cried out and fought in his arms. From the corner of my eye I saw his arm still pointing the gun, and Beast's face so distorted with hatred that I barely recognized him. It was when Gabriel's tongue pushed through my locked lips and whipped against my own that I had enough. In a last effort, I cocked back my knee and brought it up into his groin as hard as I could. He doubled over with a loud cry, his body tensing. And in his pain, Gabriel pulled the trigger.