Page 90 of Grotesque Love

As Carver begins stroking some of the braids, I go back to feeling like I might throw up.

“I think they did it originally in an attempt to break the so-called curse, but now it’s something that makes me feel connected to my ancestors. And since I had this blood…going spare, I started preserving it. Building a reserve, if you will.”

How has he gone so long without being discovered? Without his sick and twisted secrets being uncovered? How has he got away with hurting and killing so many women? Someone must have had an inkling.

A horrible thought hits me.

“Did my mother know?” I ask, not sure I want to hear the answer.

“Of course not. This is not something I would share with her.”

His fingers dance over the shelves until he finds what he’s looking for. Pulling out a vintage rounded bottle, blown with different shades of blue and twisted to create an effect that reminds me of the sea, he lifts it up in the candlelight along with a ribbon of a similar colour. He proudly displays a silvery blonde braid, darker in colour than my own but unmistakable. “You are special. She was not.”

A fresh wave of salty tears streams down my cheeks. “You monster…”

He snorts. “You say that as if it’s an insult, my sweet. But really, I consider it a compliment.”

Placing the bottle back on the shelf and hanging the hair back on its hook with a tenderness that makes every nerve in my body scream, I swallow down my pain. I need to keep him calm while I try to loosen the knots in the rope binding me.

“How? How could you do this?” My voice is croaky, cracking as I drown in his horrors. “And to so many women.”

He leans against the altar, not caring about the mess on his suit, and crosses his arms and legs, looking every inch the entitled Lord of the Manor. “Well, I’m rich. I have power. And I wasn’tworking alone. Danvers may be a bit of a fool, but he has been somewhat useful over the years.”

Everything stops. “Danvers…”

The man who had taken care of me? Who had told me tall tales of monsters? Who had allowed me to roam the grounds and feel the sun on my face? The man whohadn’tconstantly watched over me to ensure I was taking my medication was actually on Carver’s side all along?

“Oh, sweetling, my precious princess. You didn’t think he was your friend, did you?” Carver tuts and tilts his head in a patronising way. “You are much too old for the likes of him. He was simply doing his job, although not very well. Consider yourself lucky, I suppose. Danvers likes to play with his food before he eats it, I’m much more…humane.”

How did it come to this? I once heard someone ask a woman if she would choose a man or a beast, and I thought she was insane for choosing a feral wild animal.

Now I know better.

Men who team up to carry out their depraved, sick dreams. Men who premeditate, who plan for years, who take what isn’t theirs with a sense of entitlement that makes them crazed….those men are brutes.

My stone sentinels would never hurt me, they continually put me first, and here I am trapped by monstrous men claiming to be my friend or protector.

Manis the real monster.

My ‘monsters’ are my saviours.

A strange sort of detachment fills me and I sit in silence with Carver continuing to talk at me while he washes down the stonework.

Everything was a lie, except them. My grotesques and my grumpy gargoyle.

Carver has ruined everything else. Tainted my life with his sticky blood-covered hands. Taken and taken and taken from me until he thought I had nothing left.

The joke is on him though, because Sax, Mal and Jas are all the things he wants to be for me, but isn’t. He will never be my lover. I will never seek comfort from him. Never smile for him. Never carry his child. I would sooner die.

I needed Carver to stay calm earlier to buy myself time, but if I don’t do something soon I’m going to be left broken on Carver’s altar before they find me.

Maybe it’s time to push back? He wants to marry me. Has worked so hard to get me here, to this point. How far will his patience stretch? Will he kill me, after everything? Will his sick, twisted love let him?

And if he does, will it be the worst outcome?

No. It won’t.

Tugging against the rope that binds me, I ignore the way it burns as it drags across my skin.

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