Page 96 of Monster's Pretty Bride

“N-no,” she gasps, shaking her head wildly, eyes glassy with panic. “I won’t let you die.”

I smile, or I try to. The pain makes it hard. “Eryss?—”

“Shut up,” she snaps, voice breaking. “You’re not allowed to talk like that.”

Her fingers clutch at me, trembling, drenched in my blood. My vision dims, but I can still see the sheer desperation in her eyes. She isn’t ready to lose me.

Yet, she will.

Because I have already decided.

“I know a way,” I whisper. The words slip through cracked lips, barely a breath of sound, but they shatter her.

Eryss freezes.

Her pulse jumps beneath my touch. “What do you mean?”

Naranus shifts nearby, his presence a force of solid heat. He should be dead already, but somehow, he still stands. Still fights. The cracks in his stone flesh deepen with each second, the cursed magic devouring him from the inside out.

He’s out of time.

So am I.

Eryss demands answers, her hands tightening on me as if she can anchor me to this world. “Catalina—what way?”

I exhale slowly, letting the truth settle over me like a weighted blanket. “A third way.”

She flinches.

“The curse,” I continue, voice shaking, “is bound to the balance of power. It requires one of two things: His death or a willing soul of equal power to take his place.”

The moment the words leave my lips, Naranus reacts.

“No.” His voice is like stone cracking, rough, raw. Final. “You will not do this.”

Eryss stiffens, shaking her head, already rejecting what I haven’t even spoken aloud. “That’s not—no. No.”

I ignore them both. This is my choice.

Not theirs.

“There’s a cost,” I murmur. “A sacrifice. But it must be done willingly. It must be done out of love. And—” my voice catches, the weight of it pressing down on me, “—it must be a soul with enough power.”

The truth strikes like a blade.

Naranus grows still. His dark eyes burn into me, emotion swirling like a storm just beneath the surface. “You think that makes it right?”

Eryss is already shaking her head, tears streaking her dirt-stained face. “No. No.”

I smile. It’s small, weak. But genuine.

“Eryss,” I whisper. “I tried to kill you once.” My fingers twitch against her wrist. “Now, I can save you.”

Her sob is sharp, unrestrained. “I don’t want you to save me. I want?—”

“You want us all to live,” I say softly. “But you can’t have that.”

She breaks. I see it in the way her shoulders shake, the way her lips tremble. But I cannot stop now.

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