Page 93 of The Depraved Prince
“No!” I drop the scissors, and they fall between us with a loud clang. “I’m not like you, Hayden! I never want to be like you! I want answers from you!” He looks at them like he wants to retrieve them for me and put them inside his own chest.
“I’m tired of thinking there’s good in everyone! Some people just bleed pure darkness. I’m sorry that I thought I saw something different in you. You are irredeemable. I hate you!” I shout as my vision blurs, my throat rasps and scratches my words with animosity.
“I’m sorry, Millie. I know there are no fucking words to express the magnitude of what I’ve done. I…blacked out. I can’t remember anything from that night. Just that I took you away and…fuck! I’m sorry! I hate that I don’t remember. My blackouts are uncontrollable. You know I suffer from this! You smashed the lamp against me and I raged. I became blinded by wrath anddepravity and—” He grabs my hand and pulls me to him, but I fight him as much as I can.
How can he fuck me like this, knowing he’s a monster? How can he tell me he loves me when he’s killed my father? How does he think I would marry him and never find out? I push him away, and this time, he lets me have some distance from him.
“I don’t care if you black out! If you are seeking forgiveness from me, you’re crazy! You chose to murder my father! I need to leave! I hate you!” I shout, seeing red. My heart has shattered. This is all too much. I feel like I’m going to faint and enter the same dreadful headspace I’ve been in since I was a child. Getting taken from Hayden… I can’t explain what this has done to me, but I’ve forgotten about my troubled past when I’m with him because he chases it away when we’re together.
“Don’t tell me you hate me. Don’t say those three words again! I’ll fucking break if you do. Don’t rip me apart by telling me that!”
I purse my lips together as my vision blurs.
“I. Hate. You.”
I’m seething. I’m breaking. I’m drowning in his messed-up world.
Black tears start to fall out of the corners of his eyes, but I can’t stop. He kept these horrible secrets from me.
“You said that you fell in love with me the moment we met. Yet you killed my father. He and I…we were fixing things! He was trying to be a part of my life and you ruined that forever! You don’t kill the father of the one you love! I did what you told me to do!” I grab at my chest, seeking relief from my living nightmare but nothing helps. I shut my eyes tight as all the memories of my father hit me.
My dad is dead…this is unbelievable. All this time, I’ve been falling for my captor’s lies. His lies were so wrapped up perfectly in a bow of our desire for each other. He’s my father’s murderer?
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me, Millie. I don’t care who it is. I’ll. Kill.Anyone.” He admits it with no remorse and the darkest of tones I’ve heard him mutter.
He doesn’t regret killing my dad?
I shake my head at his brutally honest confession. I know he’s obsessed and would go to limitless lengths to keep me with him…but this? This is unforgivable. My situation is insanity.
“God, Hayden!” My lips twist into repulsion. “I’m sick? What does that even mean?! Tell me the truth!”
He’s quiet, and finally, he can’t look at me anymore. The lies, the deceit, everything is coming together like a map, and I’ve just reached the ending to my destination—the ending of our unstable relationship.
“Tell me!” I’m begging for the answers I deserve.
He starts to tap his foot, shaking his knee up and down anxiously.
“All Valkyries…are sick. They all die at the age of twenty-three from rare or mysterious illnesses. The book says that it can be from heart failure, tumors…or cancer. Whatever it is…it’s incurable nor treatable.”
Cancer?
More tears fall down my cheek, and I grip my arms for comfort. I lick my dry lips, trying to process all of the information.
“That’s why you want to turn me so badly?” I whisper, blinking slowly.
He nods, looking at me like he’s being torn into a billion pieces by having to utter words he’s been trying to avoid. Well, now I have what I needed to hear, and I don’t know what to do but ache.
“Do I have cancer?” I ask him, but Hayden just flexes his jaw hard and looks at me with tortured eyes and a tormented soul.
“I just wanted to protect you from death…” he tells me instead of answering my question, his tone turning deep and husky.
“By keeping all of this from me? You think I was going to marry my father’s murderer?! You’re a liar! You wanted me for revenge…you want me for your powers! You want me to be your prisoner until you take me for your selfish ambition!”
“I don’t give a fuck about the powers! All I care about is saving you and keeping you with me until the end of time!”
“Your father has wanted to kill me this entire time, hasn’t he?” I interject.
Silence. Shame is written all over his beautiful satanic face.
