Page 104 of The Heart of a Villain

Easier said than done. He didn’t have his hands smeared with his father’s blood or watch his mother slowly die on the inside as weeks passed by without him waking up!

Not words I can shout at them, though, so I swallow back my anger and nod, kissing them both lightly on the cheek before strolling to my room, ready to participate tonight and have “fun.”

Hopefully then, everyone will stop telling me how to be happy.

Because how can you be happy with a broken heart?

Rush

Wrapping my hand around the coffee mug, and despite hating the drink, I take a greedy sip, welcoming the bitter taste on my tongue along with the hotness of the liquid filling my mouth.

The temporary sting, for a fraction of a second, blankets the inferno reigning over my soul, the fire destroying everything in its wake inside me and blocking Aileen’s face in my mind.

The beloved face of a woman the monster inside me craves to the point of insanity, and only the sheer will that helped me survive all those years ago stops me from going after her and kidnapping her to my island all over again.

Where I can leave marks of ownership all over her flawless skin as her ocean eyes fill with so much desire it erases all my scars anew.

My Beauty, who suffered enough at my hand and deserves to be free of the villains roaming this earth.

Let alone a man who corrupted her mind so much he made her believe she loved and desired him.

However, obsessions for the likes of me are sacred, and even if I stay away… I do not stop watching every breath she takes.

Various cameras installed in her home record her, creating thousands of videos on my computer that allow me to feel closer to her, while revulsion pollutes my mind, reminding me that this borders on madness and should be forbidden.

My eyes take in each of her actions, never hearing her melodic voice soothing the beast existing within me. Instead, they’re just moving pictures of her finding solace in her castle and as she dances, healing in her own way despite the occasional tears streaming down her face.

Probably memories of me inspire them, and that’s why she cannot sleep properly at night, waking up every few hours in sweat-drenched pajamas.

I’m the cause of all her nightmares from now on, and that knowledge makes me roar in despair.

My hold on the mug tightens, the thing cracking in my palm, and spills hot liquid on my skin, yet I pay no attention to this pain because it cannot compare to the one residing in the heart I thought I no longer possessed.

I cannot atone for my sins, and as such I have no right to my Beauty, who should have never been smeared in my darkness.

I was a blind fool, though, who believed a despicable man instead of doing my research, and no apologies will make up for all the hurt I caused her and her family.

Not to mention her father almost died, and I suck air through my teeth, remembering her helplessly struggling for breath in the forest when Lachlan’s heart stopped beating.

And how she looked at me in that moment, complete hatred aimed my way, almost destroying me, because I knew she had a right.

If it weren’t for me, she and her family would have never been hurt in the first place.

The broken ceramic digs into my skin, drawing blood, and as I throw it away, it hits the wall, splashing brown sludge all over it.

Everything inside me screams to go to her, wrap her in my arms, and never let go, begging for forgiveness and promising her love and eternal devotion.

If she just gave me a chance… took a gamble on a man who knew no kindness yet is willing to do and be anything she might ever need, then I’d never, ever hurt her like that again.

But the decent part of me, the one that was once a prince, would never let me do it.

For once, I’m going to be selfless and put the needs of another person above me.

That’s what love is, right?

Maybe that’s why first love has its less-than-stellar reputation, the description itself coated in darkness and hopelessness destined for doom and heartache. All the poets writing those sad-as-fuck poems in truth wanted to warn us all to never fall for that trap.

Humans, though, never listen to warnings, and I’m no exception to this rule.

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