I was trapped in that moment, watching as the last shreds of humanity peeled away from him, layer by layer, until only the nightmare remained.
My hands flew to my mouth, stifling the gasp that threatened to escape.But not out of fear.
No—fear had no place here.
Not when my father was the real monster.Not when Lord Winston embodied cruelty in its purest form.
Amir, this man before me… he was not a monster.
His dark form loomed, a specter of every nightmare, yet all I saw was the pain carved into the lines of his being—a soul suffering beneath the weight of his darkness, mistaken for the thing it feared becoming.
His shadowed figure trembled, the air thick with the suffocating manifestation of the curse that clung to him.
“Look at me!”His command shattered the silence, raw and jagged, his voice laced with bitter self-loathing.“This is what I am.”
His voice was a rasp, a confession, an executioner’s final verdict.
“I destroy everything I touch.I am no better than the monsters you despise.”
My heart twisted at the torment in his voice.This was not the voice of a monster—this was the voice of a man drowning in suffering.
Slowly, I stepped forward.Closing the distance between us.
Between light and dark.
“No.”My voice was soft but resolute.“You’re wrong.”
His eyes simmered like dying embers.“You should hate me.”His tone hardened, daring me—begging me—to turn away.
And yet—I didn’t.
Leeches clung to his decaying skin, feasting on the rot.Carrion beetles skittered along his exposed bones, antennae twitching as they burrowed deeper, seeking nourishment from the remains of a man who breathed.
I should have been repulsed.Horrified.Sick with fear.
But revulsion was the furthest thing from what I felt.
“I don’t,” I whispered.
Slowly, intently, I reached out, my fingertips grazing the contours of his face—the hollow ridges where the flesh had withered, the cool, spectral skin beneath.
“I love you, Amir Hassan.”
His breath hitched.
“You are my beautiful monster.”
He flinched at my touch as if my acceptance wounded more than rejection ever could.
“You can’t mean that, Elizabeth,” he grated.“You barely know me.”
I stepped closer, our bodies separated only by the veil of shadows clinging to him.
“I know enough to trust my own heart.”
Our breaths mingled—my warmth seeking his chill, refusing to be repelled.
“We are the same, you and I,” I whispered against the hollow of his cheek.
