BEATRICE:
Zayne flapped his expansive wings.
My breath caught in my throat.
It was a sight to see – half boy, half beast.
He ran toward Mark and me with a blood-curdling scream, his cloth shoes scratching against the concrete balcony.
“Guards, capture him,” Mark demanded, but they were long gone.
I clutched onto the love of my life. Embracing, Mark and I backed into the balcony railing to protect ourselves from the wild creature we’d accidentally created.
That boy needed to be caged in order to keep society safe. We had to get him under control before any more damage was done.
“Zayne, please.” Naive Grace called out the beast’s name, drawing attention to herself. She was always beautiful, but never very intelligent.
He turned to Grace. “I wish to tell you, but I fear what you think of me. I am a freak because of them.”
The monster pointed at Mark and me, still cowering near the edge of the balcony.
Like Doctor Frankenstein, we’d have to make peace with our creation. We always intended to make things right.
I held Mark against my beating chest.
Grace reached out and touched Zayne’s face. “I’m sorry, dear.” She caressed his wings, exposing their deep connection.
I had to look away. It was horrific.
Mark and I had been so engrossed in my treatments, so focused on finding a cure, we failed to realize she had found this boy.
A grave oversight, to be sure. We should have realized she was too young and needed constant supervision.
“Grace, stay away from him.” Mark let go of me and scrambled for the gun, but it was stuck to Alpha.
Zayne bared his teeth and growled.
Unarmed, Mark stepped back with hands up and spoke in a calm tone. “It’s okay. We can work this out. We'll arrange an incredible compensation package…”
My Markie always did the right thing, but they were so engrossed in their own puppy love to see things clearly.
Grace turned the beast’s face toward her, and they stared deep into each other’s eyes.
She whispered, “You’re not a freak. You’re beautiful.”
Leave it to my angsty teenager to fall for a monster. She never fit into refined society, always complaining of decadence and stuffy expectations.
In reality, she enjoyed slumming it under her golden parachute. We were always there to clean up her blunders. This was her biggest failure yet.
“I love you, Zayne.” Grace leaned in and kissed him right in front of us, as if she hadn’t learned how to behave at the finest schools. She did it to spite us, I’m sure.
I tried to pull Mark back toward me, but he hesitated, staring at Grace.
We should have let her run off with him and suffer the consequences of her own stupid decisions. She’d be so lucky to find half the love Mark and I shared.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But Mark wouldn’t have any of that. Not his daughter.
He shouted, “No, Grace, back away from him. Now.”
“Or what?” she asked.
Mark shook his head. He said he only had eyes for me, but Grace had several years to secure her place in Mark’s heart while I rotted in my wheelchair.
Instead of laughing with me in his workshop, he’d tinker on his drone with Grace while I sat left behind, staring at the fireplace, trapped inside my body with nowhere to turn but my own thoughts.
Rage flickered in Grace’s eyes. “You always scold me for the consequences of my actions…” She made fists, and her veins glowed under her pale skin.
She squinted her eyes, flared her nose, and charged at us like an animal.
“Grace, what have you done?” Mark gasped.
“Zayne isn’t the only one who’s had the serum…” she warned.
I gripped Mark for safety, my fingernails digging into his forearm.
He held me tight around my waist.
Grace always had a rebellious streak, but we thought we’d raised her right. In truth, we didn’t know what our child was capable of.
Gunshots echoed in the background, a reminder of the chaos building outside.
We expected the villagers to be ungrateful for the opportunities we’d given them, but never anticipated it from Grace.
She bared her teeth and hissed.
The creature, with a wingspan twice his size, had more sense than our misguided teenager.
He pulled Grace away. “We go. The villagers deal with them.”
Grace said to Zayne, “I love you. I want to be with you, but do you really think they’ll let us be together?”
They looked at me and Mark gripping each other and the balcony railing.
Grace looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Throw them over, Zayne.”
“Grace Marie Claudi,” I called out. “You stop this nonsense. We’ve always fixed your mistakes, but now you’ve gone too far. There’s no coming back from this.”
“What mistakes, Mother? You’re the one who’s done unspeakable things. It’s my turn to fix your disgusting missteps.”
Her upper lip curled. She turned her nose up at us, as if we hadn’t given her everything she’d ever wanted. Love, attention, material wealth. None of that mattered now.
This was every parent’s worst nightmare.
Grace was the monster.
“My dear, I see that you’re upset, but I can fix things,” Mark pleaded. “I promise, honey. Everything will be okay. We can come back from this.”
“My whole life, I thought you were perfect. I wanted to be just like you two. So in love…” Grace admitted.
Mark and I were so in love. He was my everything, and I had a second chance at life with him.
I peered at the castle tower, half-built. With my fragile body restored, so was my hope for our future as lovers, parents, soulmates.
We rebuilt our love brick by brick. Our struggles intertwined with our triumphs.
“Please, Grace…” I begged.
She silenced me with her icy stare. “I’ve found a love more powerful than yours. Zayne and my love is bigger than us because it includes all the boys you’ve kidnapped and tested on.”
I scoffed.
Grace stomped her foot. “You’ve tortured the people on this island. We won’t let you hurt anyone else for your own selfish gains.”
She turned to her creature. “Throw them over. It’s the only way to stop them. They’re too powerful. Politicians, police, media, they own them all. They’ll never let us be together. You and your people will never live in peace if they’re alive.”
“Grace, you’re making Zayne’s sacrifice meaningless,” I said, my voice shrill.
She crossed her arms and turned her back on me.
“No…” My breath caught in my throat.
The boy flapped his wings and flew toward Mark and I, stirring a violent wind around our last passionate kiss.
We held each other tight.
Despite the hot, rushing wind, I couldn’t afford to blink and miss a millisecond of time with the love of my life. I lost myself in Mark’s ocean eyes, his deep and loving nature sparkling through their boundless beauty.
That monster effortlessly snatched us as if we were playthings and dangled us over the volcano.
I rested my head on Mark’s chest. His heart pounded against my cheek.
Molten lava churned and spat below us. Scalding heat blistered our skin, melding us together.
“Grace, no. Don’t do this.” Mark pleaded one last time with our power-hungry child.
Zayne asked Grace, needing to be sure. “You want me to kill them? Yes?”
I clung to my soulmate over the volcano that would be our tomb, panic pounding with every heartbeat. The pull of gravity made my stomach twist, not just for the fear of dying, but of dying like this.
Was Grace justified in throwing her parents into the volcano?
