To Marry A Monster (by Brey Mitchell) novel Chapter 201

Chapter 201

Chapter 201

Atasha’s POV

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I did not need Celeste to say it out loud to understand her. I could read it in the way her eyes followed my hands, in the way her jaw clenched every time someone called me “Your Highness.” I already knew exactly what she was thinking.

She wanted her hands back on the strings she used to pull, wanted to turn me into something she could point and use whenever it suited her. I was only waiting to see how she would try. By the time we left the infirmary, I had already pushed her reaction aside. There were more pressing things to face.

I had seen blood before.

I had seen it spray across snow, soak into tunics, pool under bodies that never stood again. I had seen it drip off my own hands after I tore a man’s throat open to survive.

This was different.

Matron Yara hung from the chains bolted into the stone pillar at the center of the room, wrists pulled high above her head. Her toes barely touched the floor. Every time her knees gave out, her weight jerked against the iron and a sharp, wet sound followed, flesh grinding against metal.

Lucas stood in front of her, sleeves rolled, dagger in hand.

Cassian was behind me, one chair back from the circle of light the lamps created. He was close enough that I could feel his presence, far enough that Yara had to strain to see his face. The rest of the room sat in shadows, only the outlines of Grace and Mendeze was visible along the walls.

“Tell us his name,” Lucas said, voice even. “The witch who traveled with you. The one your lieutenants described. Who is he?”

Matron Yara laughed.

It was not a sound that belonged in a human throat. It cracked and scraped, turning into a cough halfway through. Blood spotted her lips when she spit at Lucas’s boots.

“You think I would give him to you?” she rasped. “You think I would hand him over after everything? Fool.”

Lucas did not flinch at the spit. He shifted his grip on the dagger and pressed the tip just under her ribs.

“This would be easier for you if you stopped talking in circles,” he said. “You are not protecting the Demon Fangs anymore. They abandoned you the moment the stone turned on them.”

“They will return,” she snapped. “He will return. You have no idea what you are facing.”

“Then enlighten us,” Cassian said from behind me.

Matron Yara’s head twitched in his direction, but she refused to fully look at him. She kept her focus on Lucas instead, perhaps because it hurt more to see the boy she once used to pat on the head holding a blade against

her.

19:22 Fri, Dec 12

Chapter 201

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“Tell us who he is,” Lucas continued. “Is he worth this pain? Is he worth your skin being peeled open inch by inch while you hang there like a slaughtered pig?”

“You think pain frightens me?” she snarled. “I have lived through more winters than you have in years! Pain is nothing. Pain is a tool.”

Lucas dragged the dagger across her side in a slow, controlled line.

Her back arched instantly. A broken sound tore out of her. Skin parted under the steel, red welling up and running down her ribs in a thick line that soaked into the waistband of her dress. She twisted against the chains, trying to pull away from the blade, the motion only widening the cut.

“You watched me grow up,” Lucas said, his voice still strangely calm. “You said that yourself, once. That you helped raise me after my mother died. That you lay awake thinking of my future. You told me I reminded you of your own sons. Do you remember that?”

She hissed, teeth clenched so hard a vein jumped in her temple. “And this is how you repay me?” she spat. “By carving me like meat?”

Lucas drew the blade back, then pressed it lower, just above her hip. “Then answer,” he said. “Or I will give you more memories.”

“The goddess will punish you for this!” she shrieked. “She sees everything. She hears every scream. She will tear your wolf apart for daring to lift a blade against your elder.”

“If she planned to stop me,” Lucas said. “She would have done it by now.”

He cut another line. This one shorter, closer to the first, forming an angry red cross along her side. Blood dripped onto the floor in slow, heavy taps.

“Who is he?” he asked again. “His name.”

“You are wasting your time.” She laughed again, breath hitching. “You will all die before you even understand what you are facing. The North will fall soon. It is already happening. You think this stone, this attack, was the worst they can do? You think this was the blow that would bring you to your knees? This was only a test.”

Lucas didn’t bother arguing. He made another cut, this one angled, closer to her ribs. The skin there was already slick. His blade left a jagged, messy line.

Her scream bounced off the stone walls.

I flinched.

Almost immediately, Cassian’s hand settled briefly on the back of my chair. It was not comforting. It was a reminder that I was here for a reason, that turning away was not an option.

Matron Yara gasped through her teeth. “Rot,” she panted. “That is what this place is. Rot, already spreading through the walls, through your bed, through your blood. And you stand here, cutting me, as if that changes anything.”

“What rot?” Lucas asked, voice as flat as ice on a pond. “Explain.”

19:22 Fri, Dec 12

Chapter 201

She lifted her head and finally looked directly at him.

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“The rot you were born into,” she hissed as she looked at Cassian. “The Valemont rot. You know it. You taste it every time you swallow your pride and bow to that throne. You feel it every time the King sends you south to bleed for his wars and then drags you back to your snow like a dog. You pretend this is loyalty. It is not. It is decay.”

“That does not answer the question,” Lucas said, and cut again.

This time he sliced across the flesh of her upper arm, just below her shoulder where the chain pulled her skin taut. The blade opened her easily there. Blood poured down to her elbow and dripped from her fingertips.

She trembled, breath rasping.

“All I wanted,” she forced out…. “was to change it. To cleanse the North. To make it what it was meant to be. Not a kennel for the King’s hounds. Not a frozen prison run by a family of cowards who pretend their chains are crowns. The North was destined to be mine. Mine to lead. Mine to reshape. Mine to free!”

Lucas stepped back half a pace, not out of mercy, but to avoid the spray when she jerked again.

“You thought making deals with witches would free you,” Lucas said. “Instead, you gave them permission to slaughter our soldiers and poison our stones.”

“Your soldiers?” she corrected as she turned her head towards Cassian again. “You think I care how many of you died? Every wolf who dropped in that courtyard took a bit of your power with him. Every corpse that rots out there weakens you. That is what he wanted. That is what I wanted. To strip you bare. To watch this fortress crumble and take your name with it.”

“Who is he?” Lucas repeated, stepping in again. “The witch who promised you that.”

She laughed again, then choked on it. Red bubbled at the corner of her mouth.

“You really do not see it,” she said. “You really stand there, all of you, and think this is about one man with stones and tricks. The North is already rotting from the inside. The cracks are under your feet. You walk over them every day and never look down. That is why you will not see it when we strike again. That is why you will not even know which side of the wall you are standing on when it falls.”

Her eyes flashed toward Cassian. “And you know it,” she said. “You feel it in your bones. You-”

Lucas cut her off by dragging the dagger down her thigh.

She screamed so loud the lamps on the wall trembled.

Matron Yara shook against the chains, sweat mixing with blood, hair sticking to her forehead. “You think you can scare me by slicing my flesh?” she gasped.

Lucas’s jaw tightened. “Answer me! How many stones did he bring? Where is he now? Who is he working with in the South?”

She spat again, this time in Cassian’s direction, though it landed far short.

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Chapter 201

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“You will never touch him,” she whispered, voice fraying. “You will never even see him coming. He walks through your halls and you look past him. He speaks and you forget his face. That is his gift. You think ‘corrupted stones‘ are his only trick? You have not seen anything yet. He taught us that rot is patient. It waits. It feeds. It blends. And when the time is right, it eats everything.”

Lucas set the tip of the dagger against her stomach, just above her navel.

“Last chance,” he said. “You can stop this now. Give us something we can use. A name, a place. If he is as powerful as you say, he does not need you to protect him. He has already left you here to bleed. Is he worth more loyalty than the children you fed in the snow? Than the wolves who followed you into those meetings thinking you would bring them food, not slaughter?”

Her eyes filled with a shine that was not quite tears. It was rage. It was something that burned hotter than the blood running down her sides.

“The North is supposed to be mine,” she snarled. “Not his, not yours, not the King’s. Mind! I was promised that. I was promised a place in the new order. I was promised that when this fortress fell and your bodies were dragged across the courtyard, they would raise my banner instead. Why would I trade that for my life? Why would I trade that for his name on your list?”

Lucas looked at Cassian over his shoulder.

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