My Father Sold Me To A Cursed Monster — Then I Found The Horrifying Truth In His Chamber
Part 2
The heavy oak door swung inward, revealing a chamber entirely unlike the gothic decay of the abbey.
The foul odor I had smelled in the hallway was completely overpowered by the sharp, sterile sting of carbolic acid.
The room had been stripped of its aristocratic finery.
The space had been transformed into a crude, terrifying operating room.
Gas lamps blazed with an unnatural brightness, casting harsh shadows against the whitewashed stone walls.
In the center of the room stood a heavy iron operating table.
Strapped to it was a thrashing, emaciated figure.
I gasped, the heavy iron key slipping from my trembling fingers and clattering onto the stone floor.
The two menservants immediately stepped back, their faces pale and slick with sweat.
The man I knew as my husband froze.
He slowly turned to face me, the bloody scalpel in his hand catching the glaring light.
The robotic, gravelly rasp I was accustomed to had vanished completely.
It was replaced by a desperate, entirely human exhaustion as he told me I was never supposed to come here.
With a trembling hand, he reached up and pulled away the dark silk scarf.
He discarded the heavy hat, throwing it carelessly onto a metal tray.
I staggered back, my shoulders hitting the cold stone doorframe.
The man standing before me was breathtakingly handsome, with high aristocratic cheekbones and disheveled dark hair.
He was relatively young, entirely unscarred, and possessed those same piercing blue eyes.
This man was entirely human.
He was absolutely not a decaying septuagenarian destroyed by a curse.
I whispered, asking him who he was.
My eyes darted from the healthy man before me to the wretched, groaning creature strapped to the table.
The figure on the table possessed the exact same facial structure.
However, his flesh was a terrifying canvas of blackened rot and weeping wounds.
His sightless eyes were rolled back, lost entirely to a violent, burning fever.
The healthy man stepped into the light and softly introduced himself as Brian.
He pointed to the agonizing figure on the table.
He told me that the man fighting for his final breaths was his twin brother, Tyler.
Tyler was the true Duke of Morland.
The revelation struck me with the force of a physical blow.
The journal, the rumors, and the impenetrable isolation violently rearranged themselves in my mind.
He had married me under a false name to protect his brother.
Tyler wasn’t cursed; he was being slowly, systematically poisoned with a necrotic agent that rotted the mind and flesh.
My new husband had dedicated three agonizing years to treating the infection with powerful antiseptics to protect Tyler’s failing heart.
The first two wives hadn’t died of a curse.
They were murdered because they discovered that the true monster was the one administering the poison.
Brian handed me a stack of financial ledgers filled with forged signatures.
Our corrupt cousin was next in line for the dukedom.
But he needed someone inside the abbey to administer the poison daily.
He needed someone who controlled the meals, the servants, and the very air we breathed.
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
The real monster was already living inside my home.
I turned to face the door just as a slow, deliberate handclap echoed from the darkened hall, and my blood ran completely cold.
Who was standing there?
