Lucian's POV:
Darkness.
It was all he had ever known in this place.
For three hundred years, the underground prison had been his entire world — damp stone walls, the lingering smell of old blood, and chains heavy enough to hold something far more dangerous than a man. The air never changed. The silence never broke. Time passed the way it does for the damned: slowly, and without mercy.
He lay curled in the far corner of the sealed chamber, his massive body half-swallowed by shadow. Thick iron chains wrapped around his limbs, his torso, his neck — each link forged with dark magic, each one a reminder of everything he had lost and everything he had become.
He had once been human.
He had once been royal.
He had once been loved.
But that was a long time ago.
Then, for the second time, something changed.
Something drifted through the cracks in the stone walls — faint as a candle flame in a storm, but unmistakable.
Warmth.
Familiar warmth.
His eyes snapped open. Twin points of glowing emerald in the dark.
A deep growl rolled up from his chest — so low and heavy it shook loose dust from the ceiling above him. He rose slowly, the chains rattling and scraping as he moved. His horns caught the stone arch overhead, sending sparks skittering down the walls.
He inhaled.
Then again, deeper.
His throat tightened.
The scent was faint — soft and warm and faintly sweet — but he knew it immediately, the way a man dying of thirst knows water. It was the scent he had been waiting for across three centuries of silence and suffering.
Her scent.
The first time he had caught it was some months ago, when the palace above had grown loud with music and footsteps and the distant murmur of a crowd. A banquet, perhaps. Something celebratory.
He remembered it clearly.
That woman had appeared at the edge of the golden barrier that kept him caged — tall, dressed in fine silk embroidered with shimmering golden patterns, her posture radiating the quiet authority of someone who had never once been told no. Her eyes were jade green and cold, carrying the particular sharpness of someone who always had a hidden motive tucked behind their smile.
She introduced herself as the Empress.
"Can you feel her?" she had asked. "Her presence — up above?"
Lucian had said nothing.
He had only stared at her the way a wolf watches something that has wandered too close, deciding whether it was worth the effort.
She laughed softly and called him a beast.
He still said nothing.
Then she told him the news.
Her son was going to marry Beatrice.
His Beatrice.
The name hit him like a blade to the chest.
He lunged.
The chains snapped taut. The golden runes carved into the walls blazed to life, slamming him back with enough force to crack the stone floor beneath him. He thrashed against the restraints, roaring — and the entire underground chamber shook.
The Empress did not flinch.
She simply tilted her head, the small charms on her golden crown chiming delicately, as though she found the whole thing mildly entertaining.
"Such devotion," she murmured. "Three centuries, and you still lose your mind the moment her name is spoken."
Lucian's snarl vibrated through the air like rolling thunder.
Beatrice.
She was the reason he had lost everything — his kingdom, his human body, his mind. And she was the only reason any thread of his humanity still remained. The one name he had guarded for three hundred years like it was the last living thing inside him.
And this woman was using it like a chess piece.
"What do you want?" he snarled, his voice rough and sharp as broken stone after so long in silence.
"Something simple," the Empress said pleasantly. "One drop of your blood. In return, I will invite her to the palace more often — close enough for you to feel her presence. Close enough to breathe her in."
"What?" The word came out raw.
"Well." She opened her ivory fan with a crisp snap. "If she doesn't marry my son, she will marry someone else eventually. Someone with no connection to this palace. And then she will never come near you again."
She paused, letting that settle.
Then she pointed the fan directly at him — at his enormous body, his dark fur, his lion's face, his claws. "Besides... did you truly expect her to still love you? Looking like this?"
She let out a small, musical laugh.
"Are You Even Worthy Of Her?"
Lucian went still.
He looked down at himself.
The massive body that took up half the chamber floor. The thick black fur where human skin used to be. The clawed hands that had once held her gently. The monstrous face that had once been a man's. He was not human anymore. He hadn't been for a very long time.
He was a beast.
Everyone who had ever looked at him had made that perfectly clear.
Will she want me now?
The question moved through him like poison, slow and thorough.
Isabella watched every flicker of it cross his face. She watched the doubt seep into his eyes, watched the self-loathing settle over him like a familiar weight.
A slow, satisfied smile curved her lips.
"See?" she whispered as though sharing a secret. "Even you realize it. She wouldn't look at you twice—not like this… not anymore."
Something inside him crumbled.
For three hundred years, one thing — and only one thing — had kept him from losing himself completely.
Her voice.
Her promise.
"Will you wait for me? I'll definitely come back to you."
His claws dragged against the floor, cutting deep grooves into the stone.
"You're lying," he growled.
But his voice shook when he said it.
Isabella's fan tilted elegantly. "Then prove me wrong. Give me one drop of your blood, and I will bring her close to you. Again and again. Not forever — but enough. Enough for you to know she's real. Enough to feel that she's still here."
The offer coiled around him, squeezing the one part of him that had never hardened.
He didn't trust this woman.
He despised her down to his bones.
But to sense Beatrice again — to know she was alive, to confirm that her warmth still existed somewhere in this world —
"You will bring her here?" he asked, his voice low and rough with equal parts threat and desperate hope.
The Empress smiled the way a snake smiles at something that has walked willingly into its path.
"I will."
Slowly — painfully, bitterly, unwillingly — Lucian bowed his enormous head.
"Fine," he said. "Take it."
PRESENT:
....Beatrice.
His claws pressed into the stone floor, cracking it beneath him.
She was here.
Above him. Inside the palace walls.
For three hundred years, the chains had held. For three hundred years, the silence had been unbroken.
He remembered the day she died.
He remembered the cold blade. Her blood on his hands. Her last breath, barely a whisper against her lips.
He remembered the palace running red.
He remembered the screaming — his own screaming — as he tore through everything and everyone until there was nothing left but wreckage and grief and his own name being cursed by every surviving voice.
The cause of her death.
The Curse.
For Killing The Royals.
The Dark.
He had not spoken a single word since.
Not until now.
....Beatrice.
Her name left him like something broken being released after too long under pressure. It echoed through the chamber, and the ancient golden runes carved into the walls stirred in response — glowing faintly, as though recognizing a name they had not heard in a very long time.
Lucian lifted his head toward the ceiling.
Somewhere far above that cold stone lay the palace. Somewhere up there, she was breathing the same air, walking the same ground, existing in the same world as him.
His vision blurred.
Not from rage.
From something he had nearly forgotten the shape of.
Hope.
"She's here," he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of three hundred years.
My Beatrice.
His claws curled inward slowly, pressing into his own palm. Warm blood welled up and dripped onto the floor in quiet, steady drops.
Unworthy.
Isabella's word returned to him — sharp as ever, finding the same wound it always did. He could survive chains. He could survive darkness. He could survive centuries of isolation and silence.
But that word burrowed in deeper than any of it.
He lowered his enormous head until his fur brushed the floor, his horns casting long, crooked shadows against the walls.
Beatrice.
Even just thinking her name made the runes pulse again — a soft, golden rhythm, like a second heartbeat.
He could feel the bond between them. Ancient and stubborn and absolutely refusing to die, no matter what had been done to try to sever it. Three hundred years of curses and chains and dark magic, and it was still there. Still breathing.
Still hers.
He closed his eyes and let the faint warmth of her presence wash through him — like sunlight breaking through a window that had been sealed shut for far too long.
She was so close.
Too close.
Close enough that if he just reached —
The chains reacted instantly. Magic crackled along every link, flaring hot and sharp, forcing him back down to his knees with brutal efficiency.
He threw his head back and roared.
The sound tore through the underground chamber like a storm breaking — three hundred years of grief and desperation and love compressed into a single, shattering sound. The walls trembled. Dust rained down from the ceiling. Rats scattered in every direction. The runes blazed blinding gold, then dimmed all at once.
His massive frame sagged forward, trembling from the effort.
He pressed his forehead against the cracked stone floor.
And then — so quietly it was almost nothing — a single tear fell from one glowing emerald eye.
He whispered her name one final time.
...Beatrice.