Page 65 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts (Hospital for Immortal Creatures #3)

Constantine

Constantine massaged the tense muscles in his neck, unfastening the top button of his shirt with his other hand. Alas, bathing and changing into clean clothes had done little to quell his irritation.

Diana had resolved to drive him mad with every word, holding onto that decision all night.

She had declared she would reveal more about her ties to Swan once Constantine persuaded the reptilians to remove her shackles and transfer her to a cell.

Afterwards, she promised to find a way to free him and disclose everything about Swan.

Constantine, in turn, insisted she give up her secrets first, and only then would he inform the Queen that he no longer wanted Diana in his quarters.

Of course, he’d lied. He would never willingly part with her.

His gaze swept over her form on the bed. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Gretchen’s words suddenly took on weight. ‘Would she stand by you when it’s time to step into the light?’

He circled the bed and sat beside her. She acknowledged his presence with a slight furrow of her brow.

“When I was a child, my mother used to put me to bed every night with the same words,” he said.

“‘Never forget that you’re different,’ she would say.

‘Always with one foot in another world, always a nightmare for this one. Most will see a black heart, but the right one will recognise a true friend in you.’”

Diana tilted her head towards him. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m bored.”

She shifted her attention back to the ceiling, but that didn’t stop him.

“I was five years old when some older boys caught me, tied me to a tree, and beat me with sticks until I passed out. A human healer found me, not realising I wasn’t an ordinary child, and brought me to her home to tend to my wounds.

It took me a full week to recover enough to run away.

When I made it home, my mother was pale with worry.

I lied, saying I had fallen off a cliff and had been unconscious for a few days, which was why I hadn’t come back.

By the time I turned ten, I was used to being tortured and beaten.

And lying expertly so my mother wouldn’t find out… ”

“Where was your father?” Diana asked without looking at him.

“On the border between the World of the Living and the World of the Dead.”

“All the time?”

He stared at his shoes. “He was dead, and his spirit refused to move on. My mother spent ninety per cent of her time talking to him, trying to figure out how to bring him back to Earth. I’m not sure if she isn’t still trying to this day.”

A quiet weight settled between them. Constantine felt her gaze on his profile.

“Do you keep in contact with your mother?” she asked.

“I haven’t since I attained immortality. I have no idea if she’s alive.”

“Why didn’t you tell her you were being bullied?”

“My wounds were in plain sight. If she had wanted to see them, she could have. But she always looked up at my dead father, never at me.” He shrugged. “Besides, she’d have probably just forbidden me from going outside.”

“I think you underestimate her,” Diana said. “Every parent wants the best for their child, but sometimes circumstances blind them to the fact that they’re not providing it. At least children are allowed to ask for help.”

“You speak as if you know what it’s like to be on the other side. Do you have children, Diana?” His jaw tightened at the idea. He didn’t mind children, but if she had offspring with another man, perhaps that wasn’t the only thing she shared with someone else.

“No,” she said at last. “That’s just something my mother told me.”

“Is she alive?”

Diana shook her head. “I have no living relatives.”

“What happened to them?”

“You already know about my brother. My mother and father were killed after the Changes because of an old feud. The usual.”

Her quick response told him she was lying. Lies came from her with ease. However, she was hesitant to share truths.

“What do you think my mother would have done if I had told her I was being bullied?” Constantine asked.

“She would have protected you, of course.” Her confident tone was infuriating.

“No,” he ground out. “She would have made me hide until I grew up. But if I’d hidden all those years, how would I have fed the hatred inside me when I reached immortality?”

Diana frowned, clearly not understanding his words.

“I was giving them a challenge, but they didn’t understand it,” he said.

“Every time they hit me, I took the blows and told them with my eyes, ‘Kill me now, because if you don’t, it’ll be my turn later.

’ But they were too cowardly to finish what they had started.

The years passed, and I remembered faces and names.

When I unlocked my secondary form, I found each one of them.

Every face I associated with the physical pain I’d endured.

I tortured them, let them regenerate, and started again.

I burned living flesh, pulled out nails, broke bones, severed limbs, desecrated their bodies… ”

Diana swallowed slowly, as if she was visualising the horrors he described.

“But none of that compared to the torment I inflicted by trapping their souls and keeping them captive for decades. It took me a long time to realise that I wasn’t punishing them for the pain they caused me – I was punishing them because not a single one fulfilled my mother’s promise that ‘the right one would see a friend in me.’ If even one of them had seen more than just a necromancer’s child, maybe I wouldn’t have grown up so filled with bitterness towards the world. ”

Diana’s eyes widened, and he sensed she was about to say something that would irritate him further, so he spoke first. “And the paradox? When I grew strong enough to retaliate, the hatred transformed into fear – and lust. They either avoided me or begged me to bed them. Sometimes, they hired me to kill someone for them. As much as I hated them all, it was nice to be seen differently for once. I gave them what they wanted, hoping someone would want to learn more about me. But all they ever wished for was more sex, more depravity, more blood, more of what I was so good at.”

He paused briefly. “Eventually, I reached the most important conclusion of my life: my mother’s words were bullshit.

If she’d truly believed them, she wouldn’t have been so attached to the spirit of my dead father.

She would have walked out into the world.

I wondered if, even when he was alive, they were together because they saw beyond each other’s ‘black hearts’ or simply because they had no other choice, but to cling to each other because they were the same despised species. ”

Diana’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Over the years, you must have encountered women of your kind… Did you ever feel anything?”

“I did. Arousal. Lust. Nothing different from what I felt for anyone else.”

“So, you’ve found the answer to your own question,” she said. “Just because someone is of your kind is not enough to spark the flame.”

He laughed – a sharp, bitter sound. “The question ceased to matter long ago, Diana, when I stopped seeking either friendship or love.” The acidity in his tone was unmistakable.

His gaze locked onto hers, unyielding. “I insist on knowing everything you’ve learned from Swan about the reptilians and Antambazi. ”

She sat up in bed, startled by the sudden harshness in his voice. “Constantine…” Her lips pressed together. “I can’t tell you. I made a promise to keep his secret. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Hmm… wrong. Do you remember how I told you that no one ever saw anything in me but a necromancer? That was true until I met the boys at the Hospital. They saved my life, yes, because they needed a necromancer for a particular job. I did the job – after all, I owed them for keeping me alive. A favour for a favour, the only way I’d ever known to interact with others.

Imagine my surprise when, once the job was done, they invited me to stay at the Hospital.

Hard as it might be to believe, that was the first time in my life someone, fully aware of what I was, offered me genuine friendship. ”

Diana buried her hands in her hair. “I’m glad you found each other, but—”

Constantine raised a hand, silencing her. “The Hospital’s under siege by the reptilians. You have information that could help. And until you sing like a bird, you’ll remain chained to my bed.”

Diana’s eyes flashed. “So it’s all about the information I might have, after all?”

He stood, towering over her. “It would be far too bold of you to feign disappointment, Diana.”

She pulled her knees to her chest, turning her gaze towards the wall. It was answer enough. A twisted sense of satisfaction coiled within his chest.

Constantine’s eyes traced the smooth skin of her thighs.

In another reality, he might have teased her, promising that once they escaped this wretched situation, he’d take her to some exotic beach where they could lounge naked, just the two of them.

But something told him she’d rather swim with sharks than spend another second in his company.

Unless, of course, she saw some advantage in the time wasted.

***

Constantine

The Queen arrived after sunrise to summon him for his next task. He was to travel to the spirits’ realm and extract information about the missing journal from a ghost who had lingered in the room when it was stolen.

Finding that particular spirit was nearly impossible.Nevertheless, Constantine would play the part.

They were alone in the throne room – no guards, no Chosen. Constantine knelt before the throne, like an obedient pet, and transformed, sending his consciousness soaring into the ethereal plane of the deceased.

Only the recently departed souls, those chaotic, swift shadows, had any knowledge of events unfolding on Earth.

These spectral entities moved at such frenetic speeds that they were impossible to capture.

Constantine could observe them, recognise a soul, call it by name, and hope it might respond, but the odds were as slim as stumbling upon a soul that had witnessed the theft of the journal.

Yet he dared not return empty-handed. The Queen would be displeased, and her punishment might involve moving Diana – an outcome he was unwilling to risk.

So, Constantine lingered in the realm of fleeting shadows. Despite his best efforts, he failed to seize any of them. Defeated, he willed his consciousness back into his skeletal form.

“Well?” the Queen inquired as he returned back to his human form.

He’d planned to ask for another chance, but at her eager expression, inspiration struck. She sought a culprit, and Constantine had someone in mind – a person he owed a reckoning. Moreover, it was very plausible that this individual was behind the theft.

Constantine rose to his feet, his expression resolute. “It was Kathrine, Your Majesty. Your Chosen.”

The Queen pursed her lips. “Are you certain, necromancer?”

He didn’t flinch as he responded with measured confidence, “A spirit was present in the library at the time of the theft. It described her in vivid detail. Unless there’s another tall woman around here with dark chestnut hair, wearing the uniform of the Chosen, and possessing access to your library? ”

The Queen’s emerald eyes bore into his, searching for deceit.

“Did you perhaps expect someone else?” he ventured, a sly smile curling his lips.

Her mouth tightened, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. “On the contrary. I expected precisely this.”