Beauty’s Beast(43)
Author: Amanda Ashley

“Yes!” she hissed. “Yes, and yes, and yes again.”

She walked toward him, one long-fingered hand reaching out to stroke his furred side. She laughed softly when he tried to draw away and realized he couldn’t move.

Frozen in place, he could only stand there, repelled by her touch, as she ran her hands over him, a look of evil delight in her black eyes as she slowly examined the results of her spell.

“What are you going to do with Kristine?”

“Nothing. For now.” Charmion walked around him, her hand stroking his fur as if he were a pet. “She has something I want.”

Fear unlike anything he had ever known churned in Erik’s gut. “What do you mean?”

“She’s carrying a child. A girl child. I shall call her Dominique.”

“No!”

Charmion stood in front of him. “Oh, yes. I shall have a new daughter to replace the one you stole from me.”

“Charmion, please . . .”

“You wish to beg me for your child’s life? It would be more effective if you were on your knees.”

She waved her hand, and he dropped to his hands and knees, forced there by her power.

“Beg me, Erik. Beg me for your daughter’s life as I once begged you for mine.”

“Please,” he said hoarsely. “Take Hawksbridge, take all my holdings, only please don’t take my daughter from Kristine.”

She laughed in cruel amusement. “How the mighty have fallen!” she said, her voice filled with mockery. “You should see how you look! Erik Trevayne, mighty lord of Hawksbridge Castle. A few more months at most and the transformation will be complete. Perhaps I shall keep you here for a pet. Yes, I think that is a most wondrous idea. You will be able to watch your daughter grow up.” A laugh of pure evil spilled from her lips. “Yes, I shall enjoy watching that. I shall enjoy looking into your eyes when you gaze at her. Think what it will be like! You will remember everything. Everything. But you will be a beast, lacking the power of speech, totally in my power.”

He fought off a sense of growing horror to ask, “And what of Kristine?”

Charmion shrugged. “I fear I shall have no need of her once the child is weaned. Perhaps I shall let her go. Or perhaps I shall turn her into a beast, as well. Would you like that?”

“No!” He struggled to break free of her power, to rise to his feet, but he couldn’t move, could only kneel there, helpless, while she stroked his head, her eyes thoughtful.

“Both beasts. Perhaps the two of you will mate and have more children,” she remarked. And then she laughed. “Though I suppose it will be more like a litter, really.”

“No! No . . . please.” A howl of anguish rose in his throat, and with it an overpowering sense of guilt. This was all his fault. He should have ended his life when Dominique died.

“Come along, my pet,” Charmion said. She lifted one hand, beckoning him, and he had no choice but to obey.

On hands and knees, he followed her through the great dark castle. The black cat padded after him, hissing softly.

Erik tried to free himself from the grip of Charmion’s awesome power. He willed himself to stop, to stand, but his body refused to obey.

They turned right at the end of a long corridor and went down a winding flight of cold stone stairs that led to a dark, dank dungeon. The cat sat down at the bottom of the stairs, yellow eyes glowing in the dark.

The rough stone scraped his right knee, his right hand. He began to shiver as the dungeon’s cold crept into him, and with it the certain fear that he would never see Kristine again, that Charmion would keep him down here until the transformation was complete, until he was fully a beast, incapable of speech, his mind and his humanity forever trapped in the body of an animal.

He heard a whispered word and a candle sprang to life, its pale light illuminating an iron-barred cell.

“Your new home,” Charmion said as she opened the door.

He summoned all his willpower, all his strength, in an effort to resist her, knowing if he entered the musty cell, he would not leave it again, at least not in his present form. “I. Will. Not.”

“Ah, but you will, my lord Erik. You are not strong enough to resist me.” She crooked her finger at him. “Come, my pet.”

“No.” The word was torn from his throat, but even as the sound of his voice echoed off the damp stone walls, he was crawling inside the cell.

The door shut behind him, closing with the finality of life’s last breath.

He collapsed on the cold stone as she withdrew her power, his body feeling as weak as that of a newborn colt.

Charmion stared at him a moment, and then she turned away. The candle guttered and died as she retraced her steps toward the stairway, leaving him alone in cold and utter darkness.

Shaking with pain and rage, he grabbed hold of the bars and drew himself up. He was a man still; he would not lie on the floor like some dumb beast. But, try as he might, his legs refused to support him, and he dropped to his knees, his forehead resting against the bars.

“Kristine . . . Kristine . . .” Her name trembled on his lips. What was to become of her, of their child?

Steeped in bitter despair, his body aching as the hideous transformation continued toward its inevitable end, he closed his eyes and surrendered to the darkness.

He woke to a blaze of light. He sprang to his feet, a curse issuing from his lips as he glanced around the dungeon. Mirrors, nothing but mirrors. Large and small, gilt-edged, framed in wood, veined with gold. Mirrors everywhere he looked, and for the first time since the curse had made itself known, there was nowhere to hide from what he was becoming. His reflection stared back at him at every turn, mocking him.

When the transformation first began, he had removed every mirror from the castle save the small one he used when he shaved. Never since that day had he looked into a full-length glass, never had he seen just how truly hideous he had become. Daily, he had examined his left hand, his feet, but never before had he seen the sum total of what he now was. It was his worst nightmare magnified a hundred times, illuminated by a hundred flickering candles.

“Charmion!” He clutched one of the bars with his good hand as he bellowed her name. “Charmion!”

One minute he was alone, the next she was standing outside his cell. “Is something amiss, my lord?” she inquired with sugary sweetness.

“Take them away!”

She smiled at her reflection as she glanced around the dungeon, inordinately pleased with her cleverness. Mirrors of every conceivable size and shape hung from the walls outside his cell, from the ceiling above, out of his reach but never out of sight.