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.
“Take them away,” he repeated. “I beg of you.”
Her hell-black eyes met his, filled with hatred. “For every tear my daughter wept, my lord Erik, for every drop of blood she shed.”
Drawing himself up to his full height, he stepped away from the bars. He would not beg, would not humiliate himself before her. He summoned his own hatred, felt it wrap around him, strengthening his resolve. He would not be brought down by his own reflection, monstrous as it was. He would not grovel. Nor would he surrender to the despair that flowed through him. He was still alive, and while he lived, he would resist her. Somehow, he would find a way to escape and free Kristine. Somehow . . .
“Has your lady wife seen you as you are now?” Charmion wondered aloud.
Muttering a vile oath, he lunged forward, his good hand reaching through the bars, reaching for her throat, but she stepped nimbly out of danger, a cackle of laughter spewing from her lips.
And in spite of his resolve, he found himself pleading once more. “I’m begging you, don’t bring her down here, don’t let her see this. Think of the child.”
“Unlike my Dominique, your little street urchin is made of strong stuff,” Charmion said, her words bitter. “She may scream, she may faint, but the child is well-rooted within her and will be in no danger.” A cruel smile twisted her lips. “Think how pleased she will be when I tell her you are here.”
Laughter bubbled from Charmion’s throat, faster and faster, until he thought, hoped, prayed, she would choke on it.
“I cannot wait to see her face when she sees yours,” the witch exclaimed, and with a wave of her hand, she was gone.
Kristine looked up from her sewing as Charmion entered the room. As always, a feeling of dread swept over her when she was in the witch’s presence. Charmion had treated her kindly thus far, making sure she had enough to eat, that she had a comfortable bed, clothes to accommodate her rapidly expanding waistline. The witch had provided several yards of soft wool for baby sacques and gowns. She had assured Kristine of an easy delivery, claiming that there were herbs to ease the pangs of birth and bring the child speedily into the world. Kristine didn’t know if the witch spoke the truth, but if so, why had the herbs not worked on Dominique?
Kristine shook the disquieting thoughts away. Charmion had been the essence of kindness, save for the fact that she was holding Kristine prisoner against her will.
“Good afternoon, Lady Kristine,” Charmion said. As always, there was an edge of mockery in her tone, a glint of dislike in her eyes.
Kristine nodded. “Good afternoon.”
“I have a surprise for you, my dear,” Charmion said, her voice a soft purr.
“A surprise?” Kristine asked.
“Yes. Tell me, what would please you most?”
“I should like to go home.”
Charmion laughed and made a dismissing gesture with one hand. “What else would please you?”
Tears burned Kristine’s eyes. “I should like to see my husband.”
Charmion smiled. Smiles were meant to be expressions of joy, of delight, but there was nothing of happiness in the smile the witch bestowed upon Kristine.
“And so you shall,” Charmion exclaimed. She held out one hand. “Come.”
“He’s here?” Kristine stood abruptly, her sewing falling to the floor in her haste. “Erik is here?”
“Indeed. He is waiting for you.”
She was afraid to believe, afraid to hope.
“Come along.” The witch’s black eyes were filled with dark merriment and expectation as she led the way out the door and down the corridor.
Kristine followed behind, her heart pounding with anticipation and dread. A part of her was filled with hope, while another, more sensible part feared that it would not be Erik she was going to see, but his body.
Fear coiled deep within her as Charmion led her down a winding staircase and into a dungeon ablaze with light.
Charmion’s castle was dimly lit at best and Kristine blinked against the sudden, unexpected brightness.
Charmion paused at the foot of the stairs. “He is waiting for you. Stay as long as you wish.” She smiled, a smug, immensely satisfied smile, and then she vanished.
Kristine stood there for a moment, afraid to move, afraid this was some cruel hoax and that she would not find Erik here at all, but his corpse.
She took a tentative step forward. “Erik? Erik, are you here?”
“Stay where you are, Kristine. For the love of God, stay where you are.”
Weak with relief, she put a hand against the wall for support. He was here, he was alive! Thank God.
“Are you all right?” she called. “Has she hurt you?”
“I am as I was when I arrived,” he replied, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Go now. Do not come down here again.”
Confused, she stared down the narrow corridor. There were cells on both sides of the stone walkway. All were empty of life. All were filled with mirrors, though she could see nothing reflected in them but the light of a dozen lamps. Curious, she took a step forward.
“No!” The word, filled with panic, sounded as though it had been ripped from his throat. “Go back!”
Alarmed, she ran down the narrow corridor, her footsteps echoing off the walls. And then she saw him, standing in the far corner of a small barred cell, his back toward her, his head bowed. There was nothing else in the cell—no bed, no chair, not even a blanket, only iron bars and a cold stone floor.
“Erik?” She took a hesitant step forward, certain this was a cruel joke. “Erik, is that you?”
“Go away, Kristine. Please, if you have any feeling for me at all, go away and never come back.”
She took a step closer, staring in morbid fascination at the creature standing with its back toward her. She could not see its face. The form, though human, was covered from head to foot on one side with thick black fur. Only they weren’t feet, but paws.
It had to be a joke, she thought, some horrible monstrous joke. And even as she tried to convince herself that it was some cruel jest on Charmion’s part, her memory spewed forth a kaleidoscope of images she had tried to forget: The sight of Erik coming home naked in the dark of a rain-swept night. The creature she had seen in the lodge the night she’d fainted, a creature who had worn a mask and whose left side had been covered with thick black fur. Nothing she had seen before, nothing Lady Trevayne had said, had prepared her for what she saw now.
It was not a trick at all. It was Erik.<
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“No.” She felt suddenly faint and she stumbled forward, grabbing at the cell door to keep from falling. “No . . .”
At her touch, the door swung inward. With a cry, she fell forward, landing on her hands and knees inside the cell.
Erik whirled around, his gaze meeting hers, and for a moment, time ceased. He watched the blood drain from her face, watched her expression turn from fear to horror as her gaze swept over him and she saw him as he really was, saw the thick black pelt that covered the left side of his body, his wolflike ear, his feet that weren’t feet at all, but paws with thick black nails. Saw it all in the bright light of a hundred flickering candles. Saw his ugliness reflected back at her a hundred times over.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she backed away from him, only to be brought up short by the cell door, which had closed behind her, trapping her inside the cell with a monster.
Laughter echoed down the corridor of the dungeon. Charmion’s laughter.
Erik turned his back on Kristine, unable to abide the fear and revulsion in her eyes. He could hear the harsh rasp of her breathing, smell the sharp scent of her fear. She had scraped one of her hands on the rough stones when she fell, and the metallic odor of her blood rose in his nostrils, hot and thick and sweet. He licked his lips, horrified by the urge to lick the blood from her palm.
Silence stretched between them, a horrible silence that wore on his nerves. He sent a silent plea to Charmion, begging her to open the cell door so Kristine could escape, but the door remained closed, kept shut by another bit of witchery.
He pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall, his right hand clenched close to his side. Despair washed over him, engulfed him, and with it an all-consuming sense of shame and humiliation that Kristine had seen him as he was.
And then he heard her voice, small and frightened. “Erik?”
He closed his eyes, praying that this was a nightmare, that when he opened his eyes, he would find himself at home, in his own bed.
“Erik?”
He heard the tears in her voice and wished he could offer her some small measure of comfort, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do.
“Erik, it is you, isn’t it?” He heard the pity in her voice, the desperate need for reassurance. “Talk to me, please. Say something, anything.”
“Kristine . . .” He breathed her name on a sigh, felt every muscle in his body tense as he heard her take a hesitant step toward him. “Stay there!”
“Won’t you hold me? I’m so afraid.”
“It’s me you should be afraid of.”
“You? Why?”
“Look at me!” He whirled around to face her. “Look, and tell me you’re not afraid of what you see.”
“I see my husband.”
“You see a monster!” He thrust his left hand toward her. “Tell me this doesn’t frighten you! Tell me you’re not repulsed by what you see.”
She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “I am afraid, terribly afraid, but not of you.”
“Kristine, Kristine . . .” He lowered his hand and turned his back to her once more. “Don’t you understand? I’m changing on the inside, too.” He groaned deep in his throat. It was the dark, feral thoughts that plagued his mind more and more often of late that frightened him the most.
His breath caught in his throat when she placed her hand on his back.
“There has to be something we can do,” she said quietly. “Some way to break this terrible curse. There has to be.”
He shook his head, his eyes closing in pleasure as her fingertips stroked his back. He wondered how she could bear to be near him when he was in this hideous state, wondered how he had lived all these months without the tender touch of her hand.
“We’ve got to find a way out of here,” Kristine said.
“There is no way out.” Despair washed over him. He was trapped in a living nightmare, at the mercy of his worst enemy. The knowledge filled him with a strange lethargy.
“There has to be! We can’t just sit here and do nothing.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, the full extent of what had happened to him hitting her with renewed force as she felt smooth, warm skin beneath one hand and thick fur beneath the other. She fought down her own panic as she forced him to turn and face her.
For a moment, she could only stare at him. Without the mask, she could see the entire right side of his face, could see what a devastatingly handsome man he had once been.
He tried to turn away from her, but she cupped his face in her hands. “No. Look at me. We have to find a way out of here. Don’t you see? We have to find someone who can break Charmion’s curse before . . .” She took a deep breath. “Before it’s too late.”
Erik stared down at his wife. She was beautiful, with her eyes flashing fire. And she was right. He couldn’t waste time lamenting the inevitable. He had to get Kristine out of there before it was too late. Perhaps, if one witch could cast a spell, another could break it.
“All right, my little warrior wife,” he said with a wry grin. “We’ll fight our way out of here.”
Or die trying.
Chapter Nineteen
Charmion sat before the fire, staring at the dancing flames. The big black cat lying in her lap purred softly, its back arching as she ran her fingertips up and down its spine.
“Vengeance is truly sweet, my pretty one,” Charmion murmured. “Sweet, indeed.”
Lifting one hand, she sent a trickle of power into the fire. Immediately, her daughter’s image sprang to life within the flames.
“He will pay dearly for every tear you wept, my Dominique, for every drop of blood you shed.”
She stared at the image until it faded from sight.
Soon she would have another child. Erik’s child. She would raise it as her own, love it as her own. The babe would never know its true parents but would grow up thinking that Charmion was its mother. And Erik . . . once the transformation was complete, he would be her pet. It would give her great pleasure to watch him, to see the intelligence in his eyes, the knowledge of who and what he had been.
It would be interesting to see how long it took for him to surrender his humanity, to forget he had once been a man and finally, fully, become a beast. In truth, she had expected him to succumb to the full effects of the curse long before now. She had underestimated him, she mused. She had known he would fight against the inner change with every fiber of his being, just as his body fought the outer transformation. She had not realized how strong his will was, how deep his instinct for survival. And yet, no matter how fiercely he resisted, in the end, he would succumb. Her victory would be complete. Her daughter would be avenged.
She smiled, pleased, knowing that the intense inner struggle must be causing him even more pain and anguish than the physical torment he experienced as his body underwent the outer transformation. And the harder he fought it, the more painful it would be.
And now the woman was here, come of her own free will. Charmion laughed softly. She had never thought of taking the child until the woman showed up at her doorstep. She had known, in that moment when she ascertained the child’s sex, that she would take the babe. A baby, she thought, a baby for Christmas. It would be the best gift of all.
Sitting back in the chair, she closed her eyes. Things were turning out even better than she had foreseen.
Chapter Twenty
Charmion stood outside the cell, unable to believe her eyes. She had expected to find the girl cowering in a corner, in fear for her life. Instead, she was asleep on the floor, her head pillowed on Erik’s chest.
And Erik, now more monster than man, had the gall to smile at her.
An oath hissed through Charmion’s teeth. “You dare mock me?”
Erik shrugged. “Did you hope I would tear her apart?”
“Of course not!”
“Of course not,” he repeated. She wouldn’t want him to harm the child. “What will you do with Kristine, after the child is born?
”
“When that time comes, you will no longer care.”
Fear’s cold, clammy hand knotted his insides. “The transformation is nearly complete, then?”
“Before the New Year, I should think.”
“And when it happens, will I remember that I was once a man?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Let her go, Charmion. Kristine has done nothing to you. She poses no threat. Send her away.”
“I might have, had you not asked it of me.”
“Please, Charmion, for the love of heaven—”
“Don’t speak to me of love! Your love killed my daughter as surely as if you had plunged a knife into her heart! I have thought of her, grieved for her, these past five years. Be glad I do not destroy the mother who bore you, as well!”
With a wave of her hand, Charmion disappeared in a swirl of thick, dark smoke.
Days passed. Food appeared in the cell once each day. Raw meat for Erik; rich, nourishing meals for Kristine. Erik refused to touch the meat, though with each passing day it grew more tempting. Kristine offered to share her food with him, but he accepted only a little, not wanting to deprive her or the child of the sustenance they needed.
They clung to each other, not knowing how much time they had left, how long Charmion would allow them to be together. He watched Kristine constantly, wanting to imprint her image so deeply in his mind that, man or beast, he would never forget the smoothness of her skin, the clear green of her eyes, the beauty of her smile.
At night, while she slept, he paced the length of the narrow cell, his soul sinking deeper and deeper into despair. He could feel the curse creeping over him, feel it working its hideous magic on his body, his mind. His dreams were dark, filled with the scent of blood and death. In his dreams, he was no longer human, but fully a wolf. He dreamed of stalking his prey, of bringing it down, of burying his fangs in warm flesh and tearing it to shreds. He dreamed of Valaree, of hunting alongside her in the light of a full moon.
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