Page 11 of Beauty's Beast

She stared at him, mute, wondering what horror lay hidden beneath the mask. She reminded herself that this was the same man who had comforted her the night before.

He swore, the rough timbre of his voice making the oath sound even more vile, and then he swept past her, every lineof his body radiating anger. And buried beneath the anger, she sensed a dark and bitter despair.

Kristine stared after him, wondering what manner of man she had wed.

She thought of him all that day. Indeed, there was little else for her to do. She had no tasks to keep her hands busy, nothing else to occupy her mind.

She wandered through the castle, then went outside and walked through the gardens. Vast gardens, well-tended. A section of fruit trees, another of vegetables, all carefully weeded. She found a rose garden and followed the white stone path that wandered up one row and down the other. A bed of red blooms, one of white, another of pink, and still another of yellow. Beautiful roses, hundreds and hundreds of them.

In the center of the rose garden, she discovered a pool, and in the center of the pool, a statue of a great hawk, namesake of Hawksbridge Castle, carved of black and white stone.

Kristine walked around the pool, studying the hawk from all sides. It was truly awe-inspiring, almost lifelike as it perched there, wings spread. She would not have been surprised to see it soar heavenward.

Enchanted with the beauty of the grounds, she continued her exploration, a cry of delight erupting from her throat when she happened upon a topiary garden. Trees cleverly trimmed into animal shapes rose all around her. Elephants and horses, a giraffe and a unicorn, a bear and a tiger. Animals she had only seen in pictures. She walked slowly, pausing to study each remarkable sculpture, wondering how it was possible to make the bushes look so alive.

After a time, she returned to the rose garden and sat down on the grass, her skirts spread around her. She ran her fingertips over the smooth silk of her gown. Never before had she worn such fine clothes.

With a sigh, she removed her bonnet and ran a hand over her hair. How long would it take for it to grow out? It had never been cut short before. She felt naked without its warmth and weight, as if a vital part of herself had been shorn away.

It seemed the day would never end, but at last the moon took command of the sky. She ate a lonely supper, took a lengthy bath, then retired to her bedchamber, wondering if he would come to her that night.

Afraid he would, afraid he would not.

Surely no one else had a marriage quite as strange as hers. Curled up in a chair, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

In his room, Erik paced the floor like a caged beast. Earlier in the day, he had watched Kristine walking through the gardens, more beautiful than any of the flowers. He had watched her and hated her, hated the soft glow in her eyes and the smoothness of her skin, the smile that curved her lips as she paused to admire his roses. He hated her vulnerability, the sweet lilting sound of her voice, the way her name echoed in his mind and lingered on his lips. He hated her for being young, for making him want things that would never again be his.

He ripped the mask away, yanked off his glove, ran his good hand over the hideous contours of his face. Charmion’s curse screamed in the back of his mind:A rutting beast you were, a beast you shall become. Not all at once, my selfish one. Day by day, the change will come upon you …

Day by day, the transformation had happened. So slowly, so subtly, that in the beginning he had been convinced it wasonly his imagination, his own guilt rising up to torment him. But the day had come when his acquaintances could no longer hide their curiosity about the changes in his appearance. Rumors had flown that he had been stricken with a rare disease that caused the disfiguration, and he had not denied it. Better that rumor than the truth.

Not long after that, he had risen from a troubled sleep. After splashing water on his face, he had stared into the mirror and been horrified by the hideous half-human, half-beastly reflection that stared back at him. On that day, in a fit of horror and helplessness, he had broken every mirror in the castle, save a small one, and the floor-to ceiling mirrors that lined the ballroom, now out of sight behind locked doors.

Since then, the curse had crept over him like some insidious poison, creeping down the left side of his neck, his left shoulder, his arm, his hand …

He lifted his left hand and studied it, horrified as always by the thick yellow nails, the coarse black hairs that covered his arm and the back of his hand, the pelt growing thicker with each passing day. The skin of his palm was thick and growing dark, like the pad of a wolf’s paw. Soon there would be nothing human at all about the left side of his body. And in another few months, a year at most, there would be nothing human at all.

Removing the only remaining small mirror in the castle from a drawer in his bedside table, he stared at his reflection, struck by the horrible realization that he would look less frightening, less grotesque, when the transformation was at last complete and he was finally, fully, a beast.

Unable to bear the sight of his reflection any longer, he dropped the mirror in the drawer and slammed it shut.

A beast … He felt the madness rise within him, felt it seep into his mind, felt the darkness pulling at him, enticing him …His dreams of late had been filled with images of predator and prey, of blood and death.

“No.” He shook his head. “No!” He repeated the word again and again until the cry of denial became a shout, and the shout became a roar that shook the very walls. “No!”

Kristine came awake with a start, wondering if she had dreamed that awful heart-wrenching cry. But there it was again, louder this time. She covered her ears in an attempt to blot out the horrible sound. What was it? Surely no one, man or woman, could produce a cry of such complete and utter agony. It penetrated every nerve, every pore, until she thought the anguish of it would cause her heart to break.

She cried out in alarm as the door to her room crashed open and he stood there, every muscle in his long, lean body taut, his eyes burning through the slits in the mask.

“Get into bed.”

Frightened, she scrambled out of the chair to obey.

He extinguished the lamps, plunging the room into darkness. After unfastening his breeches, he ripped the flimsy sleeping gown from her body, then settled himself between her thighs, his gloved hand imprisoning both of hers above her head.

He closed his eyes, hating himself for taking her as if she were no more than a harlot, hating her for letting him do it without complaint.

She moved beneath him, the slight shifting of her hips settling him more deeply within her. With a groan, he buried his head against her shoulder, his body convulsing violently. A low moan trembled in her throat when he withdrew. Had he not known better, he might have thought it a protest at his leaving.

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