AN: This is a story that I am putting out on kindle and hardcover in May. I will be uploading one chapter per week here until it's up, and will be offering it for free here (until and unless I manage to snag a big publishing contract). The full story will likely not be up until mid-August, whereas the full story will be available for purchase starting in May. There's my marketing ploy.
It was a look he knew all too well. All at once, the blonde that stood before him was his mother, was the Shah's wife, was that prostitute in Wales…
A strangled, animalistic howl tore itself from his ribcage, and that look— part pity, part hatred— melted into one of pure terror. She lifted her hands to cover her eyes, but he wouldn't allow it.
His slender, bony fingers were like ice against the skin of her wrists. She let out a soft gasp as she fought against his grip, but he was much too strong.
"Gaze upon my accursed ugliness," he croaked. His voice was dry and cracked, a mere shadow of the glorious thunder it had once been. "Gaze upon this horror that has loved you."
As she struggled against his grip, the blonde who had dared to unmask him changed before his eyes to the one person he never wanted to see again.
"Christine!" he gasped, letting her go quite suddenly. He looked down at his hands in horror as the girl fell to the floor in a heap, sobbing and terrified. But it can't be, he thought.
"Why did you come back?" he demanded with a sneer. "Why must you torment your Erik so?"
"Who— I do not know what you're talking about, monsieur," replied the blonde, her voice trembling.
For the first time in years, the man laughed. For one brief, shining moment it was as though he was young again. His eyes sparkled with a strange, calculated rage that the blonde had never seen before.
"Do not think that you can play me for a fool, Christine." With every word his voice grew stronger.
"My name is not Christine!" the blonde insisted. "My name is Joanna!"
"He only wanted to love you," the man continued as he bent over and grabbed her roughly by the upper arm. Yanking her to her feet, he leaned in close to her so that his face was all she could see.
Too terrified to look away, she stared forward in horror as his amber eyes flashed with pain. "Why did you do it, Christine? Why?"
The blonde struggled to pull away from him, but his grip was like a vice. "I do not know who Christine is, monsieur! Please, just let me go!"
"All Erik ever wanted was to love you!" His words were like the yowling of an injured cat, and they echoed through the darkness. "You won't flee from him this time."
"Please just let me—" Her final words caught at the back of her throat as the man suddenly released her arm and, with speed she wouldn't have thought possible from one so skeletal, threw a noose made of catgut over her head.