Beauty to Beast

Chapter Four

His head hung low on the fragile bones that made up his spinal column, images replaying in his head of his last moments of true life, for though his heart still beat, he was all but a festering corpse. His body suspended forevermore at the very brink of life, he was not to be allowed the sweet mercy of death. Buried deep, so deep that he could hear the very screams of those in Showlow - if only he could be allowed to join them. Anything was better than this. Burning would be a sweet respite.

When Xavier's torture came again, he did not have the strength to scream, so gruesome was his plight that there were no words in his language or any other to describe such absolute desecration. So vile it was that he could not understand how he remained alive. Such taint, a body was not supposed to withstand. But he did live, and his hatred grew with every beat of his black heart.

Xavier was cursed. To wish for death with every fiber of his being, to suffer as no one had ever suffered. At first he had laughed at such a torment, knowing that his enemy was suffering a thousand times over. That he, Xavier the Damned, had caused the man's torment. The thought had soon lost its novelty though, as year after year passed, decade after decade, century after century, and finally millennium after millennium, passing at a snails pace, no end in sight. And as his body shriveled up, and wasted away, not even the image of that whore's face, her eyes devoid of any life, brought the same amount of satisfaction it once had.

The only end to the monotony and pain were the times when he was visited by his worst enemy, and those times were the most vile. It had been century's since the bastard had last visited him in this plane of evil and death, and shudders of revulsion still racked him at the memories. All that kept his mind even slightly intact were the images of his last moments on the surface. The torment that he had seen in that bastard's eyes...so sweet. The only thing he regretted? That he was here instead of the son of a bitch.

So he replayed them over and over, that slut's slender throat in his palm, her skin had been like silk, the blade digging in, blood spurting. If his dick hadn't been as wasted as the rest of him he'd be hard as a rock right now. The thought made rage resurface.

Footsteps sounded and light invaded, fighting away the mystical darkness that even his powerful eyes were unable to penetrate, another part of the torment for the only thing that was as clear as day was his own reflection. His jaw squeaked on its joints as he let out a small whimper, fuck. He was back, oh God, fuck.

Xavier was filled with both elation and hysteria. Elation because his insane mind wanted to see the agony in his enemy's eyes, and maybe he could drive the bastard to kill him. Hysteria because deep down he knew he would fail, he always failed.

Yet when Xavier raised his head he was met with a shocking sight.

Not his worst enemy.

No what met his eyes was the visage of true beauty.

Hair of the palest hue, and a face that made his eyes burn anew. It was too magnificent to look upon.

Xavier could not compute the sight before him. The first woman he'd seen since his imprisonment.

And for it to be this woman? Fate was truly cruel.

She smiled at the sight of his shock, and disfigurement, pink lips curling into a cruel smile, belying her angelic features.

“Hello...husband.”

The first thought that came to Eve's mind as the body shifting beside her caused her own consciousness to stir was that she was unbelievable sore....in the strangest of places. But she put that onto the doorstep of the multitude of different drugs that she had to take to keep her alive, if only for a little longer. The second thing that came to her was flashes of the incredible dreams she'd had last night. The battlefield, the scorching pain...the cataclysmic pleasure. At the memory of that a sigh escaped Eve's lips as she burrowed deeply into the hard, warm and strangely contoured pillow beside her, wanting to slip back into her dreams and the dream-man that awaited her there. The harsh groaned sigh that came from the said pillow though caused Eve to open one eye. Flesh greeted her gaze. Either her pillow was a very detailed reproduction of a built chest or an actual man. At that thought she raised an eyebrow as she popped up like a jack-in-a box. Eve looked down at what she'd thought was a pillow and what was actually... her dream man.