The Red Wing Mansion

Chapter Eight

Claudius Fontaine makes a sexy command – I had to service him before bed.

By the time I've caught my breath, roasted a marshmallow and consumed it in one hungry bite, I look back up, wishing to show him my best sexy 'glare'... but he's no longer lounging on the couch.

I'm watching the empty dark living space, completely void of company or life.

For some reason his sudden vanishing act startles me – I guess because I didn't expect it.

Fontaine has just gone away with a cold draft, while a few candles I had lit now give off smoke, so does the fire behind me – which has withered to almost nothing but embers. Even my oil lanterns have flamed out without reason.

The room gets darker and darker.

Then I turn to the embers in the fireplace, to see they have also gone unnaturally cold.

All too suddenly I'm in an empty cold mansion alone, unable to see properly, although I have a nice view of the menacing shadows cast by low levels of moonlight dispersing through an array of clouds. Well, this wasn't foreboding at all... fuck... my fingers shake as I crinkle the marshmallow packet to my stomach.

Why does he have to do me like this?

I don't even have the confidence right now to call out and joke to him, as I feel under threat.

I stay where I am on the ground, legs crossed, marshmallows safe, as I eye every corner of the very dark room, looking for him.

Claudius Fontaine has fucking vanished entirely from the room.

I start to feel my skin crawl, as my anxiety builds, just before I hear something break the silence.

The sound of a metal thing, being pulled along the floor within this room.

Argh!

As my eyes turn to the right...Fontaine has approached once again, this time trailing a loose hanging belt.

What should be sexy, has my mouth dry as fear suddenly consumes me instead.

This was his worst form, standing in the total darkness, he looked like a walking corpse. And he seemed to know that despite how handsome he is, nothing can outweigh how fucking scary he is while bathed in total darkness. An apparition. Not even a whole person.

I can't even get angry about the belt, when he takes another step toward me and I give off the most awkward smile as I get to my shaky feet, closing the fluffy robe around me over my silk pyjamas, to then direct that awkward smile at the floor – trying like hell to keep my fear in check. Before the metal of the belt buckle scrapes the floor again, I dart away.

Around the couch, I sprint through the open door into an even blacker darkness and head straight for the stairs.

Fontaine doesn't even bother to call out.

Sick fuck was probably enjoying this.

I feel heart palpitations as I run past the locked front door, curtains drawn – as I now head up the stair case, two at a time, then crawling as I almost trip, catching myself before I fall. I get back up and leap to the top, running as fast as I can for the master bedroom.

My phone should be–

No, no, no, idiot, I brought it down with me. It was back where I ran form.

Now I am just running away into oblivion. Idiot! Fuck!

I huff in hard laboured breaths as I look behind me but he's not there. That makes it worse.