To Love A Nutcracker

Chapter 24

Unfortunately, when Alastor and Charlotte reached the stairway there was nothing but a dead end, and they couldn't jump from the ledge because the bonfire was at the very bottom. They were trapped. When Vox finally made it to the top, he had the nutcracker and the maiden trembling, but only briefly.

"Charlotte, stay out of the way." Alastor whispered to her.

"But-" She started to protest.

"It'll be alright. Trust me. Move to the corner over there, that's the safest place I can see."

She reluctantly and fearfully did as he was told. Now it was just Alastor and Vox, man to man. So to speak that is.

"You damn wooden brat!" He hissed. "I should have chewed you up and spit you out the minute you were transformed! I never should have waited eight years to take my revenge! But now, there's no escape this time! You die now!"

Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage to either blade. Alastor was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling rapidity, ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got past his foe's defense. Vox scarcely his inferior in brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by the weight of his onset. So he played dirty. He held out out his paw and unsheathed his razor-sharp claws, and hitting Alastor twice with such force it sends him flying back. Before he can even stand, Vox hit him again, this time at the face. Alastor stumbled back, and a hard swipe across the chest knocked him off his feet. Gnashing his teeth, Vox swung downward as Alastor turned his back on him to try and stand up. It was too profoundly satisfying for Vox to quit now. With yet another brutal smack to the throat, the battered nutcracker was flung up in the air and thrown toward the balcony edge. Alastor looked down, surveying the drop toward the fire. When he turned around, the scepter was at his throat and Vox's bulging yellow eyes and enormous teeth were just above him.

"End of the line Nutcracker Prince!" He snarled. "I'll give you a choice, I can either reduce you to a pile of toothpicks with my scepter or you can join your fellow wooden friends in the fire!"

But Charlotte couldn't stand by and just allow this to happen. The love in her heart overcame her fear, and she ran toward them.

"Stop!" She wept. "You can't kill him! You just can't! I beg of you, please don't kill him!"

Vox was about to once again dismiss her pleas, but a dreadful idea made him change his mind. A new way to make Alastor suffer a fate far worse than being destroyed. After all, revenge by death didn't really accomplish much. Alastor couldn't really suffer if he was dead. Vox could spare him and let him leave the rest of his life knowing he lost the woman he loved to his enemy.

"Oh I'll let him live!" Vox said with a sickening grin. "If you accept my humble offer of marriage! It's up to you, marry me or watch as I put him out his misery!"

"Don't listen to him!" Alastor said. "Believe me Charlotte, you don't know what you would be agreeing to! You'd be trapped in a never-ending nightmare!"

"It's her choice!" Vox reminded the nutcracker. "Will you love me forever fair one or will you let your precious nutcracker die?"

Charlotte once again felt completely helpless. The very idea of spending the rest of her life at the side of that awful creature, trapped forever in his dark and cold world, never to her family or her friends again, it truly was a fate worse than death. However she knew that she could never live with herself if she had allowed Alastor to die. She would gladly suffer any wretched fate for his sake.

"I can do anything." She said to give herself strength and courage. "I can do anything. I can do anything."

"Make your choice! Now!" The mouse king ordered, losing his patience.