I laughed as he closed the gap between us and sought to prove him wrong. “I want your mouth all over my body,” I boldly revealed despite the betraying blush. “Your tongue teasing my deepest, most intimate places. If it’s wanton to admit it, then that’s what I’ll be.”
My bluntness had the desired effect as Erik shuddered and lost his breath in a soft gasp. “Yes, love, be wanton. I adore it.”
His arms slid about my waist and drew me into him, and I was as eager as he, pressing my body to his hard planes and arching against the insistent proof of his wanting. It was such bliss to be engulfed in his embrace, a place I’d already made my own and carved out in my imprint; I was adamant that no one else would ever fit in my alcove or steal what was mine.
Curling tighter to him, I tempted, “Can we forgo our lesson tonight so I may practice my wanton role instead?”
A chuckle vibrated the chest against me and stirred in its motion as he bent and pressed his masked face into my hair. “I wish I could concede, but one surrender on my part will lead to a million more requests. I would be a fool to let you realize that you are my inherent weakness.”
“Well, now that you’ve told me, perhaps I should use such knowledge to my advantage! What sort of promises would it take to destroy your will, ange?” I arched suggestive brows as he met my eye and showed me fire in return.
“Only one in particular,” Erik decided, but flames smoldered in embers behind a sudden solemnity that inspired my worry.
“What, ange? I’ll promise anything you want.” But provocative implications had lost their luster and fell to the background of concern.
He hesitated, and I feared the worst. Everything was perfect; what could he possibly still see lacking when I gave him everything at every chance?
“Well, …you’ve had a fiancé before…” As soon as he started with an awkward shrug, I felt my heart lighten and my soul bubble within me. “But I hoped for only a brief engagement. Faust opens in two weeks, and I considered that once the performances were over, we could marry. I know that is very soon and leaves little time for preparations, but I cannot reason waiting longer…if you agree, of course.”
It astounded me because he’d obviously plotted the details and kept from sharing them with an abiding fear that I’d refuse him. How ridiculous when the suggestion alone made my heart skip in urgent excitement. Although I was sure he felt its flip, I pursed contemplative lips and posed, “And does that mean we may tell everyone of our engagement and make it abundantly clear that you are my fiancé?”
I loved surprising him and surrounding him in comments of my unending attraction, and to watch him arch dubious brows and snicker softly, I savored such responses. “Do you truly wish that, Christine? When the cast and crew already share whispers and look down upon you for your involvement with the Opera Ghost? Marriage is a bit more arrant than simple rumors, you realize.”
“Undoubtedly. And I only consent to marriage if it can be public knowledge. I want the world to know I love you.”
“Indeed?” His incredulous grin spoke his delight. “I feared you were adverse to revealing personal affairs considering no one but I knew of your so-called engagement to the Vicomte.”
I made a face at him. “I never truly wanted Raoul. Why do you think I was the adamant one to keep it a secret? It never felt…right. But with you, it’s what I’ve always wanted, and I want to shout it from the opera house rooftop.”
My dramatics brightened his grin. “Then you do consent? You will be my wife?”
“Yes, yes!” I covered the unmasked side of his face in elated kisses that muttered more devotions. And as he chuckled his bliss, I considered that all was as it should be, finally in accord and on its designated path. This was perfection.
…And how quickly it was shattered.
I’d harbored an ominous terror to accept that we’d reached our happy ending, half-afraid of an unrealized evil lurking on the outskirts. I had pinned reservations on the Vicomte. I hadn’t told Erik the extent of our heated argument the night I’d broken the Vicomte’s heart. Raoul had let me go but not without filling my ears with his conjured fears, naming Erik a monster and swearing I’d regret my choices. He’d been devastated, so I hadn’t taken valid threats away from him that night, but I kept a trepidation that he’d reappear when I least expected.
How wrong I was to dub Raoul our villain! Evidently, we had a more powerful force working against us, but neither Erik nor I knew it, not until a certain moment while embracing on the stage and celebrating our newly-acquired engagement…
I was a comment away from reminding Erik that he’d vowed we’d skip my lesson if I agreed to marriage, and perhaps if we’d acted the entire scene five minutes earlier than we now were, we would have bypassed the threat altogether. But as it was, Erik suddenly stiffened against me, and I lifted worried eyes. I saw that he was listening for something. I could practically glimpse the eruption of his Opera Ghost stealth and skill set.
“What?” I breathed without sound to interrupt.
“Someone is in the opera house,” he reported steadily as he released me and scanned the empty theatre. I had no idea how he could tell such things when I found not a single clue, but he was on guard and nervous in a manner I did not think he’d employ if our intruder were a lingering ballerina or crewmember. He seemed to know the situation was worse than that even before an unfamiliar voice made its presence known.
“Erik! How are you, old friend?”
I fixed my confusion on the man striding down the aisle. Another foreigner like the one I’d encountered in Erik’s home, but this one was no friend. It was in the air of malevolence surrounding him. He was a forbearing presence, large and rather round at the same time, clothed in lush silks and satins, far finer than any I’d ever seen. Wealthy, affluent, and yet subdued in the telling, for only the fabric choices gave it away, nothing too ostentatious, but looming at the theatre doors were two tall, muscled men. …Guards. Why would anyone walk about Paris guarded?
I shifted my focus to Erik, standing but steps from the stage edge, and I noted his unease immediately. His back was stiff, every muscle pulled taut and hands fisted at the ends of tense arms. I could not read if this was anger…or fear.
Nerves twisted my gut for no confirmed reason, and with feet that barely brushed the stage floor, I crept behind his shape and set a shaking palm to his shoulder blade. He leapt beneath my attempt and shot me a glare as if he suddenly recalled my presence. Fear… It was definitely fear.
With a breath that shook his entire body, he clamped a firm hold on my arm and drew me behind him, forcing my hand against the small of his back as if trapping me there before he replied to our intruder in his arrogant Opera Ghost tone, “Shah, what are you doing out of Persia? Sightseeing? Vacationing? I thought you were not welcome in much of the free world because of your extremist tendencies and merciless militia tactics.”
Shah… I felt as if the air were knocked out of me, and shivering hard, I curled closer to Erik’s spine. The shah of Persia, the one who had hurt my love with scars inside and out…
The shah chuckled coldly and retorted, “Intelligently, I play middle class when out of my own country. Visiting tourist from a foreign land. No one questions as long as I’m careful.”
“And if you’re not, would they haul you into their prisons to stand trial for your war crimes, or would you just be deported with a slap on the wrist? How far does your jurisdiction run?”
I admired Erik’s haughtiness more than ever because I felt how rapidly his heartbeat raced, how intense it pulsed. But he never showed even a hint of it, retaining the façade effortlessly in the face of genuine terror, and ducking my head against his back, I pressed my lips to his shoulder blade and held an eternal kiss to a spot I knew was covered in horrific scars.
Oh God, and this was the demon man responsible! I had the urge to attack on my own, to hurt someone. I thought I’d never understand such hostile sensations, but suddenly, I was no be
tter than a sinner eager to commit crimes.
“Concerned for my welfare?” the shah posed doubtfully.
Erik gave an idle shrug. “Eager to get you heaved out of my country.”
“Oh, I don’t intend for a long trip. Usually in these instances, I depend on my regime to get jobs done for me, but we had it with such certainty that you would be here that I decided to take this task myself and make sure it was done right. You really are a fool. Escape the Persian dungeons, but put yourself out in the public eye? It seems everyone in this damnable country knows of a masked man who purchased the opera house with precious jewels as his remittance. Jewels, Erik? And those wouldn’t be the same jewels you stole from my care the first time you fled Persia like a common criminal, would they?”
“Well, of course, but stolen is such an ugly word. I considered it compensation for services rendered. I took quite a few lives for your entertainment and made death into another amusement. You owed me.”
“Not that much, dear friend, and twice now, you’ve had accomplices aid your pilgrimage out of Persia. My people have deceived me to preserve your worthless existence.” Each word grew in aggression, and I could feel the shah’s malevolence exuding over both of us like a cloud of pestilence. “It astounds me. You are a monster and a murderer; I can respect such traits when I share your love for depravity, but you are worth dramatic resurrection and rescue while I am the one reviled and betrayed. You and your face of death! How is that fair?”
“If you are only here to pout like a petulant child, then get out of my opera house. I have no patience to put up with imperial rulers and their temperaments. I have a cast full of divas that would rival your every tantrum. Go back to Persia where you belong.”
“Oh, I intend to, but not without your company. You have not finished your sentence; it ends in death, and you escaped before its culmination.”
I felt Erik shudder with the recollection, and I shared it with him, as tremors racked my frame and revealed my growing terror. No, no, I would not let such a thing happen. Sense posed back, who was I to stop it? I was small and fragile compared to the auras of power coming off both men in the room, and even if I bore my own strength in my heart and soul, if it didn’t translate to physical superiority, I was nothing more than the tantruming diva Erik spoke of.
“Be gone with you and your sentence,” Erik shouted back as if unaffected. “You do not have the law on your side in this country to help enforce your authority. Go back to Persia, and stew in your anger; I am finished with this conversation.”
Another grating chuckle resounded and brought goose bumps to my skin. “And leave you here to your opera because you see no benefit in being dragged back to Persia like the animal you are? What awaits you? More torture? Death? But what does it say of my rule if I let insurgents go free and bear no consequence for their wrongdoing against their leader?” His gaze spanned the length of the theatre, and he remarked as if music meant something to him, “You’re to perform Faust, isn’t that so? The story of a man who signs his soul to the devil. Such truth in life! What a remarkable tale that is! I hope your cast does it justice! And…may I assume the little waif behind your back is the prima donna star? Ah, Christine, your sweetheart!”
“Don’t you dare speak her name,” Erik hissed, and the grip he had upon my arm tightened to a pinch. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She could if I deem it so. How much more pleasant to take out your punishment on her in your stead!”
The growl I felt vibrate Erik’s chest stretched to his core, and half a step from assault and attack, I clamped my free arm about his waist and prayed he wouldn’t act rash and throw me aside in his need to retaliate. “Erik, please,” I gasped softly and knew he heard as he yielded back into my hold.
“If you touch even the floor beneath her feet, you will be dead where you stand,” Erik hissed coldly, and for the first time, I was grateful for threats of murder in his voice. “You forget that this is my opera house, and I have the upper hand this time. Get out before I use it.”
I peeked over Erik’s shoulder at the enraged shah, hating the man so much in his arrogant pose as if he possessed the right and everyone else must therefore be wrong.
“For now,” the shah decided with a sinister grin that he directed right at my spying gaze. “As you said, I don’t have the authorities on my side and can’t very well haul you back to Persia. But…this is not over. I will see you soon.” His focus set upon me again. “And you, too, Christine. I look forward to getting to know you better. What a surprise to find a lovely creature such as yourself at the mercy of a monster. You can do better.”
“Better?” Erik spat viciously. “Like you? A man who rapes and tortures with just as much innocent female blood on his hands as male warriors?”
“Oh, don’t be a hypocrite! We are two of a kind, and you, my friend, have retribution coming for you. You shall see.” He turned to go before adding over his shoulder, “And if I were you, I’d warn your comrade the daroga that if we cross paths, he’s dead without prolonged torture attached this time. I’m finished playing games with that one.”
I could feel the rage running down Erik’s spine in ripples, but he kept frozen in place until the shah finally took his leave with his guards right behind.
“Stay here,” he commanded sharply as he released the viselike hold he’d had on my arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To make sure he’s really gone and lock up,” he snapped as he was already stalking a path into the theatre with never a single look back at me.
I was terrified what that meant and just as much what would happen if the shah or his men still lingered. But Erik was right to say he had the advantage and every trick and trap he’d set about the opera. He no longer seemed paranoid in my mind to go to such an extreme. Some circumstances called for it, and here was a prime example.
Never a sound echoed the theatre to meet me, and without Erik’s intuitive sense of danger, I was ignorant to what was happening, anxious and shaking all over. This was the worst scenario I could imagine being thrown into our happiness. The shah of Persia wandering Paris out for Erik’s blood and demise… Raoul’s broken heart seemed childishly immature in comparison.
My frantically roaming eyes landed and locked on my arm, still extended in midair suspension. Where Erik had gripped, fierce marks remained, nothing severe; perhaps a bruise would be left in the wake, but here was proof that Erik still had violence in him. For the first time, I was actually grateful for it.
When he strode back into the theatre minutes later, I could not decipher his feral expression, nothing but the rage still un-cooled on the surface. He kept his real musings hidden, refusing to meet my stare as he joined me onstage. Without a word, he swept me off my feet, clasping me tight to his body as he headed for one of his secret entrances and escape in the solace and safety of shadows.
I kept quiet and pliant, but his heartbeat was erratic and uneven against mine and told more than he willingly wanted. Not even when we were securely contained in the dark did it slow its rapid throb, and I wondered how much of this was fear of the future and how much was actually fear of the past chasing our heels.
We arrived, and as soon as he set me on my feet, he was at his piano, attacking with a vengeance. Ugly dissonance, pounding chords that bellowed against the walls and likely poured all the way back up the path we’d descended, such was anger’s possession. Fire and fury, and I shook on my feet to watch him.
His fingers hit the keys with such force that I knew they must hurt, but this was a peculiar onset. Typically, music would have given escape and release, but this time as he launched into a fitful melody, he fumbled and mistakes resounded. It was completely atypical for a man obsessed with perfection to be out of sorts.
More erroneous pitches cut shrill and blatant through my body, and I watched him grow more and more aggravated with each. Music became a stranger when he seemed most in need of its comfort, and with a growl s
o ferocious that I jumped to overhear, he swiped the notated pages of music resting before him to the floor and leapt to his feet in surrender.
“Erik…” I knew I had to be the one to calm him if music had failed, and I shook with a new sense of trepidation. Oh God, what if I failed as well?
“This was supposed to be over!” he roared, and vocal cords were abused as harsh as piano keys in his aggression. “I suffered and rotted in that cell and performed my penance to God and mankind already. How much more am I expected to give?”
“I told you before, God does not take penance in pain-”
“Naïve!” he snapped at me. “Of course God does! He has you blinded to His true nature. The dutiful Catholic girl comforted in the promise of heaven after death and eternal rest for her doting father. But none of it is true! Death is death, and God is a master manipulator, deceiving the entire human race with futile vows of an afterlife of paradise. Don’t you see that such ideas are sugarcoated illusions? They are not real, and God is truly a sadist who loves to look down from His high pedestal and watch the agony of living.”
I put no credence in a single one of his fiery arguments, knowing the underlying factors fueling debate. With the danger now lurking and threats of more torture, Erik saw this as God’s revenge, pulling happiness from his fingers again. It was wrong to assume such things, but I couldn’t find a strong enough point that would change his mind, not in this state anyway.
Lifting defenseless hands, I made a timid approach, half-expecting him to lash out and pounce like a wild animal. Every breath he heaved shook his entire frame and played hoarse and harsh in the room, stirring violence in its subtle boil.
“You are not going back to that prison,” I vowed the words I knew he ached to hear and yet was terrified to believe. His shoulders trembled, and as I stared, still afraid to touch him, his arrogant façade showed its stitches as they slowly frayed and split his persona in two.
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 24