A sob ripped from his chest, and I was there to catch him in my suddenly strong embrace, weaving my arms about his body as it creaked and moaned and gave its true weakness away. This wasn’t the omnipotent Opera Ghost; this was a man with scars as vivid on his soul as on his body, and I was content simply to feel him hold me back and let me be his stability.
His face pressed its tears into my hair, and without a second thought, I reached for his mask, freeing his distorted features and sliding my hand up his nape to cradle that beloved head in the crease of my neck. I loved him so much at that moment that I feared my heart would burst.
There were no more words spoken that night. I held him for a long time, and then when tears subsided and I knew he needed more, I undressed him with steady fingers, revealing his damage to my adoring eyes with an appreciation for every abnormality that he wouldn’t understand but was desperate for just the same.
Oh, that body… It had been through so much trauma. The first time I’d uncovered it, I had been overwhelmed in compassion and his pain, shocked to tears in the revelations of a story that had seemed fiction until I had proof. Every other uncovering the past week had been in the heat of desire, and the true heinousness had worn away and barely been acknowledged. Tonight, there were new feelings altogether, an acceptance I hadn’t fully grasped and a sudden gratitude that this was all there was. He was alive, and to hear the shah insist death was the goal to such unnecessary suffering, I suddenly adored every telling scar and sought to show it.
Hands with tender fingers and then lips and tongue, and I lavished oaths of my affection upon every inch of his skin. Such an artist’s canvas… At first view, the colors and textures had been jarring; now they were all a part of the whole. Pinks in many hues, tans and even whites paler than his skin tone, and it was the spots that were not marked that seemed odd and out of place.
My tongue laved attention up and down the path a whip had taken along his chest, languid and with a core of heated aching that I felt him reflect. Desire was a gradual build and inevitably constructed when he arched toward my ministrations and lost breathless moans above me.
Burn marks still looked raw in some places, and I was overly careful to kiss their center and upraised branding. The shah’s crests upon the body of my lover. I felt compelled to make my own seals, only mine would be created with my mouth and run far deeper. The manner in which Erik grasped my hair and encouraged told me that even if invisible, he felt them and wanted more; yes, my marks brought pleasure, never pain.
Dragging his pants down his hips and out of my way, I knelt before his trembling frame and devoted efforts to the vicious injury from hip to inner thigh. This one was the pinkest of the bunch; even though it healed, it would stay prominent forever, so harshly granted. I kissed its length, lingering purposely at its ending point on the otherwise soft flesh of his inner thigh. He groaned, desperate and wild as I moved my mouth with delicate seduction, my curls tickling his legs and the thick hardness of his erection, protruding not far above my chosen spot.
This was all deliberate on my part. I wanted him to feel cherished, but more than that, I wanted him to want and know desire from skin otherwise wounded and victim to too much pain. I didn’t kiss the details that did not bear marks tonight, not his elegant hands or his God-created face. I kissed manmade damage and made it clear that I was aroused to delirious heights by the same things he dubbed a humiliation.
But I broke my own protocol for a quick minute to indulge his boldly brazen manhood, taking him into my mouth and shivering at the uninhibited cry such voraciousness brought from an angel’s voice. The hand in my hair fisted and tangled, but he let me do as I pleased and tease him with the tip of my tongue and soft, brushed kisses that made him thrust urgent hips, never taking the reins, never asking more than I gave.
One more time, I parted my lips and took him inside before I felt the frenzy build, and catching his hands, I coaxed him to the carpeted floor with me and let him undress me with abrupt tugs and a search for the skin beneath. It was vehement and necessary.
Once bare, I fitted myself upon his lap and took him with quick, hasty motions, straddling his hips and urging him deeper with every uncontrolled cry from my lungs. I knew how much he needed this, to feel that I desired him just as much despite the things he viewed with shame, but I wanted him to realize that I needed this just the same. Beyond desire’s hunger, I needed this intimate closeness with him, this baring of souls through scars and skin. I pressed my chest flush to his, heartbeats echoing each other in their flustered patterns, breaths in harsh unison and moving our motion along a tidal wave. We were so close at that instant, one in every way we could be, and I prayed it would last forever.
When pleasure came, I burrowed my cries against his disfigured cheek and tasted the tears falling unconsciously from his mismatched eyes. Their presence made my clutch him tighter, running fevered caresses from adoring hands up and down his scarred back as if we were fused forever.
“I love you… I love you so much,” I vowed in gasps as he thrust harder, clasping my hips and rocking me with his ferocity. Deeper, almost frantic, and when his ecstasy came, I covered his face in kisses and swallowed his guttural cry in my mouth, stealing it as mine.
Pleasure brought renewed terror, it seemed, and his arms locked around me and wouldn’t release as he begged against my ear, “Don’t let me go. Oh God, Christine, please. Don’t let go.”
“I won’t,” I vowed and mirrored his pose, clinging with limbs that trembled in their yearning necessity to stay strong. No, I couldn’t falter. No matter my own fears and the swelling compassion that made his pain mine by default. I couldn’t show a single crack, and even if I was weak beneath the veneer, I stroked his hair and back and never let him realize my hands actually shook. No, I played steady well enough to calm him and only cried my own tears when he slept peaceful in my arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
Erik~
I had to hunt out the daroga. He’d been absent from my underground home since we’d both learned Christine’s love was real and soldered, not a fabricated product of my imagination. I hoped he’d left Paris and went off to join his family, but I checked hotels anyway, always on guard in case I encountered the shah instead.
Oh, let us cross paths! I was armed with a noose, which I preferred in struggles, and a dagger just in case. But certainly, the shah chose affluent accommodations, and I sought the daroga in the shoddy parts of town.
I wasn’t pleased to find him almost easily at a hotel near the river. No pseudonym in the hotel registry, no decent attempt to hide himself. He even opened the door after I gave but one knock!
“Fool!” I spat as I pushed past him and entered the meager confines of his hotel room. “You could be dead right now because you did not take half a second to ask who knocked first!”
“Dead?” he scoffed with a roll of eyes. “Here to kill me, Erik? Have things gone awry and sour already with the fair Christine, and now you blame me for freeing you from captivity? Because that is ludicrous reasoning, and I refuse to die for your rash heart.”
Teasing! He dared to tease at a time like this! I had an urge to free my noose if only to inspire some modicum of fright in him. “Maybe you deserve what’s coming for you if you so carelessly jest when I am here with your welfare in mind.”
“What are you talking about?”
His continued flippancy irritated me, and I snapped, “The shah of Persia is traipsing about Paris, eager for both our heads. If I were you, I’d give proper seriousness to the situation, seeing as how you betrayed his supposed merciful graces to get me out of that infernal dungeon. You have as much of a target on your back as I do.”
“The…shah?” the daroga stammered, and I saw the somberness I was after finally settling in. “But…how? Why? He never leaves Persia.”
“Double-cross him enough times, and it seems he does! We, my friend, have committed treason, mutiny, and any other crime that makes us insurgents to his ins
idious rule, and he is eager for revenge at any cost.”
“You…saw him?”
“Oh, he came right to me!” I revealed as I idly wandered the meager space, scanning pathetic surroundings with a grimace of distaste. “And worst of all, the bastard laid eyes on Christine and threatened with his brand of torment.”
“What are you going to do?”
With a nonchalant shrug, I concluded, “Kill him.”
“And how do you intend such a feat? I’m sure he’s heavily guarded.” The daroga spoke the minor details I would rather have forgotten when vengeance was on my mind.
“Perhaps, but given the option, I’ll take the chance. The bastard will not touch Christine.”
I glimpsed the solemn agreement in his dark stare and assumed he considered his wife’s entrapment. God only knew what she’d gone through; I hadn’t the heart or strength to ask when my mind would have immediately put Christine in the situation and driven me to insanity imagining her tortured.
But all of a sudden, as reality seemed to intrude, his stare grew wide, and he demanded, “Where is Christine now?”
“Rehearsal. I paid that fool director Reyer a little something extra to keep her always within his gaze. I daresay that he now presumes I am jealous and controlling, but I couldn’t very well give him why and have him add insanity to the list. You must admit, telling others that the shah of Persia is lurking about Paris out for vengeance and blood sounds like another tale fit for the stage!”
The daroga nodded, but as he contemplated my admissions, he somberly stated, “You’re assuming Christine is safe amidst her peers, but…my wife was taken from a public place amidst other people…”
I went numb with his words as my mind raced ahead and envisioned a scene of the dastardly shah stealing Christine right from the stage as his guards threatened death to anyone who tried to stop him. I could see every detail as if it were indeed fact, and without another thought, I rushed for the door with the daroga two steps behind.
We ran to the theatre through the city streets in broad daylight, and I did not consider twice that my masked face was illuminated by sunlight and receiving odd stares all around. Christine was the impetus for this display; the crowds could gawk at the masked man and the dark-skinned foreigner chasing at his heels, and if it meant they paused their treks to point and make a clear path for us to get by in our haste, then our eccentricities were doing us a favor.
I burst into my own opera house as if on a rampage and raced straightway to the theatre. Before I even passed the doorway, her brilliant soprano embraced me in its aria, but even as my ears heard her presence, I was an anxious mess. I halted at the doorframe and stared with ravenous eyes that couldn’t get enough, desperate to assure my doubting mind that she was real and the scenes I had concocted of public kidnapping were not. A difficult feat even with her image in my line of view. Until I was touching her, I was sure I wouldn’t believe. I’d been haunted by too many realistic figments with her image in the shah’s dungeon to ever trust my eyes or ears again.
“Well, isn’t she amazing!” the daroga softly exclaimed beside me, and I shot him a glare that clearly insisted I’d forgotten his company. But…if he saw her, too, she must be real.
“My cast is gossiping about you even as we speak,” I snapped. “They probably think you’re a foreign investor looking to purchase their sorry little jobs.”
With a huff, I noted that my assumption wasn’t far off. Eyes all around. Even Christine mid-aria onstage was arching a dark brow at our spying, and all I could do was offer her a blameless shrug in return.
“You wear a mask, and I am the one gossiped about?” the daroga muttered. “Well, that is certainly a new twist.”
I ignored him and strode right through the web of penetrating gazes with never a care to the sting they gave as I halted rehearsal with a raised hand and stalked onstage. Reyer looked annoyed to be interrupted, everyone ceasing in an indefinite pause as if time itself had suspended its progression, but that was fairytale time, not real life.
With no explanation, I went straight to Christine as blue eyes read me quizzically, and never giving my intentions away, I caught her hand in mine. Real, solid, warm. I pulled her after me into the wings, calling over my shoulder to Reyer, “Continue.”
“Erik!” Christine snapped, but I was unyielding as I drew her through the busy corridors with the daroga a handful of steps behind us. We received more anxious stares and hushed whispers, but none slowed my frustrated pace as I pulled her into her dressing room.
One of the young costume girls was inside, waiting for Christine, costume in hand for a fitting, and with never a care to play congenial, I ordered, “Out.”
“Erik!” Christine warned again, but with a frustrated sigh, she gave the costume girl the kind smile I could not have managed if I tried and watched the girl scamper toward the door, recoiling past the threshold and into the hall with the daroga’s entrance.
“She didn’t like you,” I told my Persian companion as he closed us inside with a relieved exhalation.
“I noticed! Your antics are evidently expected and acceptable, but a visitor from a foreign country is the suspicious one. How ironic!”
Christine found no humor in our banter, and jerking her hand free of my hold, she demanded, “What was that all about? You just stole me off the stage mid-scene!”
“And my impulsiveness is not endearing to you in some way?” I offered in appeasement. My worry had simmered back to a grateful sort of elation, and ruffling her feathers made her adorable when I now had her solely in my care.
Her irritation fractured to a bit of a smile even as she sought to keep a straight face. “It would be if this wasn’t two weeks to opening night.”
“Considering that you can sing the role forwards, backwards, and sideways, I am not concerned.”
“Erik-”
“I’m allowed to play overprotective and the stifling fiancé when we have a validly dangerous threat hanging over our heads.”
“Fiancé?” The daroga latched onto the word with pleasant surprise in his arched brows.
“Yes,” I sharply told him before returning focus to Christine, “and as such, your welfare is my priority. If you don’t believe my paranoia, will you trust the daroga’s? The shah is not a threat to take lightly.”
Her expression sobered, and her hand pressed to my chest, searing my scars even through layers with her natural heat. “I know that already. I am not taking it lightly. I just don’t see what can be done against it.”
I covered her sweet hand, keeping it to my heartbeat. “We could leave Paris, leave the entire country even. Hide away for awhile. It might be the best course for now.”
“But the opera-”
“Curse the opera!” I exclaimed with vehement aggression, and when she sought to pull her hand away, I trapped it in a fist. “The opera means nothing. You do! I would happily give up all music for the rest of my existence if it meant you’d be safe and mine. Nothing compares.”
“Mademoiselle,” the daroga spoke up and broke into our bubble, “you should trust Erik. When it comes to the shah, evil bears no limit. He knows no mercy and has no heart for compassion. He is truly a vile creature who does not follow the rules. If you are his chosen target, he will not stop until he has you.”
My fears, and to hear them in the air made me shake and hold her hand tighter even as she met my gaze and insisted back, “Why are you so concerned over me? You are my worry when he threatened your death.”
“He wants to hurt me in the worst way imaginable,” I corrected and lifted my free hand to her cheek, marveling over its delicate softness. “And that is only a relevant reality if he hurts you. Nothing would give me more agony.”
She doubted my words. I could tell as her gaze lingered on my chest and fantasized the scars underneath. I’d watched her memorize their layout in our lovemaking the previous night for exactly this reason, to be able to call upon their picture and acquire strength.
“Abandoning our lives is not the answer,” she concluded with a shake of her dark head. “The shah is just a mortal man; he is not a god or invincible, and he can be conquered.”
“Yes, if I kill him before he does any viable damage.”
“Erik, I didn’t mean-”
“No? I may have atoned for my past sins, but this is one I can justify committing, and I would do it without a qualm,” I insisted. “It would be ridding the world of a monster.”
“Erik, don’t-”
“If you don’t want us to leave Paris, then I will do what I must for our safety, even if that is murder, Christine. Do you understand? I don’t want to be a killer, but if it comes to that, you cannot pass judgment. I will take the consequences before God, but you are not allowed to call me a monster and break away as you did once before. Promise it to me, Christine.”
“But murder is-”
“Promise it,” I commanded and knew I was being cruel, but with the idea of losing her to my own actions as great a possibility as losing her to the shah, I was adamant in my fear.
She held my stare with somber concern but conceded, “You will not lose me; I promise that. But…please keep murder as a last option.”
A minor victory. I felt I had her permission in some obscure manner, but if attack came, I needed to protect us both, and that was my best defense.
It was in painful reluctance that I allowed Christine to return to rehearsal, and that was only with the condition that I would be in constant watch over her. She might not have favored the terms or my avid paranoia, but this was a point I refused to argue. She was fortunate I didn’t push it further when eyes were unreliable and I preferred touch. But I resigned myself to the audience and watched like an over-attentive hawk every second of every rehearsal during the final runs before the opening.
With days’ passage, one to the next, and no sign of imminent danger, one would have thought I’d have relaxed my guard, but I knew the shah too well. He’d wait for an opportune moment to pounce and destroy, and I refused to let him find one, bustling Christine between the underground and rehearsals with never a spare second in between. If my turbulent distress upset her, she never said so; she acquiesced and actually held me a little tighter whenever we embraced, wove fingers unbreakable with mine on our treks between worlds, stayed to my side at every chance. It was for my piece of mind, and I loved her for such unqualified understanding.
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 25