by Colette Gale
Madame gave Christine a little push. “I will wait here and signal you if someone comes.”
Christine barely heard Madame’s last words; she hurried down the rest of the stairs and around the corner—and there he was, manacled at wrists and ankles, sagging against the cold gray stone. Blood streaked his torn shirt and along the sinewy muscles of his bare forearms, drawn tight from their fastenings high on the wall.
“Erik…oh, my dear Erik,” Christine cried softly, rushing toward him.
He lifted his head at the sound of her voice, struggling to hold it upright as her hands cupped the sides of his face, and she brought her mouth to his lips.
They were dry, cracked, bloody, but it was Erik. She softened his brutalized mouth with hers, fitting to him as she stroked her fingers over his jaw and neck.
“Christine, no,” he murmured against her kisses, “you should not be here.” But his mouth mauled hers with tenderness, as though he knew he’d never taste her again, and she heard the dull clank of metal as he reflexively attempted to hold her. “He told me you’d gone off with Raoul,” he said, nudging her aside so that he could press his lips to her cheek and huddle his face into her neck, breathing deeply, shakily, and then releasing a long exhale in a low shudder.
“I thought you were dead,” Christine replied, pulling away from him and, despite Madame’s warning, tugging at the heavy iron cuffs, shaking and rattling them in search of a weakness. “He told me you were dead, but I would not go with Raoul. I never will, Erik. Even if you were gone.”
“Thank God,” he murmured, bending his face toward her. “I thought perhaps…it would be so much easier for you, Christine,” he told her. He brushed his good cheek along hers, rubbing gently like a cat, caressing her in the only way he could. Over the dampness of the dungeon, amid the must and gloom, she smelled his familiar scent mingled with sweat and blood and breathed it in as their faces cuddled. “I cannot—”
“Do not say it,” she told him, pressing her fingers against his mouth. “I would rather live in the darkness of danger with you than in the sunlight with anyone else. You’ve taught me what no other has…how to really love, how to bring my music back…how full life can be. How not to be lonely.” She looked up at him, looked into both of his eyes—the thick-lashed one, the sagging, half-hooded one—and took both sides of his face into her hands again, feeling the scrub of his whiskers, the stickiness of oozing blood, the unyielding texture of mangled skin. “I love you, Erik. I’ll find a way to set you free.”
“Save me again, will you?” he said, pulling away with sudden force. His voice was low, raw, as he buried his face in his shoulder, only the angry, mutilated side showing. “Why must you always be the one to sacrifice, to risk, to choose? Why can I not take care of you?”
“Erik…don’t! Don’t, my love,” she said, smoothing her hands over his beloved shoulders, up onto the strained, smooth rope of his biceps. “You are so much stronger than I. You’ve risked your life coming here…I’ve done so little in comparison.”
“So little?” He heaved in a great breath, turned his face to look down at her. “The giving of your person, of your very most intimate self, to my brothers is a greater sacrifice than this dark life. I’d eagerly give my life for you, Christine…but you’ve given so much more. And I cannot think that I deserve it, for I’ve done nothing but pull you into the middle of this. You should never have gone with them that night, Christine. You should have let them take me.”
“Erik, Erik,” she said, blinking away gathering tears. “You are a fool. You’ve lived too long alone. Do you not know that this”—she slid her hands down along the ridges of his torso, then up and around as she pulled herself flush to him—”means nothing without love?”
“Christine—” But she stopped whatever foolishness he was about to say with her mouth, standing tall on her toes so she could kiss him full on the lips. She gently told him how much she loved him, how much he meant to her, and how much she trusted him, with the adoring slip of her tongue over his half-open mouth, with the soft nibbling on his upper lip and the bare brush of lip against lip.
So easy, so sweet and slow, the kiss was, as if they were learning each other for the first time. As if they had all the time in the world, and there was no danger of being discovered, separated.
Christine felt the welcome swelling of deep lust, real love, move through her body, tightening her nipples and spiraling in a tingling curl down past her belly. She moaned, pressing her hips against his, shifting her arms around the back of his neck to bring his face to where she could really taste him, and pull his mouth close to tangle her tongue with his hot, greedy one.
Again Christine heard the clink of metal as Erik moved, and the groan of frustration vibrating through his chest when he could not touch her. She removed her hands from his neck, sliding under the ragged, dirty shirt to feel the sleek muscle, smooth skin, and wiry hair.
He could do nothing but breathe and tremble as Christine pulled away the edges of his shirt, scratched her nails gently down along his chest and down to the sagging waist of his trousers. She kissed him on one tiny, hard nipple, bit at the edge of his pectoral, and then sank to her knees on the floor in front of him.
“Christine,” he said in a tortured breath when she pulled at the fastenings of his trousers. “Nnn…”
She felt his powerful thighs trembling next to her, warm and solid against her arms as she pulled apart the sagging breeches to free his erection. Taking him in both hands, she kissed the soft head, licked around it, and slid him deeply into her mouth, once, twice, then back away to love the tip again.
Erik was breathing as though he’d run for miles, his muscles tense and shaking from effort, from being slung up by them for hours. Christine stroked her hands along his massive legs, around to the back, and up to his buttocks, fitting her fingers between muscle and rough, damp wall. She couldn’t get enough of touching him, of the solidness of him, of the smell and the taste.
Despite the always-present danger, she took her time; she feasted, licked, stroked, scratched, sucked, beneath torn shirt, ragged trousers, around manacled legs and wrists. Her breathing matched his; they both sounded, there in the cavernous stone room, as though every last bit of air was being taken from them.
“Christine, please,” Erik murmured in the voice of a man dying and out of time.
She slid up his body, pressing flush against him, still completely clothed. She smiled, kissed his neck, sucked for a moment as she flipped up her skirts, and, opening her legs, straddled one of his thighs. The pressure of his leg eased the throbbing of her pip for a moment; she was dripping and she eased her way up and then down, holding on to his wide, square shoulders for support and leverage as her pleasure built.
Then the roar in her ears, the heat between her legs, became too much. “Erik…help me,” she said, her own voice thin and needy. “I want you inside me.”
“Hold on to me,” he managed. His eyes were dark, black; his face was twisted on both sides—one by nature, one with desire. “Hold…on.”
Christine used his shoulders to lift herself so she could straddle his waist. “My love,” she gasped as his dripping cock brushed wetly against the inside of her thigh, beneath the mass of skirts and crinolines. He could do nothing to hold her, nothing to help as she looped an arm around his neck, levered her feet against the wall behind his hips, and scooped her skirts away.
The desperate grunts and sighs, the moisture of slick skin, the driving need, kept her frantically moving and shifting until at last…they found the place and she slid forward, filled.
A sigh that was half-sob, half-moan came from the back of her throat. Tears stung her eyes. Erik’s deep, rasping breaths huffed against her neck.
Carefully, she positioned her feet flat against the wall, fingers clamped on his shoulders, and she moved, flexing her knees, feeling the long slide in and out, up and down…as the beauty built, there in that dark, angry dungeon. Her pip swelled, her stark, hard
nipples jouncing gently against her chemise, while the telltale tingle in her belly built, ready to shoot through her body.
She worked, her muscles trembling; he moved as much as he could to meet her, the slick suck of moisture between them the only sound beyond their channeled breathing. Faster she moved; more urgently he tilted back and forth, back and forth. Her fingers slipped and she almost lost her grip, but she held on as the desperate rhythm built unbearably, then, finally, blossomed into uncontrollable shudders throughout her limbs.
He surged against her then too…metal clanking, shoulders bulging with effort, and a long, husky breath ending in a moan.
“Dieu, Dieu,”she breathed after a moment of stillness, of satiation. She slipped away, allowing her legs to fall, her fingers still gripping his sweaty shoulders.
“Christine…” he whispered, trembling against her, trying again to bury his face against her. “Ah, Christine.”
She kissed him again, a slumberous moment of lips and tongue, heat and tenderness. “I must go,” she said, smoothing her hands over his chest again. She would never tire of feeling that sleek plane, the power and heat of it. She kissed him beneath the hollow of his throat, bumping her nose into its little curve.
“I love you, Christine,” he said, the glazed look of lust, the dullness of pain, gone from his eyes, replaced by clarity. “Do not endanger yourself to save me. Promise me. Allow me at least that comfort.”
She looked at him, purposely chose to stroke the gnarled side of his face. “I promise to take care. I love you.”
And she slipped away before love won out and drew her back to his side.
~*~
Still breathing heavily, still tingling, Christine came around the corner where she’d left Madame.
“Such a lovely display, my dear,” said Philippe, stepping from the shadows. “You are much more accommodating to him than you are to Raoul or myself. I look forward to remedying that situation in the very near future.”
Christine couldn’t move at first; she couldn’t speak. Her eyes darted around as the comte's hand whipped out to grab her arm, and she saw the huddled form on the ground. A long, heavy chain led from the wall to under the bundle, where her arms might have been. “Madame!” Her automatic surge toward the still figure was halted as Philippe jerked her back.
“She tried to stop me…The voyeuristic bitch attempted to stop me,” Philippe said easily, tugging Christine after him, back toward the alcove where Erik was imprisoned.
“No!” she cried, trying to pull away, seeing the glint in his eyes. “Let me—”
His other hand moved, flew through the air, and cracked against the side of her face, leaving her ears ringing and her cheek throbbing. “I’m beginning to believe that I should have left you to my brother from the beginning, but it is too late for me, Christine Daaé. You have become my obsession and I’ll have you. There’s nothing to stop me now.”
Erik was looking at them, horror plastered over his face, as they came back around the corner. Philippe thrust Christine ahead of him while his heavy fingers grasped her arm.
“Raoul will kill you if you touch me,” Christine said desperately, blinking back tears from the pain of his blow. “He intends to marry me; he’ll not let you touch me.”
Philippe chuckled, shoved Christine forward so they were standing directly in front of Erik. “Raoul is on his way to Paris. He believes that you and this monster have run off together…and he is hell-bent on stopping you. I tried to prevent him, tried to tell him it was a folly. But he would not listen.” There was false pity in his voice.
Christine’s stomach suddenly felt like lead. Her lips formed the syllable of negation, but she could not speak it. She hadn’t the breath, nor the energy.
Philippe had no such handicap. “So, my dear brother, you see that I told you a little white lie—just as I told our other brother—but in the end, it works out for the best that you know the truth. For now, as you wait for me to turn you over to the constable here in Chagny—you know the townspeople have never forgiven nor forgotten that monster who ravaged and killed those three young girls—you’ll have something more to think about.
“You’ll be able to contemplate the fact that, a mere five floors above your very cell, I’ll be enjoying that which you’ll never have again. And…ah, that makes your last moments of intimacy so much more poignant, doesn’t it?” He tsked, his fingers tightening over Christine’s arm as his other hand jammed down the front of her bodice, yanking it away to expose her breast.
Fondling it roughly, he tweaked and pinched as he continued his taunts. “Quite lovely, isn’t she?” He hefted the weight of her breast in his palm, and Christine could do nothing but try to rear away from him. But the small movement she was able to make only sent her back into his embrace, closer to him.
“And you, my dear…it will be best if you cooperate. Truly. For there will be no Raoul to interrupt, and your lover isn’t going anywhere. Nor is that slut you call a ballet instructor. In fact, if you don’t cooperate and make this enjoyable for me—us,” he amended with a low chuckle, “I am sure I can find ways to make things even more uncomfortable for my brother here.”
He looked down at her. “So, my dear, shall we repair to above? If it weren’t so drafty and cold, I might have been persuaded to remain down here in sight of your lover…that way he could participate vicariously. But…ah, well, you know…comfort is a great thing for me. I have many different…mm…places to recline that will suit our needs much better than the cold stone floor.”
With one last look at Erik, Christine felt herself being dragged away. Their eyes met, his dark with shock and regret, burning into her. She thought for the first time she saw resignation there, and felt her own wave of despair crawl horribly through her body.
There really wasn’t any way out, any hope of rescue or reunion.
She wondered if she would live through the night.
TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
Philippe’s private chambers were as she’d left them—empty, remote, and horrifying. He thrust her into the room ahead of him as he’d done before, and closed the door behind with a snap of finality.
He said nothing for a long moment, simply looked at Christine as she pulled herself up from her trembling knees. When she was standing, she backed away from him and watched warily, heart ramming in her chest, as he appeared deep in thought.
“Oui, ma chère,”he said at last, “I am unable to choose. Shall we play the game of pursuit, after which I shall have you as you kick and scream and fight…or shall I make you comfortable”—at this, he gave a brief nod toward the Y-shaped bed—“so that I can play with you until you beg me to take you?” He stepped toward her now, his salacious expression sending renewed fear tumbling in her belly. “Or, perhaps, a combination of both?”
Christine took her eyes from the comte just long enough to look around for something she could use as a weapon, then returned her attention to him as he came toward her, stalking, as if he were the sleek barn cat that lived in the Opera House’s stables and she but a mouseling.
There was no one to help her.
Raoul was gone, ostensibly to save her from what he perceived as a horrible fate. Erik was beaten and chained, and Madame, if she was alive, was also chained to the ground. Even Rose, who might have helped, had run off to the village, leaving Château de Chagny well behind her.
“What is your choice? You wish to fight?” Philippe asked in an indulgent voice. “You do not wish to make use of my comfortable furnishings? I promise you, if I wish you to have pleasure, you will do so. All of my women do.”
“And then you kill them,” she spit, having spied her weapon of choice. The entire arsenal of whips hung behind Philippe, out of her reach…but there was one long, slender dowel lying on the edge of a table nearby. She dared not contemplate what that dowel might be used for in Philippe’s warped chamber; instead, she lunged for it as he replied to her taunt.
“That is only when
I have become bored with them.” He lifted a brow as she turned back, wielding the stick. “My, how enterprising.” He gave a little laugh. “But do not worry yourself. I do not expect to become bored with you for quite some time, Miss Daaé. It has been quite the chase, and I mean to make the most of it now that it has ended. And then there is, of course, the comtesse, my wife. She found you most enticing during our lovely dinner the other night. Unfortunately, she is off to visit her sister for a bit, so she won’t be able to sample your charms until she returns, but I do know that she intends to. Did you perhaps think she might be of assistance in helping you run away? No? Surely the thought crossed your mind, Christine.” He stepped to one side, his eyes never leaving her. “You must be frantically considering all possibility of escape.”
He looked at her again. “And perhaps you had hoped your dear friend the ballet mistress might help you. Well, ma chère, she has helped you enough. I have been spying on her visits to your chamber since her first, and it was she who unwittingly led me to your lover Erik.”
Christine braced herself, holding the dowel in front of her like a clumsy sword. The closest she’d ever come to wielding a weapon was when she and Franco had played at sword fighting one day whilst he was putting away the props from Don Carlos.
Philippe turned and she saw that he had a whip in his hand. It lashed out and she ducked away, but the snap of leather did not cut into her skin. Instead, it easily wrapped around the edge of her own weapon and with a flick of his wrist, Philippe jerked it out of her fingers. Then he threw the whip behind him and advanced another step toward her.
“Let us keep this to what they call hand-to-hand combat, ma chère,” he said with an easy smile. “I want to feel you fighting me with your nails and teeth…I want our bodies to roll together on the floor, or the bed, or wherever, as you kick and struggle beneath me, your heart pounding, your lungs screaming as they heave.”
He lunged and snatched at her arm, his fingers closing over the silky fabric of her sleeve. Christine shrieked and jerked away, and the sleeve tore from her gown.
