Skeletons in the Closet (Phantom Rising Book 2)

by Davyne DeSye

  Christine was abreast of one closed door when it opened and a girl emerged. It was the round servant girl who brought her meals. As startled as Christine was, she was less so than the girl, who shut the door behind her, and backed, bowing.

  “Sultana,” she said, breathless.

  Christine glared to cover her startled reaction and snapped, “What is it girl?”

  “We were told…” the girl stammered, unable to finish. “We were told…”

  “Yes, well, what were you told, you fool? Speak!” She took a threatening step toward the girl. Only her iron control kept her voice from shaking.

  “We were told you were out for the evening,” the girl squeaked. Her eyes moved to the door from which she had just entered the hall, and Christine guessed that the room contained a certain “boorish” male occupant.

  “My plans changed,” Christine said with a flip of her hand, and she turned to continue down the corridor. The girl followed for several steps.

  “Is there anything…,” the girl started.

  “I wish nothing from you. Be gone!” Christine flipped her hand at the girl and turned away again. The skin of her scalp bristled as she waited for what the girl would do – Shout out? Hold her? – but instead she heard the soft patter of retreating footsteps and the opening and closing of a door. She did not look back as she so wished to do, but continued, although at a faster pace. She turned down the next corridor for no reason other than to put a wall between herself and the servant girl.

  Her thoughts veered away from questions of whether she had done something wrong or behaved in a suspicious manner – the incident was behind her – and instead directed her thoughts forward.

  Where am I going? How do I escape this place? What will I say if I am questioned by guards or if they insist on escorting me?

  She was thus lost in her thoughts when her worst fear was realized. Just as she was passing an open door to a lighted room, she was snatched from behind in strong arms and thrust through the doorway. Before she could scream or even decide whether she should scream, a hand clapped over her mouth, and something – not a hand, a rope perhaps – wrapped about her throat. She was held until she heard the door close behind her, and then she was thrust face down into a gathering of cushions arranged in the near corner of the room. A hand pushed her face into the cushions, silencing whatever sound she might have made.

  “Make a sound, and it will be the last sound you make. Understand me?” the voice growled.

  She recognized the voice and shuddered in a paroxysm of joy.

  Erik!

  Tears sprang to her eyes as her worst terrors evaporated on the instant.

  “Understand me?” he growled again. She nodded.

  “My wife. I want her. Dead or alive, I must be with her.”

  Christine tried to roll over, tried to lift her face from the pillows, but the rope around her neck tightened.

  “Do not move. Do not make a sound. Listen, for once,” he said.

  Christine again nodded and the rope about her throat loosened again.

  “I love Christine more than you will ever be able to comprehend, you mad murderess. If she is dead, you die. No one will hear you. No one will come to your rescue. If she lives, you will tell me where to find her. Now. If you do not, I will assume she is dead, and – again – you will die.”

  Erik patted at Christine’s veiled hair and down her back until he discovered the two daggers. He pulled them both from her waistband and threw them across the room. Her body thrilled at his ungentle touch as he patted her thighs. “Do you have any others?”

  Christine shook her head, swallowing painfully around the rope at her throat. If she could have, she would have laughed through her tears at the thought of being killed by her beloved rather than rescued by him – and, ironically, on the night of her own attempted escape.

  “Roll over. You will answer my questions. For your sake, I hope you have not deceived me, and that my Christine is well.”

  The rope did not loosen as she moved, but did not tighten either. She rolled, both afraid to provoke Erik and in painful breath-stealing anticipation of seeing his face.

  His face! He wore no mask. There was no impediment to seeing – until her eyes filled again, and he blurred from her sight. She inhaled in a silent sob of joy and blinked, unwilling to lose a moment of the vision floating above her.

  Such anger in his eyes. The hand that did not hold the lasso came up to pull her veil from her face and paused hovering. Christine blinked away fresh tears, and sobbed again as the anger faded from his eyes, and his brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Your eyes,” he said. “She doesn’t have your beautiful blue eyes.” Then: “Oh my God, Christine!” as his hands both worked at the lasso. As soon as it was loose, he lifted her into an embrace, one hand clutching at the back of her head, their faces cupped in each other’s neck. He rocked her there, saying her name over and over, as she repeated his through quiet laughing sobs. He released her and with hands to her shoulders eased her away from him. His hand came up to the veil, which, although still clasped, was askew. He released the catch, and pulled the veil from her head.

  Erik’s warm, love-filled eyes fixed on the still healing scars on her face – first one and then the other – and hardened to stones. She raised one hand to her cheek – in embarrassment, in apology. He raised his own to her other cheek, but did not touch her.

  “Do they pain you?” he asked. His voice was as hard as his eyes.

  She shook her head and seeing his disbelief, said, “Honestly, there is very little pain now. A little tenderness.”

  With hands to her shoulders again, he drew her closer. His eyes widened and warmed and were filled with love and pain as he spoke to her. “You are beautiful, my wife.” He pulled her closer still until their lips met.

  “I love you, Erik,” she breathed against his lips as they parted. His answer came in another kiss, this one as tender but containing more hunger, and lasting – it seemed to Christine – for an eternity of sweetness. When they broke from the kiss they were both breathing heavily.

  After another long look, Erik stood and reached a hand out to help Christine to her feet. Catching at a loose curl of her dark hair, his forehead furrowed.

  “Why…?” His face cleared as he continued. “Ah, yes. I know why. Clever she-devil. No wonder there was no report of a golden haired…” He smoothed her hair over her shoulder and continued, “… goddess… in the palace.”

  Tears threatened again as Erik pulled Christine towards him, kissed her forehead and embraced her. Trembling from his touch, she gratefully returned his embrace.

  Without another word, he gathered up the Sultana’s two abandoned daggers and first handing the smaller to Christine, secured the other in his own belt. Christine watched his every move as she replaced her veils, filling her eyes with his presence. He moved away from the door to the opposite wall, and within moments had located the lever to trigger another door into the tunnel. Hand clasped in Erik’s strong, warm grip, she stepped with him into blackness.

  CHAPTER 28

  ERIK AND CHRISTINE

  Erik pushed the trapdoor until it latched and they were engulfed in blackness. He was paralyzed by the touch of Christine’s hand in his own, by the lingering taste of her mouth on his lips. He pulled her toward him and again, they were in each other’s arms. He spoke into her hair as his eyes burned with tears of relief. His voice quivered as he spoke.

  “You’re alive, oh my heart, you’re alive.”

  She spoke through his words, “You came for me.”

  Again their mouths met, and for long moments the only sound in the tunnel was their breathing and the sweet wet sound of their mouths tasting each other.

  “Let’s move away from here,” Erik whispered. “Wait just a moment.” Erik sought out the candle in his pocket, and before long it flared to life. He looked along the tunnel and fixing in his mind the path he had taken since leaving the tunnel in search of Naheed,
he whispered, “This way.” He took Christine’s hand and kissed her palm before leading her to the place where he had dropped the torches. The newer of the two still burned where he had left it.

  Lifting the torch and raising a finger to his lips to enforce a continued silence, he led Christine back the way he had come, past her room, past the footprinted dust to an area that looked long unused. After checking the nearest peepholes to see if the adjacent rooms contained occupants, he said, “Now, we can talk.” He leaned toward Christine for another kiss, and then said, “How is it you come to be walking the palace halls in the guise of a mad woman?” He frowned as he remembered how he had treated Christine when he thought her Naheed, and said, “Did I hurt you?”

  Christine smiled and shook her head.

  “I was escaping,” Christine said and giggled. “It sounds so ridiculous, but the Sultana was gone, and I thought… I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I had to get away.” The last was said with a painful vehemence, and Erik winced as Christine’s hand stole to her cheek.

  “Yes, she is away tonight. She is away so that she will not be held responsible when the Shah’s newest wife and only son are killed tonight.”

  “Killed?” Christine asked.

  “Yes. It is the ransom I must pay for your release.”

  Christine lunged into his arms, and said, “Oh Erik. I am so sorry.” After a moment, she pulled away, and said, “What will she do when she finds me escaped and the deed undone. Is there anywhere we can hide? Anywhere we can be safe?”

  “No,” he answered. Seeing her stricken look, he continued in more tender tones: “Yes, of course, temporarily.” He brushed a hand along the line of her chin, on the soft skin of her neck, bewildered to have her so near. “But we shall forever be looking over our shoulders. I will not live that way.”

  “And Petter?” Christine asked, clutching at Erik’s shirt.

  “He is safe.” Erik saw the doubt and worry in her eyes, and continued, “He is here. He is waiting outside the palace walls to aid in your rescue.”

  Christine’s brow furrowed and then cleared. “Yes, I suppose he is safer, here, with you, even on this mad venture, than he would be alone in London.” If Erik had not been so relieved and happy to have Christine alive and before him, he might have been disappointed to hear the familiar lament over Petter.

  “Come, I’ll take you to him,” Erik said. “He will take you back to our rooms, and we can leave Mazenderan at first light.”

  “Take me?” she asked. “Are you not coming?” The confusion was plain on her face.

  Erik was loath to explain, but knew he must. “I have unfinished business in the palace. I do not intend to live our lives under the shadow of Naheed’s mad demands.”

  “What?!” Her confusion melted into shock and anger. “What do you intend?” – and here Christine clutched at him again and did her best to shake him – “Erik, I refuse to allow you to endanger yourself. We are free. Let us go!” She did not seem to notice the wince elicited when her clutching hands contacted his ribs.

  “We are not free, my love. We shall never be free,” he answered. He made no attempt to free her hands from his shirt, happy to be held by her in any way at all.

  “And what? Do you intend to kill her?” she asked.

  “I do not,” Erik answered.

  “You threatened as much when you thought I was she,” Christine answered, apparently unbelieving of his calm denial. Her eyes were bright and brittle in the light of the torch, and Erik pondered whether she approved or condemned the act.

  “Yes, when I thought you dead at her hands. Her disgusting life for yours. I thought it a fair trade at the time.” He brought his hands up to enfold her own, and pressed them to his chest. “With you before me, alive and well, I am myself again.”

  “Then what?” Christine asked, her voice rising several levels above a whisper. Erik brought a hand to her mouth in caution. “Then what?” she repeated in a harsh whisper. “I will not leave you!”

  “Shh, love,” he whispered, and pulled her to him.

  “I will not be placated with your kisses!” she whispered, but she did not push him away. She clutched at him with desperation and again their lips were pressed together. He tasted the salt of fresh tears. After a heated time in which she pressed her body against his and her mouth devoured his, her hands released his shirt and began to move in near frenzy through his hair, over his back, down his buttocks to his thighs, up the front of his thighs. Somehow her hand missed moving over the wound on his thigh, but he would not have stopped her if it had. Her hands seemed to leave burning tracks where they touched him.

  He explored her body – at once so familiar to him and yet so longed for, so new under hands that had not touched her in so long. He was not surprised that his body reacted to her touches, to her kisses, but was startled when her hands moved at his belt, at his pants. He thought to put a stop to their recklessness, but again her mouth was on his, and her hands moved over his now bared groin. He moaned through their kisses under her urgent ministrations.

  “Yes, Erik, yes,” she whispered. She turned in his arms, and his hands – guided by hers – cupped her breasts from his position behind her. He buried his face in her hair and panted, matching her wild breathing with gasps of his own. Without realizing that (or how) she had removed so much of her clothing, he felt his own exposed body pressing against the soft, warm skin of her bare bottom. Her hand guided him into her depths. She undulated against him, ready for him, welcoming him, and his eyes fell to her hips, to their bodies, moving together in the glow of the flickering torchlight. He knew the erotic vision of this frenzied moment of hunger and need would stay with him for the rest of his days.

  After some time, they held each other panting in the silence of their satisfaction. In the intoxication of the moment Erik did not wish to release her – indeed ever again – and thought to abandon his plans, to leave the palace with Christine in his arms.

  “Thank you, my love” she whispered, and he tightened his arms about her.

  She pulled from him, and began the rearrangement of her clothing. “What is your plan, Erik? What is this unfinished business?”

  Her words struck him like a sluice of cold water to his chest, constricting his heart and spasming through his limbs.

  He pulled at his own clothing as he spoke. “Will you allow me to lead to you safety? Will you allow me to do as I must?” he asked.

  She smiled sweetly and raised herself to her toes to kiss him, and he thought she had capitulated. Then she spoke.

  “I would sooner scream – and die with you where we stand – than leave you again. We are a pair, we two. I would not have these past moments – as sweet as they were,” she brought her hand to his cheek, “be the last time we make love, or if so, only because we have perished together.” She bent for her abandoned veils and taking several steps away from Erik, shook the dust from them. “Now, what is your – our – plan?”

  Erik sighed, closed his eyes and shook his head. His son, and now his wife, and their damnable stubbornness. But, it was the fire within Christine’s soul that had first made him love her. He could not wish it away.

  He opened his eyes to see the iron in her own. He sighed again, and defeated by his love for her and her demand, explained his plan. When he finished, he said, “And now, I ask you again. Will you let me first lead you to safety?” He held little hope for agreement.

  “It is a good plan,” she answered. “I can help you.” She turned and took two sinuous steps away from him, then turned again to face him. With the lower pitched voice of the Sultana and the lift of one brow, said, “After all, I am the Sultana.”

  Erik shuddered at the perfection of the illusion. “Please. Do not.”

  When she spoke again, it was with her own voice. “I can lead you through the palace. No one will question me. You need not try to find your goal through this impossible maze of tunnels.”

  Erik did not answer – could not answer
against the force of her argument.

  “You have said you must hurry. You have said that you have little time.” She smiled and licked her lips. “I have stolen a good part of that time for my own selfish purposes…”

  “Hardly selfish,” Erik interposed, another rising tingle in his groin.

  “… and now I can help return that time to you,” she finished. “Please, let me help you.”

  Erik raised his arms and Christine stepped into his embrace. “I love you, wife,” he said. He kissed her and taking up the torch again, began leading her down the passage. “I will bring us out in Naheed’s wing. We can go from there.”

  CHAPTER 29

  MOTHER AND CHILD

  Christine squeezed Erik’s hand as he led her through the dark tunnels back the way they had come. The exhilaration that filled her – brought about both by the joy of Erik’s hand in her own, and the excitement and tension of what they prepared to do – threatened to bring tears to her eyes again. Tears! The realization brought her to a halt against Erik’s insistent pull.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “My face,” she said. When he looked his lack of comprehension at her, she said, “I am sure my face is quite disordered. Can you see the eye paint in this light? Is anything amiss?”

  Erik leaned toward her without bringing the torch any closer. His hand moved up to brush at the skin under one eye.

  “I am afraid so,” he said. “Just as well. I will proceed as I originally planned.” He turned away from her.

  “No. Can you take me back to my room?” she asked.

  “Your room?”

  “I can lead us to the Sultana’s room from there. I can fix the eye paint.” When Erik hesitated, she said, “It will take little time, I assure you.”

  Erik nodded and turned to continue on his way. Christine’s heart filled with love and admiration for the speed with which Erik arrived at his decisions, and then acted upon them. She remembered the many fears and hesitations of her imprisonment.