Page 84 of Angel's Kiss
“You’re not welcome here, friend of that demon’s or no. This place is for good Christian folk.” Shaya was not sure who said it. It didn’t matter. He had heard everything he needed.
He ran from the tavern, his mind reeling even as he felt as if his head were about ready to split in two. Erik had killed again. He knew it in his soul. The day Shaya had feared and awaited for years had finally come.
––––––––
Christine walked untilher feet ached and her hands were numb from the cold. She wanted to lose herself or be lost. She had to keep moving or she knew she would fall and never move again. So she kept walking for hours. And yet she was not surprised to find herself on theBoulevard Haussmannlooking at the back of the Palais Garnier when the sun began to sink lower into the sky.
Erik would be waiting for her soon. So would Raoul. Whose heart would she break? Whose life might she end? Would it feel easier the second time? Erik would know.
How could she consider going back to him now? After all he’d done, after the tragedy he’d laid at her feet. How could she consider leaving him behind, knowing the havoc that would follow if she did?
Her feet took her to theRue Scribeautomatically, her body drawn like a lodestone to where Erik would await her within the next hours. She could just go now, descend into the dark and find him. It would be easy. Everything with him was so easy when he was there, so simple in its own way. It had been the simplest thing in the world to give him her maidenhood, as if she had known from the beginning it would be him. It was the easiest decision, to call out Erik’s name and push away the man that meant to kill him. She would do it again, she knew that too. She would save Erik and take him back to her bed, with no question.
I know you are good and kind and pure and honest. Raoul’s words still echoed in her ears. What a fool he was. A beautiful fool who had offered her the perfect escape. With him, she could forget everything, start a new life and be that girl he loved. She would be safe, even if she would not truly be free.
Christine leaned against the cold stone of the Opera and watched the people coming and going along the street. Good Parisians on their way home or to a café or meeting those they loved. A young man strode confidently, in a rush. He had to be off to meet a paramour, for he carried a little bundle of flowers in his hand: white snowdrops and yellow daffodils. They had to be the first ones of the season, early even. The excitement on his face as he rushed towards his future reminded her so much of Raoul. The sun finally broke through the clouds to cast weak rays on her face. The sun Erik would never share, the light that Raoul offered her. There would be no grief with him.
What would Papa want for her? He had never approved of Raoul. But he had never wanted any man to take her away from him. He had kept her sheltered and secluded and told her again and again that love was poison as much as it was a joy. He had warned her to never love what she could lose. Maybe he had been right.
She closed her eyes and listened to the noise of the city. Horses. Trolleys. Vendors. Carriages. A million footsteps and voices. It was so loud up here, compared to Erik’s world beneath her feet. A world full of soft silence and perfect song. She could almost hear it if she tried to listen. Erik’s angelic voice, singing her the song of seduction he had crafted for her ears alone. She shivered and then blushed at how even that memory could awaken her desire.
She opened her eyes, looking at the people on the street. Normal, good people like Raoul who would call in a doctor or a priest if they knew the things she was thinking. The things she’d done. And even with her eyes open, the music was there, making her skin prickle and her stomach knot with anticipation. Once again, her feet moved of their own accord, towards the stable door and the darkness within that beckoned her with a song.
It was not in her memory. The shadows were singing for her in the waking world. Erik was calling her to him.
Was Raoul waiting already? Was he kneeling in the church, pleading Christine would come or praying for her soul? How could he know that a dark angel had that soul already, bound to him in a contract she had signed long ago? She walked with steady purpose through the stables, following the song, the sun at her back, until she came to the edge of the shadows. The limit of the living world. Erik opened his eyes so that they shone like twin torches in the dark before he took her hand and pulled her from the light.
His voice acted on her like a drug as she followed him, dulling every sense and thought but the ones he wished her to have. He led her down, deep into the earth where his kingdom went on forever, his voice drowning out the whispers of the ghosts that shared it. His hand was as cold as hers where he held it, but together, they grew warm as he guided her home. To the house beyond his Lake Avernus, a palace or a tomb for a dark king.
He pulled her close, her back to his chest, as soon as the door was shut behind them, and he touched her. She nearly collapsed at the pleasure just that gave her. He pawed at her breasts as he snaked his hand around her waist to keep her close and upright as he sang his lust and love into her ear. She helped him to undress her, impatient to give him access to her skin. Soon enough, her clothes were in a puddle at her ankles as his hand found her wet sex between her thighs.
Ecstasy sang through her blood as he touched her in all the places his voice ignited, bringing her nearly to the peak right there. His voice was unquestionable. It was the whole world, full of love and beauty, and his long fingers were on her and inside her, and she was his instrument to command. And so she came, gasping, with her lover holding her tight as his song crescendoed in her soul.
But it was not enough. She knew there was more and she could feel his desire hard and hot against her back. She was hungry for it.
She kissed him when she turned her to him, but not his lips. She wanted him to keep singing the same way she wanted him to be deep inside her again, driving away the world above and its pain. Her naked body was trembling from the climax as she kissed his throat and she tore at his cravat. She kissed the scars on his chest as she pushed off his jacket and shirt.
“No mask,” she commanded, and with shaking hands, he complied, his voice quieting as the mask clattered to the floor. “Keep going. Keep singing.” Again he obeyed, song filling her soul and making her brave. Or mad. Maybe there was no difference.
The first feel of his cock in her hand was perfect, and Erik’s voice faltered for the first time she had ever heard as she gripped his rigid length. She stroked him again and was delighted as his music became a cry of need. But her cunt was empty and she ached to be filled.
“Take me to your bed,” she ordered and before she could blink, he lifted her into his arms and carried her into his chamber, where a few candles burned low. She kissed his bare cheek, not afraid of the revealed wreck of his dead face. But he flinched away, hiding himself as he sang against her breast. He sang to her as they fell into the sheets, sang to her as he turned her onto her belly then lifted her by her hips so she was bent over before him. And he sang, low and gentle, as he pushed himself inside her and she keened in slavish pleasure.
Did the song continue as he fucked her? She didn’t know. It was there, in her head and her spirit as she gasped and cried with each thrust as Erik drove his cock into her, penetrating her more deeply than she had ever imagined possible. He held her tight, his fingers digging into her hips as he claimed her. Her nipples grazed the bed, her hands tangled in the sheets, and she had no thoughts or needs beyond now, beyond him, beyond the way she had become his music, his rhythm, his alone.
She came again, lights exploding behind her eyes as her body bucked and writhed, before she collapsed, sated and limp. She whimpered as he withdrew from her and ground himself against her back before he trembled above her and she felt the hot stain of his climax over her skin.
As much as she adored the music, so did she adore the quiet after, as Erik pulled her to his chest and settled them among his sheets below the bower of ebony branches. She sighed as he kissed her lips at last, so glad to be free for a while. He kissed her long and deep and slow, as gentle as night.
At last, she opened her eyes to look on his deathly face, half hidden by his dark hair, a breath from hers on the pillow.
“You should let me cut this for you,” she whispered, catching a long lock between her fingers and pushing it away. “Soon you won’t be able to see your piano keys.”
“Can I trust you with scissors?” he asked back, with something like a smile.
“I don’t know.” Christine touched his cheek. If felt so strange against her palm, and yet it was already so familiar. Just a face, really. Nothing more. “You came for me early.”
“I was worried.” She could see the sincerity in his eyes, and the anxiety. Did he trust her at all? Should he?
