Chapter Thirteen

Christine Daaé.

Letting out a slow breath, Anna and looked back up at the bill tacked to the rear door of the Opera Nationale. Not that looking away from it in the first place would have erased that it was there. Anna’s fingers were stiff and cold when she forced them into a fist. She pictured punching Christine Daaé right in the nose, but that did nothing to make her feel better. Anna pulled her newly lined cloak closer around her shoulders, thankful she kept the pelts from endless nights of skinning rabbits and narrowed her eyes as she reread the announcement.

Christine Daaé.

This time the air fogged as she exhaled. That name was the last thing she expected to see when she set out to look for Erik. Yet there it was, the concert announcement displaying it as clearly as the sky did the moon. Anna struggled to moderate her breathing the longer she stood there. Try as she may she couldn’t attribute that, or the shudders of her heart, to her extended walks away from the tunnels. Opera staff hustled in and out of that door, jostling her a few times, but her introspection remained locked on that name.

Days had passed since Erik left, and the more Anna ached for him, the more she longed to find him. Not that she was entirely sure his heart would be in the same place as hers. It only seemed logical to check the Nationale. Now she was sorry she did.

Sorrow burned in the back of her eyes. It hurt to think of him and hurt not to. Nightly she’d lay awake wondering where he’d gone. Did he return to Paris? Someplace else?

Now I know he didn’t go far.

Anna stood there for a long while. The back doors to the Opera Nationale were the only barriers preventing her from finding out if Erik was there. There were choices to be made. Enter and see if she could find him, or abandon this manhunt and the heartbreak that came with it.

The chilly air was mind clearing and fresh as she took a deep breath and savored the sensation warming her from the inside out. The light fluttering in her belly was all the encouragement she needed to set any sorrow and worry aside. Feeling her love for Erik move inside her had made everything clear days ago. Her child needed a father, and Anna needed Erik. At the end of any hardship Erik was still a gentleman with a heart capable of holding an empire, and right now that empire was growing inside of her.

But, if he had fled to Christine Daaé, everything would change. It would mean her fears were realized and Erik really did love the comtesse more than her. Even as she thought it she didn’t want to believe it. If he wished his former life and love that badly, Anna wasn’t about stand in the wings and endure it. She didn’t become a marked woman, so Christine Daaé could have her Angel of Music again. She did it for Erik, and she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.

Laying a hand her baby, Anna took a deep breath and pushed open the back doors of the Opera Nationale.

Erik sat in the corner of the dressing room watching Christine sleep off her stupor. All it took was few whispers of her name, a specific pitch to his voice, and before anything had started, she’d fainted in his arms. A lot could have happened in those few seconds.

Erik ground his teeth and tipped his forehead to his hands. He may have been able to lull Christine into peaceful oblivion, but it wasn’t the same for him. His world crushed hard against his shoulders. That warning of madness in his mind shrieked like a cornered rabbit. Erik clutched his temple with such force he ground the edges of his mask against his face. The woman he watched sleeping was not the woman who had taught him how to please, not the pacifier of his madness…

She’s not my life. Not my heart. Not my love. Not my Anna!

If he had a nose, reality would have punched it clear off his face. Whenever he had kissed Anna in such manner, his mind filled with music. Here, with Christine’s sweet taste still upon his lips, there was only noise.

God’s blood! What was I thinking? “Wake up!” Erik felt no remorse as his roar shocked Christine upright.

“Did I fall asleep?” It took a few seconds for her blinking and breathing to settle down.

“No, I made you rest.” Erik leaned out of his shadow. He perched his forearms on his knees hoping the position would shove the blade he’d conjured deeper into his heart. “Forgive me. Neither of us was thinking clearly.”

“Why would you do that? What’s the matter?”

A sarcastic laugh rolled out of his mouth. Such the question! There was so much wrong with this moment he was drowning attempting to figure out which part was the lesser of evils: him or the blunder he’d made.

“Go back to your boy, Christine. Tell him about the nightmarish mistake we almost committed.”

He wanted to rip his heart out to feel the agony Anna surely would feel when he confessed this betrayal to her. As his chest twisted, an annoyed look passed over Christine’s face.

“Judging from that expression you plan on lying to him even more.” Erik rose beyond giving a damn about her lies ever changing. “Do as you want, Christine. Let this manhunt continue if you must, but recognize one thing. What almost happened was a weakness on the part of an old fool. I am a part of your past. Not the present, not the future—your past. Leave me there.”

Christine’s eyes fluttered. She looked wounded. Rejected. “Erik, this isn’t a nightmare.”

“It is. I am a stupid man.” The more Christine sat there deepening that injured look the more it dawned on him. Erik paced out his shock, speaking out loud more to the voices in his mind than to Christine. “This is what Anna meant. She has been thinking all along that I would reject her in favor for you. And now I have betrayed her.” If he could, Erik would have scrubbed his lips clear off his face to erase the memory of where they’d last been. I betrayed them. She is with child.

“You said you were alone! Are you still with her? You can’t be! There are feelings between us, Erik. Accept that.”

Erik walked in front of the door keeping his eyes on Christine’s baffled expression. “What I accept is that I am passionately in love with her and I cannot keep trying to make her into you. This manhunt and my damn inability to let go of the past has prevented me from moving on. Kept me from being willing to accept my life as it is. Kept me clinging to you!” Christine jerked her head back, seemingly shocked, making Erik stab his finger in her direction. “No more, Christine. No more memories of you. I do not want them. I want Anna.”

As he watched Christine’s face pale and her eyes well up, Erik couldn’t help but soften his tone. Anger had already damaged most all of his life. Despite the rising madness in his mind, he stopped pacing and took a deep breath.

“Tell Raoul about this. I do not care what he will do to me, but you cannot hide behind this lie too. It will destroy you. Make him your angel; because this is the last time, you will ever see my face. For both our sakes.”

“Tell him?” Christine gasped making Erik stop before the door. “I can’t tell him. This will give him one more reason to hunt you down. He’ll kill you, Erik, don’t you understand that?”

Erik laid a hand on the knob, and half turned his head to reply. “I have never understood anything as clearly as I do now.”

“Don’t you dare leave. You can’t kiss me with such passion and simply dismiss me.”

Erik rounded. Responsibility for the deed they committed would not land solely on him.

“That took two people, Christine, and you joined in it with your own free will. You did not need me; you needed your Angel of Music. Is that not what you wanted before it came to this?”

“I wanted to show you that I love you. Am I to believe you no longer want that?” Christine bit her lip as her hand touched her throat. Her wedding band was unmistakable as it glinted in the lamplight. Erik stared at it, unmoved by her performance.

“I do want love, Christine. But you do not love me. You are infatuated with me. I finally recognize the difference between the two.” Erik tightened his hand on the knob as he watched those words drop Christine’s mouth open.

“You’ve no idea what you want, Erik. You can’t treat me like this. This isn’t over.”

The noise in his mind was only growing louder, and the more he stared at her, the worse it got. Erik closed his eyes for a second seeking the darkness he found there. It helped, but only a little. When he opened them, the sad realization of the roles he played in creating this mess hovered over him like a dark cloud.

“I should have known better never to have begun it. I am not the man you have placed on a pedestal, and you are not the woman I have placed there either. I do not represent the love you need or want.”

“And what love do I need and want?” Christine scoffed, her hands moving to her hips. “Don’t try to change what I feel.”

He kept his voice calm, despite the arrogance pouring out hers. “You need what is safe and certain. I cannot give you that but your husband can.”

“You’re so sure he’s what I desire?”

Sadness replaced that cloud over his head as he realized all she didn’t understand of love and surprisingly all he’d learned of it. Her stance was straight and elegant though her face was flushed and her hands had moved to rest on her womb. Erik walked a few paces toward her and stopped just within reach of her cheek. He caressed it watching Christine’s lips fall open, and her eyes widen.

“Then answer me this,” he said softly. “Would you spend your life in shadows never knowing where you will rest? Would you do so without complaint, yet under constant judgment because of the masked man at your side? Would you endure cold nights, an empty belly and an uncertain future?” As he stroked her cheek, he dipped his hand into the pocket of his cloak and wound his fingers around the muddy ribbon he had tucked there long ago. It solidified his heartbeat. “Would you raise a child with me never knowing if it would become mad, all merely because you love me?” Christine’s reply was to look anywhere but at him. Lowering his hand, he turned to the door once more. “I thought so.”

“You may walk out that door, Erik, but you can’t escape our history. When will you wake and realize that?”

Erik slammed his palms against the door, rattling it in its jamb. Damn her! Why did she insist on being judge and jury? “I did wake,” he snarled into the wood. “Years ago the moment you removed my mask and ran away from me. I woke again when a stranger entered my life in his damn cloak and hat. Then I woke another time when a different woman removed my mask, but this time stepped toward me. My eyes are wide open, Christine.” He turned his head and gave her a sideways glance, too angry to give her more. “I woke the moment that same woman laid with me and made me a man. I have someone who loves me for myself and for the last year I have been systematically pushing that aside out of disbelief something like that could finally happen to me.”

Erik yanked open the door.

There was no warning. The hound lunged, it’s massive front paws slamming into Erik’s chest. They fell back into the room, the dog’s snarls only barely drowned out by Erik’s curses. A scream tore out Christine’s lips, and in a matter of seconds, a pistol was aimed between Erik’s eyes.

“I waited until you were done with your lover’s quarrel,” the gunman said, kneeling, so the pistol rested squarely on its mark. “I’ve not had the liberty of bedding a whore of late, so listening to you two quibble made me stiffer than I’ve been in a long time.”

“Your name, Monsieur?” Erik barely held his anger at bay as he followed the line of the gun up to the man’s face. The dog growled long and low while moving toward Erik’s feet.

“They call me Loup. Do you think me a fool? One must act like a cobra in this game, Monsieur. Coil quietly while the world goes by and wait for the moment to strike. While your voice tricks are amusing, I didn’t appreciate that you distracted my dog by feeding her vile meat.”

Erik laughed, though his heart hammered. “Does Chagny think one man is enough to control me?”

“Clearly it is.” The pistol cocked.

Erik’s attention volleyed away from the gun to Christine’s rapidly paling face. A short nod of his head toward a chair and she obediently sat. He glanced back up at the gun being sure to keep his arms away from his sides. “A gentleman would put a weapon away in the presence of a lady in the family way.”

“I’m not a gentleman, and the way your lover over there whores her lips out, she’s not a lady.” Loup winked at Christine as he spoke to her. “Next time you should learn to make sure your doors are actually locked. You never know who might be peering through a crack. Now, tell me Phantom, do you have any other lovers I might need to know about?”

“And what makes you think a creature like me would have multiple lovers?” Erik winced as the pistol twisted harder against his face.

“Where is she? Chagny will be pleased that one stone killed two birds, but not nearly as happy as I will be. Where is—”

“Mademoiselle Barret!” Christine jumped up and pointed at the door.

Loup was on his feet his arm whirling toward the entry with the speed of Mercury. Anna stood like a frozen deer as the bullet shot from his pistol.

“Anna!” Erik screamed. “Non! Mon Anna! You nefarious—”

One savage kick knocked the dog into blackness and clear across the room. Unchained rage rounded Erik to his feet and back at Loup. A thin length of silk, Erik’s lasso, whipped through the air neatly finding it’s target’s neck. Like sheet lightning, his fury lit the room.

Christine screamed again.

Killing was a natural and commonplace instinct tattooed on Erik’s soul, but the primal need to protect the woman he worshiped was free-flowing in his veins. With split-second reflexes, Erik jerked the length of the rope, yanking Loup toward him before the bastard could even fight back. One violent crack of his elbow against Loup’s face landed him into bloody submission. Loup collapsed in a heap like his dog.

Christine stood in open-mouthed horror as Erik bent and removed the lasso from Loup’s neck. “Tell your husband should I ever meet this man again, I will not be so generous with my talents. The only reason he is not dead is that I have promises to keep.”

With the sound of that gunshot echoing in his ears and drowning out the first honest prayer he had said in his life, Erik sped through the door. His shoulder brushed the shattered wood of the doorframe. Never had such profound and foreboding fear raced through him. He didn’t even know how his lips formed her name.

“Over here,” Anna replied hoarsely.

The enormous relief that threatened to slit his chest disappeared the instant he found her huddled against a wall. Scarlet seeped through her dress. Within two strides, Erik scooped her into his embrace and rushed for the shadows.

The fact that she was still standing was a miracle because Christine felt faint. The room grew eerily silent, but the sound of the gunshot still echoed in her ears. Every time she blinked the awesome rage she had seen behind Erik’s golden eyes appeared. Trembling, Christine reached down to touch the Huntsman, jumping backward as he struggled back to his feet.

“Where did she go?” Loup’s eyes were wild as he wiped his forearm across his nose. His shirtsleeve smeared with blood. He snatched her wrist. “Answer me!”

“Unhand me,” Christine demanded, twisting her arm free.

“Christine! What in the blazes is happening here?” Raoul’s voice sliced through the room.

He entered, brows drawing fiercely together with Legard looking just as baffled behind him. Christine tried to speak as she propelled herself into Raoul’s arms, but the shock of it all had rendered her mute. The room chilled as she watched Legard dig a spent ball out of the freshly shattered doorframe.

“That was a gunshot we heard,” he sniffing the air. “I smell remnants of burnt powder too.”

“What were you firing on?” Raoul demanded, looking incredulously at the ball Legard held up and then noticing dog he had to step around. “Are you mad? You could have killed someone!”

The flare to Loup’s bloody nostrils made him appear deranged. “That was my intent. And so long as you’re standing in that doorway you’re keeping me from pursuing her.”

“Her?” Legard asked.

“Mademoiselle Barret,” Christine stammered.

“She was here?” Raoul said incredulously. “I leave, and you let all hell break loose! How did you let her get away?”

“I didn’t let her.” Loup plunked down on a chair. “Anna is more cunning than you think. Besides, I was more concerned with protecting your wife. After all, that’s why you posted me at her door when you left, now isn’t it? You wouldn’t have wanted him to get too close?”

Christine swallowed hard as her heart began to beat far too fast.

“Him? Erik was here?” Raoul held Christine tighter. He had no idea how much she welcomed it at that moment.

Loup cracked his neck from side to side. “I don’t know. All I saw was Anna.”

Christine looked up in surprise and closed her mouth with effort. Glancing at Raoul’s face, she saw him scowl.

“How did you get bloodied?” he asked.

“An earlier disagreement over cards.” Loup slung one arm over the back of the chair as if all that just occurred never happened. His waistcoat moved away from his body.

It was Legard who stormed over and yanked the flask and spoon from Loup’s vest pocket. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed. “Empty.”

Raoul stepped away from Christine’s side. His mouth had tightened, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ll not have the safety of my family jeopardized by your drunkenness! You’re to stay by my wife’s side at all times, not leave to indulge in your filthy habits.”

Christine swallowed hard as the lines around Loup’s eyes deepened with his sarcastic smile. It only made Raoul’s face grow sterner.

“I find you near any drop of alcohol and your business with this affair ends. Do I make myself clear?”

“You can’t control me, Monsieur le Comte, or what anyone wraps their lips around.” Loup rolled his head toward Christine making the back of her neck heat.

“You should be lucky your face is already disarranged,” Raoul snapped.

Christine pressed her fingers to her mouth as if shocked by Raoul’s outburst. It was more to keep a cry of panic from leaping out her lips. Legard spoke up next, and she prayed he wouldn’t notice her alarm. His voice was just as tense.

“Duke de Molyneux won’t be happy to learn that the real reason his pursuit for Mademoiselle Barret has fallen lax over the years is that you’re a drunk.”

Loup sniffed. A stomach-churning wet noise that made the blood still leaking from his nose rattle.

“Is that a threat?”

“It is. Unless you comply with Monsieur le Comte, I’ll have no problems telling the duke that you’d prefer to chase a drink over Mademoiselle Barret.”

Christine stepped backward as Raoul moved closer to Loup. She wondered why the room was growing so hot. She wanted to race to the door and check the shadows to see if Erik was still there.

“If you so much as touch your lips with anything I’ll see you on a one-way ride to the madhouse,” Raoul said.

“It’s no place I haven’t seen before.” Loup got to his feet and straightened his waistcoat. He glanced at his incapacitated dog. “I’ll need the balance of my hounds kenneled at Chagny. When we return, I’ll leave immediately to see for myself if Anna Barret is still connected to your Phantom. So instead of pondering sending me to madhouses, I’d check in with your Persian again. The hunted tend to linger around those they know. You should be sure Erik isn’t—lingering.”

Christine whipped her head away from the door and locked eyes with Loup. The smile he gave her as he pushed past her into the hall made her knees nearly crumble like old brick.

Wherever Loup’s well-planned plot led her, she was bound to follow it to its end.