In the darkness of his soul he has long dwelt, in a life lost and absent of meaning.

In the light of revelation she seeks to find purpose, in a world shrouded in fear.

Fate condemns this forbidden union -

but only with each other can they survive.

.

A/N: A gothic, supernatural tale of PotO, with a dark angsty Erik - And - (need I say it?) – the characters of PotO do not belong to me, but all else in this story does. This is a paranormal romance drama, with a dark Erik who will do some things the reader may not like (more understandable why as one reads) - Be ye warned. Some ALW, with a smidge of Kay, later in story...

Christine, (as all my Christines are) is more spirited and bold - main characters will have different backstory/histories. It begins a year before the Phantom-happenings at the Opera House and continues thereon…rated M for all the usual reasons (sex, becoming more explicit as story progresses, adult situations, and some violence), and contains all the things my stories do (romance, drama, angst, suspense, etc).

And now…

I

(1869)

.

Bonfires lay scattered and burned throughout the village in the chill night, but the darkness was prevalent, eating into one's soul.

Tongues of consuming flame lapped at dry tinder and the scarecrow-like effigy of the nearest conflagration, its head that of a pumpkin afire with dreadful eyes and leering mouth. Men parading as devils and ghouls rushed past in decadent celebration. Women in varying degrees of costume and dress danced with wild abandon to music so evocative it heated the blood. In darkened corners, couples writhed in shadowed embrace, causing the lone figure to avert her eyes awkwardly as she hurried past each in turn. Wine and ale flowed freely, while the pounding of distant drums and the mournful haunt of a reed instrument called out to her and echoed in the rapid pounding of her heart.

The night and its strangeness closed in on Christine, much as the costumed villagers did. In a tense sort of desperation she carefully picked her way through the crowds and searched the unfamiliar street.

She never would have attended this festival had she known she would be separated from her escort, wandering alone through a crazed and unholy crowd. Never in all her seventeen years had she witnessed such a lack of inhibition and excess of debauchery. The scandalous nature of the Paris Opera House was tame in comparison.

But this was not home, she reminded herself. Never would it be. She had been forced to leave her position in the chorus and take up residence with her aloof great uncle on the outskirts of this remote village, once a part of fierce Scotland, but whose borders had shifted and now inhabited England. A world apart from the elegance of Paris.

Christine sidestepped a group of revelers dancing around the bonfire and walked directly into the path of a stout man in a red devil's mask. He slammed into her, nearly knocking her to the ground.

"Oh!"

Flailing for purchase, Christine's hand swung back and found contact where no one had stood before - a man's strong shoulder she reached up to grab at the same time the drunken invader staggered away, barking some insult unintelligible. Through the thick wool cape she fiercely gripped she felt the strength of lean muscle.

The stranger clasped her around the waist, preventing her fall. She wondered if she was again falling at the dizzying sensation when she turned her head to look up into eyes that glowed behind a sparkling ebony mask…eyes the hypnotic gold of candle flame, intense and burning, framed with lashes black as coal. The bonfire seemed to dance inside his eyes, twin flames that drew her to their warmth. His lips curved in a slow twisted smile, wicked enough to set her pulse racing.

"You must be more careful. It is a dangerous place for the unwary, with regard to those merrymakers who've not yet learned to hold their cups."

The inflection of his voice, a velvet purr, deep and seductive, turned her insides to molten wax. God, had she ever heard such a voice…? He spoke with a cultured accent she couldn't place, neither English nor Scottish. His hair shone black as midnight, and what she could see of his skin beneath the mask was ghostly pale. His gloved hands at her waist burned through her thin costume of ivory tulle and silk. Even through layers of petticoats, his touch singed her.

Flustered at so intimate a contact, she pressed her palm against his solid bulk to push away. The action scalded her, not with heat but with cold, and she became powerless as she felt the chill of his skin beneath his fine silk clothing. Her eyes dropped to the middle of his torso. The sight of her small pale hands against his crimson waistcoat caused her face to flame. Grateful that her spangled mask likewise covered her forehead to dip beneath her cheeks, she broke free of his hold.

"Merci." She swallowed over a dry throat. "The street is so crowded. Impossible to traverse. The revelry has surpassed the dictates of propriety, I think …" She shook her head at her nervous prattle and attempted to regain her poise. "One cannot walk two feet ahead without being run down."

She spoke of propriety but ideas wholly inappropriate whirled through her mind, fed by what she'd seen this night. The riotous music, the stifling air - when had England ever felt so hot? - the close proximity of her mysterious dark savior whose eyes burned into her soul. All of it threatened to unbalance her a second time, to sweep her away to a moment forbidden. Her gaze slowly dropped and fastened to his mouth.

"You look lightheaded still. You must be parched in so heated an atmosphere." His smile suggested more than words conveyed. "I see you are without refreshment of the spirits that flow so freely. You should take some wine and find somewhere quiet to rest."

Did he mock her? Did he know his effect on her? Christine tried to discern his expression behind the mask, but his attention rested beneath her face at her throat, devoid of adornment. Her pulse there throbbed at his steady gaze, which then dipped lower to the pale half moons pushing up against her ruffled bodice with each uneven gasp of breath. Her skin grew flushed at his bold stare. Before she could think to move away or express offense, his eyes again flicked up to hers.

She forgot to scold, forgot to breathe. Their intensity called out to her … coaxing her to follow the example of the villagers and release all inhibition.

The festival faded into the background, the drums and pipes falling away. No thoughts stirred inside her head, no sound assaulted her ears. There was nothing except him…

This stranger she felt she had known since the beginning of time.

He held out his hand, his long fingers curling inward in a beguiling manner.

"Come, my Angel," he softly intoned.

A persuasive invitation, a silken command.

She felt powerless to resist, did not even want to, and lifted her hand inches from his own. Her fingertips grazed the palm of his glove, at last meeting it fully, the touch of his hand against hers further constricting breath and sending little shocks through every nerve ending. His eyes flared as if he, too, felt all she did. Slowly, he retreated back into the shadows, leading her by the hand as she matched each step to his.

She would follow him anywhere …

"Christine!"

The sound of her name being called scattered the thick dreamy haze from her mind. She blinked up at the stranger and snatched her hand from his light grip. Swinging around, she spotted her escort's fair head in the crowd.

"Raoul! I'm here." She waved him over to cover her embarrassment at what she'd almost done.

"I must go," she whispered and turned back to the stranger –

To find no one there.

Christine blinked in stunned confusion. How could he have vanished so quickly with nowhere to go?

A wall of stone with a shadowed door stood several feet behind the area to which he'd been leading her, the area to her right side closed off by another wall crawling with ivy. She looked past Raoul, into the crowd, but saw no sign of a cloaked man with raven-black hair pulled back in a queue who stood taller than most and would be easy to spot. Mystified, for he would have had to brush past her to find his way into the thick of the festival, she struggled to understand.

Had her sensitivity to the riotous celebration and talk of this legendary night conjured him up in her mind? Impossible. She had felt his eyes, his touch – burn to the very depths of her core. Strange, when he'd been so cold…

"Christine," Raoul reached her, out of breath, and took relieved hold of her shoulders. "Thank God. I was worried. It's too easy to lose one another in a crowd of this magnitude – every villager must be out celebrating tonight. The festival has become far too wild. I would never forgive myself if something were to happen to you."

She nodded vaguely, her mind elsewhere, her eyes looking past him to see if she could catch sight of her dark savior who had called her his angel.

"We must leave for Montmarte, the carriage awaits. Fearsome creatures of the night inhabit these lands, Christine. You must always be on your guard, and never walk alone."

Christine barely refrained from rolling her eyes at his penchant for drama. "Please, Raoul, no more of such talk. It wasn't as if I intended to wander. I thought you were by my side and didn't realize you must have gone in the other direction."

All day and all night she had been informed of the legend of Samhain: when dead souls returned to former habitations and all manner of supernatural beings, dangerous and powerful, afflicted the living – the bonfires created to ward them off.

She linked her arm through his, grateful to have him again by her side.

"I would prefer …"

She questioned her hesitation. What would she prefer? To search the streets for a masked man of questionable repute about whom she knew nothing? A man of mystery with whom she had been so unreserved? So ready and willing to do whatever he asked …

She averted her face so Raoul wouldn't see the blush that stained her cheeks. "Yes, yes you're right. Take me back to Montmarte."

It was this pagan festival, this night of wicked revelry that made her act so unlike herself.

But as the carriage moved along the rutted road toward the dense forest and she looked back over her shoulder at the multitude of fires burning across the dark landscape, she knew something within her had changed. An equinox of the soul, when good and evil converged for one blinding moment of one shadowed night…

And she sensed she would never be the same.

xXx

"Fearsome creatures of the night, indeed!" Christine scoffed beneath her breath.

She sat at the long dining table with her great uncle, the Earl of Montmarte at the head and Raoul facing her. Next to him sat their cousin, Lucy, the earl's daughter, an odd girl a year behind Christine in age and a decade younger in mind. Lucy was more curvaceous where Christine was slender, but her cousin's shapely figure was all that proved she wasn't a child. Expressions she'd heard the maids use of Lucy being a bit tetched in the head were generous. With fair hair like Raoul, Lucy's a silvery-white, and ice blue eyes, she resembled a Dresden doll, much like one of many with which she played. Lucy was rarely quiet, but conversations held were mostly with herself or her little porcelain friends.

At the moment, Lucy ate her tartlet, softly humming off-key and staring at her plate, not one bit concerned by the morbid conversation, if she heard it at all.

Strange that Raoul added little to the discussion of a subject Christine knew intrigued him greatly.

"You mock what you don't know?" her taciturn uncle reproved, holding up his fork with the tines directed to Christine as he stressed his points. "Perhaps if you acquainted yourself with all that has occurred in outlying provinces this past year you wouldn't be so quick to cast aspersions on caveats that could well save your life. Men and women have gone missing in the night. Bodies were found, drained of blood…"

"My apologies … my lord," she added the title as an afterthought, not the least bit sorry for her feelings on the matter. His hearing must be as acute as a bat, since she'd barely muttered the scornful words. "But I hardly think village gossip is of any merit. Legends are stories of pretense and not worthy of serious consideration. There must be another explanation for what happened. Perhaps those missing ran off and don't wish to be found. As for the other," (Hardly a topic she enjoyed with her meal) "there are wild animals hereabouts surely—"

Her uncle cast her a withering glance that dripped with disapproval. Madame Giry, her instructor at the Opera House, often scolded Christine for being too outspoken.

She owed him no loyalty, had never even known of his existence until Mama Valerius died. Still, though he'd shown her no real welcome in the two weeks since she arrived, she did owe him respect. Her great uncle had opened his home to her, though she suspected Raoul urged the courtesy. He alone had expressed interest and delight to see her again. Their mothers had been first cousins, and his mother married a French count, partly what caused the rift of distance between them since childhood. At least Raoul didn't show any pompous airs with his status, still the boy she had known and loved...

Their great uncle on the other hand…

"I understand you lost your way the other night," he scolded. The crags near his thin mouth deepened into disapproving furrows above his white whiskered jaw. "A foolish choice to wander off in a festival of such a depraved nature, though with your unfortunate upbringing, I'm not surprised."

Her nerves prickled at his slur. "Nothing happened. I was unharmed."

"Raoul mentioned that a man pulled you with him, away from the crowd."

She turned her head in surprise toward her cousin, who displayed a sudden extreme interest in his raspberry tartlet. Raoul had seen? Why had he made no mention of it?

"One of many costumed merrymakers. He saved me from taking a spill."

"That Valerius woman never cautioned you about the dangers of gallivanting about unescorted?"

"I had an escort," she gritted through her teeth, ignoring the slight against Mama Valerius, a sweet elderly woman who'd taken care of her since her parents died. "Raoul was my escort. We were only separated for a time and quite by accident."

"He mentioned you seemed quite taken with the man."

She glared at Raoul, who kept his eyes averted to his plate. They would certainly have a talk at the first opportunity!

"I hardly know why he would arrive at such a conclusion." She picked at her food with her fork, not wishing to invite further ridicule by speaking of the encounter. "Raoul was too far away to see well, and the man left before he got there." At this her cousin lifted his head in surprise, as if to object. "It really was of no consequence," she continued, staring coldly at him. "I fail to see why he would even bring up such an insignificant matter."

"I'll decide if it is of consequence or not. Such an 'insignificant matter' could ruin your reputation. Running about in a scrap of costume in the midst of a pagan festival, your attributes on display for any passing rogue to sample – all of it behavior entirely inappropriate. Such shocking displays could ruin your chance of securing a wealthy husband."

Her cheeks burned with indignation. There. It was out. She had suspected as much. Why else would he send for a grand niece he had never met? Marital prospects for his only living child were slim to none, and so he hoped to control Christine's future, at no small benefit to his personal coffers, she was sure.

"I don't intend to marry," she declared.

He scoffed. "Nonsense. Of course you'll marry. I have a few worthy prospects in mind. At the ball I shall soon host, you will make their acquaintance then."

She set down her fork and calmly declared, "I have no interest in marrying any man."

A half truth. She would be so inclined, but only if it led to love, the type of deep abiding love she'd been told her parents had. The ever-after kind of which fairytales were spun. Not a forced marriage to a stranger she might never truly know, or worse, come to loathe. Madame Giry and Mama Valerious both had spoken of the deep love her musician father and her gentle mother shared, one that providence determined could not separate them and had mercifully allowed them to partake in death as they had in life, though Christine knew little of how they died, only that it had been a horrible accident. Her parent's tale had become legend to the child she'd been, though her once endless questions about the death of her French father and his Swedish lady bride had been met with hushed reprimands and silent refusals to speak of such things.

He waved aside her declaration as trivial. "I have made my decision. As I am your present guardian, you have little say in the matter."

"I could leave," she argued, though she had nowhere to go, or more to the point, no money to take her there.

"Really? I understood that all of what Madame Valerius possessed went to pay off the creditors, including the sale of her cottage. Your mother was of course disinherited when she married your father, a penniless musician. And as I paid for your transport here, I doubt you have any funds of your own."

He ticked off the bald truths with all the aplomb of a bully who knew he had cowed a timid child. Yet she was not timid, and wouldn't give in so easily.

"So you see, your presence here is reliant solely on my goodwill," he continued, "and I should think you would be more cooperative to my wishes."

"Send me back to Paris then," she replied crossly. "I wouldn't mind." Indeed, she had enjoyed the dancing and bit parts of singing she had earned at the opera. She only wished she'd been more frugal with her financial earnings.

"The lifestyle of a thespian is corrupt and unsuitable!" he roared, banging his fist on the tablecloth and causing the silverware to jump. "I'll not have you tarnish the family name!"

Lucy stopped humming and whimpered. Raoul took a long pull of wine. Christine glared at the bully to her left.

"This far from Paris, it is doubtful anyone would know the depraved levels to which you have lowered yourself," he said, more calmly but no less stern. "You must never speak of your unfortunate past at the theater again. From this day forth, it doesn't exist."

Christine rose quickly from the table and threw her napkin to her plate. "If you'll excuse me, I find I have no appetite for dessert."

She spun on her heel and quit the dining chamber without being dismissed, knowing her behavior was hardly befitting a lady and not caring one whit. Until a fortnight ago, she had been quite content with being a lowly ballet rat and had no desire to learn the stodgy etiquette of the noblesse.

Too vexed to meekly withdraw to her sitting room to read, she wished for an outlet to vent her ire. As she drew abreast of the staircase, a faint scratching came on the wood from the other side of the door leading outside.

Warily she drew near.

A pitiful whimper accompanied the scratching, and she opened the door slightly.

Lucy's ragamuffin of a pup looked up at her and let out a yip of a bark. Shaggy, with brown fur, it wagged its tail, but remained on the stoop when she opened the door wider to let it in.

"So, you're going to be difficult too?" she said dryly, bending down to collect the mutt.

It evaded her grasp and ran back out into the dusk, stopping to look at her, then again scampered away.

Normally she would balk at chasing the contrary little beast, but a walk in the twilight might be exactly what she needed. She grabbed her cloak from the rack in the foyer and hurriedly left the manor.

xXx

A/N: I do have one more chapter ready (all I've written of this story). If there is interest, I'll post it on Halloween. ;-) Tomorrow night, I'll post the next chapter of A Phantom's Blood...thank you for reading this far! :)