Author's Note: Happy Easter everyone! I certainly enjoyed my long holiday, it was a much anticipated and much needed break, and now I'm back for more, just for you!After (reluctantly) torturing you with a session of Raoul/Christine, I think it is only fair I should make up for it with a long chapter of Erik/Christine.

Be forewarned, however, there is a graphic description or two, only ever so slightly.

Enjoy.


"During a carnival, men put on masks over their masks."

-Xavier Forneret


"In the end you will submit

It's got to hurt a little bit."

-New Order, "Perfect Kiss"


"So we must love while these moments are still called today,

Take part in the pain of this passion play,

Stretching out youth as we must,

Until we are ashes and dust,

Until time makes history of us."

-Indigo Girls


The black wings of the night had spread over Paris, moonless eventide claiming the sky its own, but Opera Populaire was a shining beacon against its smothering dark embrace with its lights bright as day and fireworks.

For tonight, was the masquerade; a carnival of masks, of swirling black and white capes, shimmering gold and silver gowns and lavish costumes, the orchestra playing a merry, fast paced waltz, to which guests danced excitedly.

Christine, alluring in her scarlet gown, like a flaming banner amidst the more sombre theme of the masquerade ball, let her body sway gracefully to the music, led by Raoul, splendid in his black suit, embroidered intricately in gold.

Danced on the young couple to the frenzied tempo of the waltz, their laughter joining that of the crowd.

Masks flashed past Christine, glimpses of a jester here and a black harlequin there; satin and leather, papier mache, gilded and pearled, metallic and white, masks everywhere…closing in on her, mocking and accusing, their demonic laughter echoing all around her…

Christine pulled away from Raoul, running toward a quiet spot and leaning against a marble wall, hands at her temples, her head spinning, her eyes squinted against the masked pandemonium, trying to banish the delirious illusions induced undoubtedly by too much champagne.

"What's wrong beloved?" Raoul was at her side in an instant, chiselled features darkened with a frown, a warm hand pressed to her forehead, then her cheek, free hand rubbing up and down her back soothingly in a very public display of affection.

"Please Raoul! They'll see!" A quiet hiss escaping Christine's lips as she stiffened under his touch.

"Well, let them see that I care for my fiancée, it's not a crime, Christine!" Said he somewhat irritably, then more gently. "Come, lean on me, I'll take you outside for some fresh air."

"No, that won't be necessary, Raoul. I'll be fine, I promise, I just need to be alone for a few minutes. If that's all right with you…"

A silent nod to her murmured request, sea blue eyes deeply concerned, watching her lift her skirts and run through the crowd, toward the Opera Rooftops.

The frosty air of the winter night raised goose bumps on blushed ivory skin, pink hued lips trembling, slowly Christine stepped closer to the wrought iron railing, peering down below, a red lace gloved hand placed upon a stone gargoyle.

She was shivering with cold, but on the inside her heart was a fiery furnace, unforgiving flames of guilt borne of her unvoiced yearnings for an impossible dream.

"You look ravishing in red, just as I imagined you would." A fiendishly soft, velvety smooth voice pierced the blessed silence.

A cold shiver ran up her spine, head turning reluctantly even as her eager gaze sought the owner of the voice.

Was it the champagne, or her wild imagination, that summoned the Devil himself in all his crimson glory ?

Was the devil enough to define the man that stood a few steps away, clad entirely in crimson, except for the obsidian black of his leather boots, the satin cravat and the supple leather gloves. A rapier rested at his hip, sheathed in its black scabbard. Ebony hair was slicked back, a scowling skeleton mask for a face, through which compelling eyes of steel grey gazed upon her with a luring silvery light.

One step, then another, he came forward, like a predator closing in on its trapped prey.

Christine stared, her face white with apprehension, backing away instinctively.

"How do you fare this evening, my dear?" Full lips curved in a diabolical smile, voice lowered to a wickedly sensuous tone. "My, what is the matter? You look as if you've just seen a ghost, Christine…"

She took another step back toward the edge…

It was too sudden, too unexpected…Christine tumbled backwards, flinging her arms up, crying out.

Erik lunged in an infernal speed, in a flash of movement reaching out and grabbing her arms, breaking her fall before she could plunge into the dark street below.

Christine sagged against his protective embrace, trembling uncontrollably, sobbing with relief, too shocked for words.

Erik rocked her gently in his arms, dropping soft kisses on her head, tenderly so.

"Shh…I'm here Christine, you're safe. I would never let go, my little cherub." Whispered he softly, lips pressed to her temple. A hand, warm through the glove, stroked the lustrous, silken auburn curls soothingly.

A mix of indecipherable emotions burned through Christine, engulfing her reason with flames of scarlet passion.

Puling back slightly to gaze at the skeleton masked face, she was taken aback by the intensity of his anguished, longing gaze. Within his eyes, Christine glimpsed an emotion that she'd never seen reflected in the grey depths before.

He was afraid, terrified even.

Afraid of losing her.

Possessed, entrapped within the crystal grey eyes, her hand travelled to the mask purposefully, ripping it from his face before he could react.

Erik went stiff, tensed immediately, his mouth drawn in a line of suppressed rage, words of spite springing to his lips…then utter stupefaction and astonishment….

Ignoring the ghastly, atrocious half of an unmasked face, lush, rose-hued lips found the unblemished side, lavishing it with little heated kisses, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What are you doing here?" Whispered she, harshly, sternly, kissing his face fervently, inhaling his enticing cologne of musk and cinnamon, sensual patchouli with a hint of smoke.

"Whatever I damn please, my dear. After all, this is my Opera House." Replied he, almost casually, tinge of amusement transparent in his dark silken voice.

Erik revelled in the miracle of her affection he'd always dreamed of receiving, a sheer madness, at that moment, her treachery was forgiven a hundred times over, thoughts of revenge forgotten…

His music nothing but a tuneless, disharmonised cacophony in comparison to his precious muse; the sweetest melody ever produced by the hand of God…

Too good to be true it was.

Then his lips brushed teasingly across hers, smelling the champagne on her breath…

Erik took her face in his hands, frowning deeply, reproachfully, his jaw clenched tightly as his eyes locked on the sparkling, lyre-shaped diamond engagement ring that dangled between the soft swell of her breasts from a gold chain.

His dreams plunged into the chasm of the bitter, brutal reality.

"Intoxicated, delusional and eager. How quaint, Christine. I'm flattered…Is this how much you missed me indeed?"

Christine stared into his face, still light-headed, but sober enough to silence her conscience, her fears and her doubts, just for one night.

For one night.

Her hand still clutching the skeleton mask, Christine shook her head slightly, silencing his insulting lips with a quick, delicate kiss, her body warming up despite the cold night air.

Suddenly, a leather gloved hand rested at the small of her back, pulling her tightly to him, melding their bodies together, his still-unmasked face nuzzling her slender neck, breathing in the unique scent of hers; mysterious, innocent, alluring scent of wild roses. He had been denied too long, rejected for a lifetime, put through ordeal by fire…

Chivalry be damned, he wasn't a fool to waste his chance to worship a goddess incarnate, and caught was he, in a tempest of passion's red haze painting his vision, destroying all reason in its path.

"You shall leave that fool, and return to me." Commanded he in a voice deep and husky.

"You're insane!" Christine whispered hoarsely, even as her fingers raked through his raven hair and her body arching against him.

"I think we've already established that, mademoiselle." A trail of kisses along her firm jaw line, like drops of liquid fire igniting the smouldering embers of her unschooled desires.

Agony and Rapture.

A delicious, wicked sensation it was, easily addictive, dangerous, forbidden and improper in its nature.

Would Raoul ever forgive her…Would she ever forgive herself…

"Erik!…We mustn't…" She whispered between gasps of pleasure, all her senses solely attuned to his tantalizing caresses across her back and down her sides, his breath beating upon her neck.

"You're right, my ungrateful cherub." A hiss through clenched teeth, completely frustrated and completely aroused, fiercely so.

"I mustn't touch you." A dark drawl, fingertips dancing over her skin, just above her breast, lips grazing against her throat.

"I mustn't caress you." Another hoarse, strained whisper, gloved hand cupping a soft, round breast through the carmine corset of her bodice, a tide of frenzied heat flooding through his body as he felt her body craving all his attention, craving a more intimate touch.

Christine moaned, every inch of her skin tingling from his closeness, feeling her breasts swell and tighten…

"I mustn't kiss you." A soft growl wrenched from his throat…from the very core of his anguish, the essence of his passion and angst…A hand laid on her cheek, blazing grey eyes staring long and hard into the smouldering brown of her eyes.

Erik lowered his mouth to hers, holding her gaze the whole time, giving her enough time should she change her mind, tugging ever so slightly and with an amazing tenderness ata cherry lip.

Inferno was plundered heaven, a myriad of senses afire, burning from the scorching heat of two bodies colliding, yielding to each other, his mouth greedily devouring and his tongue surging and probing, and entwining with hers.

Christine let the warmth of his body enfold her, shelter her inhis embrace…Fingers gripped his broad back desperately, her mouth opening in blissful surrender to the merciless invasion of his tongue, whimpering with the mind-numbing sensation of the kiss.

No, not a kiss, but a black spell of rapture woven from the very core of their ardour like water to lips parched with thirst.

Christine could feel his body hardening as steel from fierce tension beneath his clothes, his skin hot and flushed beneath her touch…She was momentarily startled and fascinated by the feel of the long, hard, demanding length of him pressed against her…Like hellfire licking over her naked skin, the feeling was exquisite, unique, devastating, causing her mouth to grind against his to taste more of him, to drink of him, with a renewed vigour only a frenzied acolyte on her knees to her idol would display.

Summoning every ounce of willpower, Erik broke the kiss, shuddering, his breathing shallow…The storm beginning to cease, itsdestructive tides gradually fading, but still angrily lashing from being interrupted so.

He had succumbed to his most debased, addled debauchery. Such transgression repeated once again.

There was an angry curve to his still glistening lips, a bitter frown to his face.

This was not how it was meant to be.

This was not love.

Lust, obsession, wanton desire; all an incendiary concoction to destroy his common sense, or what remained of it when she left him for that damnable pretty boy of hers.

What divine deception was this… her flawless seraph's face gazing at him with tears of humiliation flowing in silent, opalescent stream.

Once again she had fallen, come undone, her soul bared in all its tarnished, impure glory…her soul naught but a cheap harlot drunk not on wine and champagne but untamed desire…

Never felt, never experienced thus when in the company of a fair-haired champion, a childhood sweetheart, the ruler of her heart…now a burnt crushed white rose amidst the thorns and strangling vines wherein her emotions struggled to find a desperate solace.

Erik was incensed. He had taken advantage of her drunken, misguided emotions, abused her trust, monstrously so…

A moonlit vestal maiden corrupted to midnight depravity…

What irony… that every time she became completely enthralled, completely his, as if their bodies were made for each other, crafted solely to please and possess each other.

Erik snatched the mask from her hand and turned away to fit it back over his face, snarling in pure, impotent black fury that was directed only and entirely at himself.

"Curse you!"

When he turned back, she was already at the trapdoor, running away from him, from the fiend he had become.

When he was meant to be her Don Juan.


Christine took solace in the mass of people that she so wished to escape only minutes ago, the garish festivity a welcome punishment…Hiding from Raoul… how could she face him after her disgraceful act, her shameless betrayal?

Where was he, anyway? Where had he gone?

Suddenly, the merry chaos ceased, the crowd parting in silent obedience and a fearful murmur or two to make way for the Red Death descending the marble stairs.

"Fondest greetings to you all, did you miss me, good monsieurs?" Spoke the Phantom, his voice an all encompassing, dark echo across the entire room.

Then an eerie thud following, as a large, red leather bound manuscript landed at Andre's feet, costume and set sketches and music sheets falling out…

Cold eyes slid without interest over every stunned person in the room, until they came to Christine.

Then, like dawning lambent flame colliding with supreme, ravaging night tide, Raoul emerged from the mesmerized crowd, then was frozen to his spot, narrowed, angry eyes snapping to the Phantom of the Opera.

And glimpsing into the abyss.

Prometheus beheld Hades.

Raoul felt his blood drain that moment, as Erik drifted his eyes to his and held his gaze, like a serpent mesmerizing its prey before the slow, painful kill.

Those eyes…A depthless void that devoured all life near him, drawing them to his blackness, leaving them with an odd sensation of being drained, spent, withered and consumed in the wake of his destructive darkness.

Raoul was afraid, undoubtedly so.

And he was angry, righteously so.

He could not let Christine become the Phantom's prey.

He loved her, profoundly so.

As the guests watched in utter horror, silently hypnotized by the drama unfolding before them, the Red Death reached out to the Red maiden, his hand grasping the sparkling engagement ring that hung on a dainty gold chain around her neck, rolling the little diamond encrusted lyre between his thumb and forefinger slowly as a sneer spread across his lips; a sneer of dark, grim satisfaction borne of the private knowledge of a passionate memory shared with Christine only moments ago, giving her a knowing look as he did so.

"Her chains are still mine!" Hissed the Red Death coldly, his voice strangely calm and eerily smooth, his dark, twisted half smile present the whole time as his eyes burned into Raoul's with its searing wrath, supreme, defiant and challenging.

"She belongs to me!" With that, he ripped the gold chain that held the engagement ring from Christine's throat.

Lights dimmed and unholy cloud of smoke engulfed the Phantom, who vanished down a trap door.

Without hesitation, Raoul jumped in after him.

Into the nightmare.


-evil grin- what surprises await our poor, brave champion…and what revelations lay in store for our beloved Phantom? And what of Christine? Torn between the two of them? A graveyard visit maybe? Find out in the next chapter!

But do leave me with a review, my dear reader. I live for your feedback!