Author's Note: My thanks to all who reviewed!

To Padme Nijiri- Yes, Anne Rice is one of my influences, but I'm not trying to copy her, just to emulate her style a bit. Don't worry...you'll notice changes later on.

Carpe Noctem Chapter Six

I do not know how long I stare at the seat, my eyes wide and filmed over for lack of blinking. It could have been days, and I would not have cared.

"Ma'am? Ma'am!" The driver's frantic voice once again sank into my thoughts with all the gentleness of a pistol crack, and it dimly registered that my hand was clenched into a fist.

"Who hired you?" My voice was raw, and I saw his hesitation. "WHO HIRED YOU?" My hand snaked out of it's own accord to grab hold of the riding whip and wrench it out of its holster, raising it high to lash across him. I saw the fear in his eyes at the ferocity I knew was in mine.

"He ordered me not to tell you—he threatened me, Ma'am—"

The hand with the whip dropped. I could not strike him. Perhaps I had never intended to. "His face was covered?" I asked with a sort of resignation.

"Aye, ma'am. With a mask." His relief was palpable.

The whip clattered to the ground. I could not remember having grabbed it, then. "I'm sorry," I choked out, tears once again filling my eyes. Damn him…

The driver's lined face had lost its fear at my words and my tears, and I was once again an alone, abandoned girl, barely one and twenty, ill dressed for the weather and all the colder for it. So human, that compassion of his…

"Well, ma'am," he said, motioning towards the door with a saddened smile. "I have already been paid…"

I pulled gently from the kiss, feeling Erik's hands on my back, grabbing at the cloth of my dress in disbelief at the reality of what I had done. I feared almost to hurt him, as ridiculous as that seemed. "Christine?" Erik's voice was tentative, the voice of a small boy being given an unparalleled gift, his caustic cynicism near forgotten, it seemed.

I held up my left hand slowly, and I watch his eyes as they shifted to rest on the gold band on my finger.

His ring…Erik's ring.

His reaction was so blurred, so swift I could not remember for days afterward how I ended up with my back pressed to the wall, my hair twisted in his skeletal fingers as he held my throat pinned in an iron grip.

"DO NOT MOCK ME! Do you honestly expect me to believe you'd leave him for a lifetime with Death, Christine? Or perhaps you've just conveniently forgotten the words you said to that damn boy?" he raged, his body quivering with pain and fury, lunging me away from the wall and onto the floor, leaving me out of breath and gasping painfully the only words I'd never said to him.

"I…love…you…"

He flinched as if I'd struck him across the face, stopping abruptly his deadly destruction of the room around us. The whispered response was barely audible, a tight, raw sound. "What did you say?"

I stood shakily, gradually, squaring my shoulders, determined to look him in the eyes as I admitted to emotions I could no longer ignore. "I love you."

His body sagged in its covering of black satin; he turned his back to me so I could not see his face. I remained as I was, fully expecting another outburst of incoherent rage, when oddly enough he began to shake with what I at first thought was physical pain. Until I heard a distinct sob.

My God, he was crying…

He was unresisting as I turned him to face me by his shoulders, holding his face between my hands and bringing his forehead to meet mine, tasting the familiar salt of his tears.

"Take me…" I whispered, repeating my words of only days ago. "Teach me…"

This time the words would not be enough.

Erik's hands were shaking, and he made no move towards me as I released him to take a few steps away, presenting my back to him. I unbuttoned my gown with quaking fingers, steadily undressing until I turned to stand completely naked in front of him. I was unsure of what his reaction would be, and frightened. I had no knowledge of this.

His face reflected his desire, yes, but nervousness as well, a lack of knowledge and experience that clearly sparked a tight anger in him at himself for his naiveté.

Perhaps we would both be taught this night.

I moved towards him until there was only a thin space between us and picked up his hand, gently placing it on the sensitive flesh of my breast and covering his fingers with my own.

"I am your wife, Erik," I said simply as he hesitantly moved his thumb across my nipple. "If you want to know me… learn."

At first he merely stroked me, running his fingertips lightly everywhere—across my nipples and the undersides of my breasts, down my arms, my back, my neck and shoulders, the base of my spine, my buttocks—touching me everywhere, studying how I reacted with a mix of timidity and intensity, making me grow heavy lidded with want. He did not allow me to touch him, and after long maddening moments of this I summoned the courage to begin to undress him--he balked at that, nearly pulling away from me, but I spoke then.

"No, Erik, I want to do this."

Whether it was my words or his need for me that stopped him, I don't know, but he stayed still as I divested him of his clothing, letting the black satin pool on the floor as I set about an exploration of my own while his hands continued to roam all over me.

He was thin, muscular, whipcord strong and cool to the touch in a way that was smooth and inviting to my heated skin rather than repulsive. He buried his face in my hair and drew me closer as I let my fingers trail across his back, feeling raised, gnarled scars beneath my fingertips, crisscrossing his shoulder blades and upper arms and ending at the base of his back. I knew that in my own way I had added to those scars of long ago, and even though I could not erase what I had done, that really was not what I meant to accomplish this night. To try would have been unspeakably selfish. I only wanted to give him peace, and a small measure of the immense love he both wanted to give and lacked for himself.

Even if it wasn't enough.

He began to move with greater confidence now, as if he was assured that I would not run from him, resting his hands at newly discovered areas of sensitivity, softly kissing his way down my neck and between my breasts before taking one of my nipples in his mouth, licking and teasing it to a painful stiffness before mimicking his actions on the other, reducing me to such a state of mindlessness I was unaware that I'd pulled him skin to skin with me, without physical space between us.

I felt his hand on my shoulder then and he spun me about so my back was to him, one of his hands gently fondling my breast as the other left a trail of fire in the wake of his palm, traveling with aching slowness down my belly to settle in the moist folds between my thighs, coiling heat there like a snake. I was only vaguely attentive to his continual kisses down the column of my throat, tasting me there to the point of exquisite pleasure, as captive now as if I were in the heated, mirrored torture chamber.

I swore I never felt him break the skin…

He played me as intensely as he play every instrument I'd ever seen him touch, caressing my folds and drawing slow circles around the small swollen bundle of nerves hidden there with an almost savage kind of torture, holding me against him until I pleaded with him to end it. I could not see his eyes but I knew then that this is what he wanted…he wanted me to suffer his pain, even if it was as pleasure…

I felt one finger, then two, enter me as I bent against him, widening my legs and pressing into his hand as he moved his long fingers in and out of me, my knees threatening to buckle. He moved his hand faster, rubbing my tender nub with his thumb until my muscles spasmed around him and waves of dizzying release nearly drowned me.

I was visibly shaking as I turned to face him once again, frightened now, deadly frightened. He would inflict pain, I knew. He'd make me feel it as he had. It was a miracle in itself I'd felt none already. God only knew I deserved punishment.

Hail Mary, full of Grace…

I loved him. I loved him and I'd never told him, and even the threat of the end of Raoul's life had not been able to tear the words from my throat.

"What do you want?"

The foolish question had fallen from my childish lips, borne on the fanciful notion that I could somehow placate the boogeyman and run safely back with Raoul to my castle in the clouds again, and the nightmare would be gone forever.

But Erik had been the architect of my castle of dreams as well…

I expected to look up into eyes blazing with pain and anger, and prepared merely to accept whatever punishment I was to receive. I was his wife before God, and as much as I felt like a prisoner about to be executed, I would not deny him his rights.

"No, Christine."

Erik's voice was low, so low I almost could not hear the words. He opened his mouth to say more, but no words issued from his lips, and he did not try to force them. He simply picked me up and carried me over to the still warm bed, laying me down with a care I did not expect to receive, cradling my head as he smoothly arranged me on the pillows.

Blessed art thou among women…

Feeling him lay down beside me, I wanted nothing more then to wrap my arms around him and whisper my apologies, however hollow they would seem to him. I could not. I knew his pride would never accept it. Instead I lay there stiffly, not looking into his eyes, not wanting to see the hurt there.

"You came back." It was an expression of utter disbelief, but the lack of cynicism made me gather the strength look at him.

I saw only shock, longing, and love in his eyes.

No answer rose to my mouth, none was possible. He took my love, and accepted it. It was all I could ask.

I crumpled against him, feeling the need to return the pleasure he'd given me some way, any way I could. His fingers stroked along the surface of my body as mine did along his, traveling lower and lower until I reached his unexplored manhood. I could not resist my curiosity as I set about learning his thick, throbbing length, making him swallow his breath in a low groan. I continued to search him as he had me, running my probing fingers over the soft testicles that hung under the length of him, noting their sensitivity to my touch. I wanted to be taught how a man felt, and he allowed it, holding me to him for long moments as I learned his shape, his texture and heat.

He arrested my movements by quickly taking hold of my hands and wresting me beneath him, but his touch was still gentle, and I understood from the fervor in his eyes and the hand that softly parted my legs that he could no longer endure teaching me now.

Settling himself between my thighs, he held me to him, murmuring in my ear. "I do not wish to hurt you."

I reached between us to guide him and lifted my hips to place the tip of his manhood against me, tilting my head up and kissing him once again. "I know."

I couldn't hold back my cry of pain as he sheathed himself in me, though he stilled himself to allow me time to adjust to him and reached between us to fondle the nub between my legs, the pain outweighed the pleasure of the fondling and for a moment I had to resist the urge to push him away.

For a long space of time we lay there, unmoving except for slow breaths and the running of his hand along my cheek, wiping away my sudden tears. As the pain faded I began to feel a fullness I wished to investigate, and I began to writhe beneath him, his features lighting at the sensation caused by my movements.

"Erik," I said. "Please…"

He took my mouth with his as he began to rock against me, cautiously at first but with increasing speed until he was drawing himself in a out of me, thrusting with ever increasing intensity. My hips rose to meet his as he plunged again and again, until I felt him with draw almost completely and drive into me with such force I cried out, the waves of my release beginning as he spent himself inside of me, his arms curling around me, twining in my hair as my body shuddered around his own.

Erik withdrew himself from me with care, then, taking a moment to curl me naked against his chest, my face hidden from his own, my temple resting in the small hollow at the base of his throat, protecting me, claiming me finally for his own.

"Thank you."

The words surprised me more than he knew. I lifted my head to tell him something, anything to break the silence after his words, and heard his swift intake of breath.

His features had formed into an expression I had never witnessed on his face, more terrifying to me than his anger.

Horror…

My eyes traced the stains of blood on his lips as my fingers closed over my own flesh in dread.

The blackness clotting the edges of my vision swallowed me as I found the two small circular wounds on the side of my throat.

Steady thunder and an unpleasant wetness between my legs drew me from my unwanted reverie. The night had turned into a storm in my ride across the city.

The driver was still kind to me as e assisted me from the hansom—I suppose one can hardly blame a defenseless woman for lashing out.

The rain muffled my sour chuckle at the irony.

The Fifth Avenue house was dark, Marie asleep in her bed. No one was there to watch me light the rose on fire in a lamps dim flame and throw it into the cold hearth in my bedroom. I watched it burn until only smoldering ashes remained.

The angel had been thrown into hell.

I could not forgive what he had done.