Unmasqued

Before she could say a word, express any kind of relief-but did she even feel relieved, now that she saw the forbidding expression on his half-hidden face? — Erik tugged her harshly away from the mirror, and began to pull her down a dark passageway.

"You can leave your lover to wonder where you have gone," he snapped at the sound of Christine's dressing room door splintering behind them.

"Erik, please, you have misunderstood!" Christine tried to pull away from him, but his grip was too strong. Her heart was jamming madly in her chest, and she regretted those foolish moments in the wardrobe room with Raoul.

"I misunderstand nothing," he told her tightly, continuing their mad rush down the hall. She tripped and stumbled and without his hold she would have fallen more than once. "I did not misunderstand that boy's hands down your gown, did I? Or your tongue down his throat? Did I, Christine?"

It was a cool fury that iced his words, and that frightened her more than any blistering rage would have done. The fact that it was so calm, and so measured… and the expression in his one visible eye was so harsh… Christine began to fear, for the first time, what her tutor might do to her.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked.

"You will find out soon enough." He pulled her around a corner and she saw, to her amazement, a white horse standing, bridled and saddled, glowing from the illumination of a single torch. Despite the dim light, she recognized the mount as one of the set animals that had disappeared from the Opera House stable some time ago. Cesar was his name.

Erik helped her up and, taking the reins, began to lead the stallion down another, wider hallway.

Erik remained at Cesar's head, in front of Christine, and all she could see was his tall black figure, with the billowing cape that fell past his knees. She had yet to see him in full light; it seemed as though he was purposely keeping to the shadows.

When the long, sloping hallway ended, after many twists and turns and junctures, Erik helped Christine down-none too gently-and she found that they had left the underpinnings of the Opera House and were on the shore of a small underground lake. A boat waited and, without words, he directed her into it and pushed the vessel off with a long pole.

Her hands had grown clammy and her pounding heart had not slowed; it continued to drum in her chest, sending tremors reverberating through her. Christine wondered what was to become of her. What Erik planned to do with her.

And in spite of the towering, angry presence behind her, the harsh, curt words he'd spoken to her, and the impersonal touch when he'd helped her into the shallow boat, she warmed to him. Her nervous body responded by awakening and wanting him… wanting his touch, his teasing lips and his gentle, elegant fingers. Her throat was dry, her cheeks were warm, and her fingers clasped together as Christine realized that, despite Erik's angry distance, she was anticipating his touch.

For surely… surely, now, here, wherever they were going, she would be able to see him and touch him.

At last, the boat slid onto the stone boundary of the underground lake, and Christine saw a small structure, a house, that appeared to be built into the side of a wall, or cavern. A low yellow light glowed in one window.

"Welcome to my home," Erik told her unkindly. Yet now he was not rough or rude when helping her from the boat. She noticed he had pulled a hood up over his head whilst they rode in the boat, and it continued to obscure his face, leaving most of it in shadow.

Christine stepped down and found herself in ankle-deep water. It was cold, and it shocked her through her silken stockings and fine leather slippers, eating into the hem of the laced and ruffled dressing gown she still wore and weighting it down. She slogged through the water onto the smooth, hard beach, noticing the gray and black-shining stones scattered along the water's edge, painted with the white glow of six torches affixed to the sides of the vast, domed, stone chamber that housed the underground lake.

Inside the small building, Christine was surprised to find that it was outfitted as comfortably as any home.

"It must be… terrible living in darkness all the time, Erik," she said, reaching for his arm as he brushed past her.

He nearly flung her away, keeping his hooded face averted as he strode into the structure. "Save your pity," he snapped, stalking away from where she stood in what was the kitchen and eating area.

Christine watched after him, her apprehension growing. What was he going to do with her? Was she a prisoner?

Moments later, she heard his returning footfalls. They slowed, pausing almost imperceptibly as they approached the room where she sat… and then sped up as if to get there quickly. Get it over with.

When he walked in the room, Christine saw him for the first time. Out of the shadow, out from under the hood. Black and powerful and intimidating.