Real fear, the kind that puts metal in my mouth. I’m not sure I’ve felt this since I was trapped at the bottom of the well. I’ve fought long and hard so I’d never have to feel fear again, but loving Samantha’s made me vulnerable. It’s made me weak.
Liam. It’s more the suggestions of sound than actual vibration. The cave walls seem to echo it back, mocking me, making me wonder if it’s just hopefulness. Webb. And, Christ, so is Josh. He’s probably going to fall into the water.
Frans climbs down after them, looking out of place in his bespoke tux, except I know that he can handle himself in combat. “I found Rogers. He’s got three of them on the floor face down. Alive. One of them’s already talking. The other two can’t shut him up.”
That should be a relief. That’s what we need to end the threat to Samantha, except that she’s not here. She’s not in my arms. What if she’s already hurt? It was my own goddamn hubris to think I could save them both—my brother and my lover. An impossible choice.
“Samantha! Say something. Let me hear you.”
“Liam!”
This time I’m sure she answered me, but the call bounces off the walls, making the source unclear. “Split up,” I say without waiting to see if they obey.
I take the forward path, the darkest one.
“Liam!” She sounds louder now. “I’m down here.”
A hard knot in my stomach. I take a step forward. My eyes stare into blackness. Then she turns her face toward me, pale and so small. She’s in a well. That’s all I can think about. The stench of old water. The creatures that live in the bottom of the earth. It was something I knew well. I would have killed so that Samantha never knew that. I would have died for it.
“A rope.” My voice comes out hoarse. I turn to call back louder. “I found her. We need rope. Get some goddamn rope. Now.”
Samantha
Panic claws at the edges of my mind.
The darkness tries to close in, but there is one thought that holds me steady: Liam will find me. When he does, I want to be calm for him. I want to be strong for him. Despite my intentions, I almost sob with relief when I hear him call my name.
A rope is lowered down, and I hook it under my arms. Then I hold on with both my hands, kicking off the side of the cavern so I don’t slam into it. When I reach the top, Liam crushes me in a hold that would probably be painful if I weren’t numb.
His hands work at my clothes, which have frozen stiff against my skin. On the train he had the presence of mind to drag me into the lavatories. Now he doesn’t have that. It’s more important that he gets the gown off me, the cold and wet of it. There’s probably a hundred diseases in this cloth that he rips from me. The cavern air doesn’t even feel cold. It occurs to me belatedly that it’s a bad thing, not being able to feel.
There are other men with him. I recognize some of them. Normally Liam would protect my modesty at all costs. Now my safety is more important. My health. He strips me down, not concerned with whether or not they see me. Or maybe too overwrought to notice.
They turn to give me privacy, one by one. To give Liam priv
acy as he touches my body, every place, not a sensual caress, but making sure it’s still there—pulse beating beneath my blueish skin. Josh turns away first. Then Frans. Then Romeo. Even Alexander. They form a circle around us, of protection. Of privacy. Liam tears the T-shirt over his head and covers me, finally, so that I have his body warmth. Someone hands back a blanket, thick and hard and pilling, which Liam wraps around me before lifting me into his arms. That’s the way we leave the chamber, with him shirtless and me clad in a blanket. Christine was carried down into this place by the Phantom and rescued by her vicomte. I was carried in and taken away by the same person, my villain and my hero, the man who will always be by my side.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In playing Christine’s father in this movie, Ramin Karimloo became the only actor to have played all three of Christine’s loves. Her father in the movie version, and both Raoul and the Phantom on the stage.
Samantha
Evening drapes shadows across the furniture, across the rugs. It limns Liam’s body in a vibrant yellow. Even half-dark, he has never looked so alive to me. Like the soldiers who fought the Romans, he’s naked. Impractical, he said. He doesn’t wear any armor.
My gaze lingers on his broad shoulders. The strong arms that pulled me out of a cistern. The abs bunched tight from the casual way he sits. There’s only a pink line where his scar used to be, almost fully healed now. Muscle forms long lines across his legs, not obscured by the coarse hair across them. In this position there’s only a hint of the paler skin of his ass. Only a suggestion of the part between his legs.
He turns to notice me, and I’m struck anew at the deep green of his eyes. Like a gemstone. A vibrant meadow. A thousand things in nature, but he’s both the most unique and the most ordinary of them—a man. “I should put you in bed.”
“You did that.” It had been the only way he relinquished me. Not during the ride in the armored SUV to the chateau or up the stairs. Only in the plush, overlarge bed would he finally set me down. Dirty. Wet. I ruined the sheets. He didn’t care.
A doctor arrived to examine me. There are antibiotics and pain medications on the dresser—more a precaution than because I need them. More because Liam demanded the doctor do something. A healthy body can survive a lot.
After all, look at Liam. He spent nights in a place like that as a child. I understand better the isolation that haunts him. The silence becomes almost a physical being, both a companion and a barrier to the rest of the world. This after only thirty minutes in the water. What would happen if a boy were kept there over days, weeks, years?
He allowed me to take a long, warm bath without him only if Isa remained in the bathroom with me, in case I should suddenly lose consciousness or become sick. That had been surprisingly useful. Isa gave me some ideas about what I could do to ease Liam’s worry.
Or at least distract him.