A/N: I relied solely on memory for the backstory of Persia, since I no longer have Kay's book to consult. Whatever doesn't fit just consider my own adaptation for my story. :)

XIV

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Christine slept only briefly. She awoke, smiling to feel Erik's heated mouth kissing her neck, the warmth of his arm possessively across her waist, his fingers caressing her breast...

In the dark, she could barely make out his form, but he was there, and she was with him...in their century. Her heart pounded with desire as her senses reawakened with pleasure. Tears wet her eyes to realize this was no dream from which she woke to find herself alone. This was real. He was real.

Never would she be without him again.

He took her soaring to the heights and tumbling over into ecstasy throughout the night. At daybreak, she woke him in the same manner, taking her time to rediscover the planes and sinews and muscles of his hard body, which responded to her every touch, and eagerly she took the initiative, pleasuring them both through the fiery consummation of their love.

Exhausted, she fell weakly against him, beyond mere contentment, and he held her close. Sated for a time, they rested against one another as the first fingers of dawn pushed through the gap in the damask curtains. Erik had drawn them against the glow of the full moon the previous night, and for the first time in her life Christine had welcomed the darkness, secure in the knowledge that she was safe in her husband's arms.

She lifted herself slightly to look at him, and they tenderly gazed into one another's eyes, still at a loss for words and withholding a fount of them. The moment of their reunion too sacred for speech, neither had spoken since he destroyed the mirror, except to whisper heartfelt endearments while they made love.

Erik brushed his fingertips against Christine's cheek, his eyes searching every detail of her face in the morning light as if he still could not believe she was with him. Remembering her fears of the previous day, Christine also had trouble believing she truly had been reunited with her husband, though the wondrous feel of him still buried deep inside her helped to dispel those doubts.

Suddenly he rolled over with her in their enormous bed and playfully pinned her beneath him, both of them quietly laughing like children from the pure delight of being with one another. He leaned in to give her a languorous kiss, tender, warm and intimate. Christine's hands smoothed down his scarred back, her present happiness far exceeding any anxiety of the past few days. Those fears seemed to exist in another dimension, and she realized with a muted giggle – they did.

Neither of them heard the door open to realize they had company. The maid issued a shriek that startled them apart and could have wakened the dead. A breakfast platter fell from the woman's hands and crashed to the floor. Crossing herself, she took turns staring in wide-eyed horror at Christine then the ashes where the dresser used to stand, all the while backing out of the room. Once in the corridor, she slammed the door shut, her footsteps taking off at a frenzied run.

Recognizing Matilda, Christine sighed, knowing they must soon emerge from their sacred haven now that she'd been discovered. "What should we tell the servants?"

Erik looked at the mess Matilda had left on the floor. "I will think on it. Doubtless, from her reaction, she believes you to be a ghost. Many supposed you were killed and your body disposed of. A few still think I had a hand in committing such a horrendous act." His voice came quiet, pained.

Christine recalled his death notice and the vial of poison. She considered asking him about it, but decided to keep such knowledge to herself, at least for the time being. She did not want to introduce matters that could cause them both more pain, not now. Not yet. Her hand covered his arm and her throat tightened when she realized how close she'd come to losing him. Yet no matter how she wished it, some issues could not be avoided, and before she encountered all those of her acquaintance, she felt it prudent to equip herself with the facts as they occurred.

"Tell me what happened, Erik. Tell me all of it."

Briefly closing his eyes, he gravely nodded. "After Scotland Yard gave up the case, I persisted. I refused to cease in my efforts to find you and began my own investigation, but that, too, proved unsuccessful. Months ago, I received a visit from an old friend, the Daroga – a detective I knew in Persia. He overheard talk at the palace relating to your disappearance and realized a plot was involved when one of the men confirmed delivering a dressing table to me and that it had achieved its purpose. The Daroga sailed to England to give me aid."

The palace?! She took in a startled breath, realizing how little she knew of his life before the opera house. Too long she'd run from the possibility of anything marring their hard-won idyllic life together, including mention of his past. But ignorance, she had learned, was its own form of destruction.

"Why was there a plot against you?"

His eyes grew distant, even apprehensive. "You do not wish to know, Christine."

"Yes, I do. Stop shielding me from whatever it is you've done, Erik. With all that has happened to me – to us – I think I deserve to know why," she insisted, clutching his arm. She lifted her other hand to stroke his shadowed jaw in reassurance. "After all we've endured, after all I know about you, do you truly believe anything you can say would change what I feel for you and harm our love? That I would ever allow anything to separate us again?"

"I was a different man than I am now. Different than I was even at the opera house. Hardly befitting the term Angel, as you so often still choose to call me."

"Tell me," she softly insisted, recognizing his ploy to evade a difficult subject.

A shutter seemed to fall over his eyes as his lids closed halfway, but he curtly nodded. "Very well. You do deserve to know what I became, though remember - you asked." He took in a deep breath. "I was appointed as the Shah's magician. And his assassin. The toll of lives I have taken is great."

His words did not shock her as much as he thought they would. She once knew him capable of murder and that he'd killed at the opera house, but she also had come to understand the desperation that had driven him - and since then, he had changed.

"Why did you do it, Erik?" she inquired in a whisper.

"It was my life or theirs," he admitted grimly. "I was a young man, in my early twenties, foolish in many ways. The Shah ruled the land; his word was law. To oppose him was to invite a slow, excruciating death."

"Then you had no choice," she said simply.

"Not if my choice was to draw breath, and some faithless part of me still held to the fallacy of life."

"Don't talk like that." She hated when he so wryly and carelessly spoke of his demise.

With a weary sigh, he fell onto his back. "It was how I felt then, Christine, when I was alone and had no one. Not how I feel now that we belong to each other." He pulled her close again. "In marrying you, in learning my heritage, so many things changed for me. I found a sense of self worth I never had."

Delighted by his words, she stroked his arm and smiled, but knew there was more. "Tell me the rest. I want to know all of it."

A long pause ensued and at first she wasn't certain he would speak.

"The Shah held a sick fascination for my deformity and my skills, as did his mother, the Khanum." His voice grew hard at mention of the woman. "I believe he secretly wished I would one day refuse his commands, so as to watch me suffer my own execution. I remained alive solely to provide his entertainment and the Khanum's amusement. The only way I could survive, though I had long ceased to feel human, was to bury my black soul and become as wretched as they were. Both delighted in the macabre and most treacherous of traps and pleasures. The Khanum was more evil than her son, later employing my skills to create ... a torture chamber of sorts, one in which no man could survive."

She shivered at the mental image her mind created. "And the Daroga?"

"He had some sort of misplaced faith in me, never giving up on my wretched carcass though to this day I fail to understand why. I certainly gave him no cause to feel anything but disgust. It was through him I learned that the Shah decided I must be eliminated. I had come to know too much, you see. Nor could I continue in the vein I'd chosen and resist complete madness. And so I escaped Persia, leaving many enemies behind. Enemies who would not so easily forget."

Christine thought over all he revealed. "You did what you must to survive. No one could accuse you of doing differently."

"The blood of the unfortunate who perished beneath my hands cries out in opposition to your words," he countered dourly.

She craned to look up at him. "And the Daroga – did he also blame you or take you into custody? Being a detective, was he not sworn to uphold the law?"

Erik regarded her with curious amazement. "He acted under the Shah's orders, as did all who valued their life."

"So then, he didn't consider you a murderer, to be jailed and punished?"

"Perhaps not, but that doesn't change the fact that I was one. At that period of my life, before I came to know you, I detested all members of the human race."

She sighed, at last fully understanding. Trapped in a perilous dilemma, he'd been required to perform both magic and murder, which led to his reasoning for a defensive need to strike out and eliminate those he considered a threat at the opera house. Now, also, she understood the basis for the guilt he tried to conceal, which so often surfaced in his nightmares to the point that he would cry out in his sleep words of contrition and terror, to what must be the ghosts of those whom he killed.

"Tell me about the Daroga," she urged. "What happened after he arrived?"

"I showed him where I'd last seen you, by the dressing table." His hold on her grew tighter. "I heard you scream. I saw you vanish." His voice was hoarse with emotion. "I woke upon hearing you cry out. You were there, and then you were gone, swallowed in a rush of white light like a magician's trick I once performed. I felt I must have still been dreaming, and I looked and called out but couldn't find you." His jaw tightened, his eyes closed. His throat worked as he swallowed hard. He clasped her fiercely around the waist, needing to hold her, to reassure himself he wouldn't lose her again.

Christine saw his remembered anguish and nestled close to his side, embracing him tightly, her cheek pressed against the swift beating of his heart. His hand cupped her head and, as he relaxed, he began to stroke his fingers through her hair.

"The Daroga recognized the inscriptions on the mirror as similar to symbols he had seen on an ancient stone in Persia. A dead language no longer used. That such symbols should decorate a dressing table of European craftsmanship, coupled with the knowledge of the conversation he overheard at the palace made us suspect foul play, a curse."

Christine drew a breath in amazement that Erik had discovered all she had learned and lifted herself to look at him. His eyes burned brightly.

"I copied the symbols onto paper, and the Daroga took it with him to Persia to investigate. I remained behind. I feared being absent from the manor in the event that you would return. I did not understand then, what I soon came to know ..."

A tap sounded on the door. "My lord viscount?" the butler anxiously inquired. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, thank you, Bertram," Erik snapped out before the man could enter, forestalling a similar incident of what happened with the maid. "I do not require your services this morning."

A pause ensued. "If you are certain?" He sounded troubled. "Matilda was quite beside herself, certain you had come to some sort of ... dire consequences."

"I am most certain. All is well. Very well." He shared a smile with Christine, his eyes never leaving hers as he continued, "I shall be down presently. Assemble the staff in the drawing room at noon. I wish to speak to them."

"Very good, sir."

Erik again relaxed once the servant's footsteps faded. "I have no desire to share you with anyone yet," he explained, keeping her close. "Once they see you walk into the drawing room on my arm, then will come the time for revelation. For now, we have more to discuss."

She nodded in agreement, impatient for him to continue. "What did you come to know?" she continued where he left off.

"The Daroga learned a member of the Shah's palace, someone of wealth and influence who harbored a great deal of animosity toward me, ordered the dressing table made to resemble one crafted in Europe. He had a spell placed on it to punish me. To kill me would not have brought as much satisfaction as to see me suffer a slow, inescapable torture. The fiend had learned of my obsession for you at the opera house and all that transpired there, certain you had been forced into our marriage, and so his curse would remain intact. Only through an act of true, sacrificial love – your love for me – could the spell be broken. A message to that effect was also inscribed on the mirror."

She looked up at him, amazed at his findings. "How did you learn all of this?"

"The Daroga helped to decipher the messages and also located the craftsman who put them there. He acted under orders of one who wielded great power."

"Who?" she breathed.

His expression remained blank though fire kindled in his eyes.

"It no longer matters. He is dead and can no longer harm us. I did not kill him," he added, as though reading her mind. "Though I gladly would have run him through with my sword or strangled him with my rope for what he did to you. Nor did the Daroga kill him. He grows too queasy at the sight of blood to have committed the act." Erik's brow lifted in amusement. "In some matters, my friend is weak. In others, he is stronger than I could hope to be."

"I should like to meet him," she said, thankful this Persian had been there for her husband, as Antonia had been there for her.

"You will. I will invite him to dine with us this evening. Perhaps we should also send a messenger to invite Raoul to join us. He's in England and will be most pleased to hear of your return."

Christine pulled away from Erik's arms and sat up to gape at him, her eyes widening at such an unexpected statement of benevolence where Raoul was concerned. Erik chuckled at her stunned expression, and drew her back down to the bed. He shifted to his side, propping his head on his hand as he smiled at her, resting his other arm possessively across her midriff.

She returned his smile, lifting her finger to trace his full lower lip and the cleft in his strong chin. "You and Raoul have made your peace then?"

"Your disappearance eclipsed his anger at losing you as his betrothed, and of losing his title to me."

"I'm delighted to hear both of you have finally let bygones be bygones."

"It was no easy task," Erik muttered. "At first, he blamed me, certain I'd murdered you, and threatened to do all he could to see me in prison."

"Oh, Erik. No." Christine gasped. "What happened?"

"He later admitted I must be innocent since I refused to give up the search when the police did. I would not let it rest. He was here on the day the Daroga arrived and also learned about the Pahlavi symbols and the curse on the mirror. He became an ally and took part in helping me investigate. While I would not say we are close, we are no longer enemies."

She shook her head in wonder, remembering how Raoul's descendants had been ordered to duplicate the mirror if it ever broke, down to the last symbol. "And did you come to understand exactly what happened to me?"

"That you went through time, into a different dimension?"

Her mouth dropped open again in surprise that he'd known. This time he did not laugh, his eyes somber.

"With the Daroga's help, I translated most of the messages and realized if you did come back, it would be on the night of a full moon. While this concept of other dimensions and traveling through them was peculiar to me, I have seen and experienced too much in the way of magic – sorcery and the black arts – to discount the possibility. Through study of the inscriptions, I came to believe you must have entered a time when the cycle of the moon paralleled the days of this year. If I could have done so, I would have gone through the mirror and searched for you, Christine, but one of the riddles made it clear that only 'the daughter of destiny' could pass through the mirror. Every night, regardless of the phase of the moon, when your absence was hardest to bear, I spoke to you through the mirror, hoping you would hear me as you did at the opera house. Since we learned of the curse, I have waited, praying somehow you would return to me."

Hearing the strain again tighten his voice, she pressed her hand against his ridged cheek. "Oh, my love ... the night before last, I sang for you. Did you hear me?"

"I did." Moisture rimmed his eyes. "This past year and a half without you ... no words could describe the torment I have suffered. But these past two days surpassed any hell I previously experienced. When you sang to me ... after I heard your sweet voice, the Daroga gave me the last of the translations. The woeful message led me to believe you could die if you attempted to return to me, and so, I had given up what little hope I had left ..."

His words trailed off in misery, and she was certain this discovery had been what led to his decision to end his life. Again she thanked providence that she'd not been too late to prevent his death.

"'Once through time, mortals fly; twice through time mortals die,'" she intoned quietly.

He looked at her in surprise. "Yes. I was certain if you passed through the mirror a second time, you would be killed, and I feared I had lost you forever." His eyes filled with dawning wonder. "You knew the truth of the message and passed through the mirror regardless?"

"Erik, I would have done anything possible to be with you again."

"True, sacrificial love," he whispered in awe, and softly she nodded.

"May you never again doubt what I feel for you," she chided, recalling their days at the opera.

"Those days are long in the past. I was a fool to ever doubt you."

His lips when they touched hers were tender, adoring, and she wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, delighting in the feel of his mouth on hers, of her body pressed against his warmth...

"I have something for you," he said suddenly, moving away. "Two things actually. First..." He opened the small drawer of the nightstand, retrieved something there, then turned on the bed and took her left hand in his.

Christine was overjoyed to feel her wedding band again slide into its rightful place. She had feared it was lost forever, and tenderly she smoothed Erik's hair back as he pressed his lips to her finger, sealing his pledge of love with a kiss.

"And lastly," he said, his beautiful eyes gleaming with mystery as he returned to the nightstand drawer. This time he withdrew something from a small box. "I intended to give it to you for your birthday, when last we were together ... "

She now remembered. It had been the week of her birthday when she'd been abducted through the mirror. She had turned seventeen, and that memory led to another thought. In the future century, her relationship with Erik, even their marriage, would have been considered illicit due to their ages. How thankful she was that she'd been born into this 19th century when such things were widely accepted and "teenager" wasn't even a word in use. With no modern conveniences, life was more difficult and children matured quickly into adults, in part due to stricter upbringings - though, if her age had been an issue in this time period, she would have waited as many years as she must to marry Erik. She could not imagine having anyone else as her husband.

He drew near again and held his hand closed above where she lay, his smile soft and mysterious. Slightly, he released his hold. A gold chain dangled from his fingers, and something metallic and cold dropped between her breasts. The chain followed as with gradual ease he moved his hand to and fro above her, letting the links fall slowly in a cool stream that trickled against her skin.

She gasped, taking the enamel-rose gold locket between her fingertips. The locket had been hers!

A film of moisture wet her eyes.

"I had it specially made for you," he said. "A token in memory of the single roses I sent to you at the opera house, the rose to which I compared you. Beautiful, fragrant, delicate." His smoky green eyes shone with adoration. "You are my rose, Christine."

She blinked tears of happiness away. "I'll treasure this always, Erik. I love you so much."

"Christine, I assure you, not even the span of time could extinguish the measure of my love for you."

"Not even the span of time ..." She cradled his face between her hands and brought his mouth down to hers, thankful that whatever the years may hold in store for them, the present would always be theirs to share.

xXx

A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :)