"What do you mean, how do I know, Sir? Everyone knows. It was the reason you missed a day a little over a week ago, yes? You had just received your esteemed gift from the Shah, and—"

"Yes, yes… I heard you all gossiping like old maids when I returned from my brief cessation," Erik grumbled irritably as he watched his assistant begin to squirm, "I mean, how did you know that she was sent to be my wife? That she was not simply a girl of the harem granted to me?"

"O-oh! Forgive me, I shall speak to the men immediately about properly respecting you and your privacy, Sir. I had no idea that—" Kaveh rambled, embarrassed, but Erik quickly cut him off.

"Yes you will. But that is beside the point. Who told you the details of Miss Serena's purpose here?"

"S-Serena… what a lovely name. In Latin, it means 'clear-sighted' or 'tranquil one', but conversely, in Greek, 'seductive' or 'temptress', based off of the legends of the captivatingly lethal sea sirens—"

"Kaveh, you are trying my patience!" Erik roared, "Who knows so many intimate details of my personal life, and felt the need to share them with my entire workforce?"

Kaveh winced, bowing his head submissively. "The Khanum, Sir!" he explained rapidly, the words running together in his nervousness, "A few days ago, while you were caught up in your sculpting, she sent a messenger who told me the details of your new acquisition of the girl. She instructed me to inform the men as well, so that when the time comes for the pubic announcement of your beginning to court her, we may properly congratulate you!"

Something inside of Erik snapped then… breaking so suddenly, and so violently, that the tiny bit of sense left in him knew that there was only one person who would be able to keep him from marching right to the palace and strangling that witch of a woman. As reluctant as he was to admit it, he had to get home. "That was not her news to share!" he practically screamed, throwing down the hammer and chisel.

Kaveh, in the five years he had known him, through all the mistakes made on the palace's construction… all the disobeyed orders… all the slacking workers… had never seen Erik this angry before. He knew that the day had been especially frustrating, what with the heat and the shortage of men and now, his Master's own inner turmoil… but this was the most fearsome he had ever seen him. Kaveh also suspected that it would not end well for either him or a few of the workers if Erik was pushed any farther. He had to do something to either calm him down… or get him away from everyone else who might be put in harm's way with his stupendous ire.

Erik began to pace, his steps heavy and threatening as they thudded against the ground, asserting his limitless dominance over even the dirt he walked upon. He would not be put on display again… not so long as his heart was beating! Ha! They could set out to kill him, of course, yet he would like to see them try. But never again would the Living Corpse be confined in captivity, for all the world to gawk and sneer. Never again… he would destroy them all before he was put back in a cage!

Even if the cage was only the suffocating bars of public gossip, humiliation, and scandalous rumor. He saw exactly what the Khanum was doing for the sole purpose of her amusement, and it had more than crossed a line. Let her speak to him of her plan, instead of so apprehensively communicating it through his right hand man! 'And we'll just see how "amusing" she thinks it is then!' he growled internally, before turning back to his foreman.

"Kaveh! Oh, don't look so petrified; you are about to get what you have been advocating for all day."

Kaveh blushed—a tint of color barely noticeable when paired with his already sun-flushed cheeks— at how he had flinched away from his Master's sudden movements. But could one really blame him, when it came to Erik? "Sir?" he questioned uncertainly.

"This is my proposed ultimatum: everyone will continue to work—work with purposeful zeal, mind you—for a half an hour more. Just one half an hour, until just past noon. Then, I will declare laboring finished for the day, and send everyone home to their loving families. Have I made myself clear?" Erik ordered definitively.

Kaveh could feel relief deluging him like the cold bath he would have drawn for himself upon his returning to his state-granted property. "Yes sir!" he affirmed, in his eagerness even bowing and causing Erik to smirk despite his boiling irritation.

"Good," Erik replied, "Let the men know, and then charge one of your new apprentice boys with keeping time. We wouldn't want anyone getting so caught up in his work that they accidentally complete the full day originally scheduled!"

"I think you are the only one who would make that particular lapse, Sir!" Kaveh laughed, turning with haste to do as he was told.

Erik rolled his eyes, picking up his tools once more. "I was being entirely condescending, Kaveh. I am not always the harsh paragon of severity you make me out to be."

"Of course not, Sir," Kaveh chuckled, "But it is true. You are usually the first to arrive, and the last to leave."

"As is expected of me," Erik confirmed simply, twisting the chisel between his long, influential fingers, "But not today. For I have something else that requires my immediate attention."

"A pretty woman waiting for you at the door?" Kaveh teased lightly, though his tone remained unassuming and respectful.

Erik paused. He had nearly forgotten about Serena, in his moment of blinding, furious umbrage… thought the matter consuming his thoughts directly related to her wellbeing. Then he responded, "Not exactly. I was referring more to the Khanum, who apparently needs a lesson taught to her on keeping her nose out of others' private affairs."

Then he went back to work without another word. And Kaveh found no more reason to laugh.

~o~0~o~

Serena flopped down onto the bed, giggling airily at the sheer, rushing relief that met her sweat-glistening body as she freed herself of the heavy layers of clothing she had naively put on that morning.

She had instead now donned one of Erik's cotton dress shirts, and no sooner had she put it on was the fire on her skin quenched by gentle, fresh air. It was still hot, yes, but with nothing but his long, lean apparel on, lying on her back with her legs dangling over the side of the bed, she at least felt that she could breathe again, that perhaps she would be able to survive this dreadful heat spell after all.

She reached down to the long sleeves of the shirt, unbuttoning the cuffs and rolling them up her arms. As she did, she caught a whiff of the loveliest scent… and as she brought the light fabric up to her nose, she instantly comprehended why it seemed so familiar…

It was an unmistakable blend of fresh parchment, wet paints, and crushed stone under a cool night sky… a faint musk which lingered where the fabric had touched her face long after she had removed it. It was the smell of Erik, the fragrance which greeted her each morning, permeated the room, most likely seeping into his laundered clothes as well… and often, she swiftly recollected, dawdled hazily and idly on the blankets of the end of the bed when she arose for the day.

The scent which had so easily overpowered her own when they had needed to convince the Khanum of their pleasure with a few, passionate kisses… travelling so feverishly down her neck as she so perfectly melted into his body—

Her cheeks flared with heat once more, but not from the outside temperature. She suddenly felt very self-conscious indeed, as she lay here in one of Erik's shirts—and only a shirt! His smell seemed to chastise her for her selfish and immoral actions as it surrounded her quite literally, radiating off of the soft cotton. Oh, what would someone think if they saw her now… what would he think if—

A tiny paw batted at her swinging toes, causing her to gasp. Then a second paw joined in, unsuccessfully attempting to trap the fleshy pendulums between them as the little Siamese too sought methods of overlooking the heat. As she continued to fail miserably, Serena chuckled, and the cat seemed to remember her blind friend's presence, leaping up onto the bed with her and settling with a long, spanning stretch on her stomach.

Serena smirked, momentarily forgetting her arising chagrin. "Comfortable?" she queried, stroking the animal's ears.

A slow, even pattern of breathing was her only response; the cat had already fallen asleep.

"Right then… don't let me disturb you," Serena murmured, tenderly sliding the slumbering ball of fur onto the bed beside her before sitting up to stretch. The shirt protested the sluggish movement, slipping off her shoulders slightly in mutinous reaction. She sighed, but just laid back down without bothering to fix it.

She was being silly. She was comfortable now; that is what truly mattered. Who would see her, anyhow? Darius and Nadir would not enter the bedroom without knocking, and no one else came or went from the wing during the day except Erik. And he was hours away from returning. She would simply change back into her regular clothes before he arrived.

So, thoroughly satisfied and positively lazy with the sort of happiness one encounters while lounging in total relaxation in the summer, she rolled back onto her back and continued to swing her feet.

~o~0~o~

The half hour Erik had demanded passed torpidly, but eventually arrived to find several hundred drained men working with quick, nervous effort, trying to please their master despite their complete lack of energy. The sun had reaped them all, not excluding the chief craftsman himself. And he boiled more than all the others still, anger combining with the heat to continuously build up inside of him. Much like the sun's rays beaming down upon the surface of the marble he shaped, before at one point over the course of the endless day, reaching the core, leaving it a thing transformed by fire within.

He sent everyone home after a rousing speech of how they would work with triple the pace of their usual "disgraceful tomfoolery" as soon as the wave had passed. Erik then departed as well, with sparking thoughts leaping and frisking through his head, threatening to catch and blaze until he was turned to ash. But he could not burn out until he was with the Khanum—that was the only thing that kept him clinging to the last of his sanity! For it had been she who had started the fire… and now it was she who would get burned!

'Home, to check on Serena first, and then to the palace,' he reiterated over and over in his head with pulsing fervency, 'Home, and then to the depths of this political hell.'

He rode back to his wing of the palace as quickly as his horse could manage in his dehydration. He made certain to settle the loyal creature in the shaded stables with plenty of water, then stalked back to his home.

The grounds were silent as the modest footstep of Death itself. He did not even hear the diminished melody of the piano from inside, and his drenched brow furrowed beneath his mask. 'Good God, perhaps she has fainted. What are you to do then? It will set you back hours in your quest for retaliation.'

He pushed open the doors and hung up his mask immediately, looking around as he wiped the sweat from his face. Serena was nowhere to be found, and that's when he began to worry…

"If she has gone into the garden in this heat…" he muttered to himself, then raised his voice to call, "Serena?"

There was no answer. His frown deepened, and he began to wander about the wing, checking its rooms for his pretty companion. His heart accelerated as he found her normal haunts to be empty, and became convinced that the Khanum had come for her—

He then came across the bedroom door and saw that it was shut, and could not help entirely emptying his lungs in relief. Of course she would be in there, stupid bastard; it was the coolest and quietest room in the house.

'But,' he abruptly recalled, panic seizing him once more, 'that does not mean that the heat did not get to her anyway. She is not used to this climate, perhaps she is lying, unconscious and overheated, on the floor as that damn cat walks all over her slowly wilting body…'

The morbid possibility pushed all thoughts of malice towards the Khanum to the back of his mind as he reached forward and opened the door with a frantic, troubled bang… "Serena!"

But she was not there, either. Or, at least, the innocent, demure woman he had come to befriend certainly was not.

In her place, lying sprawled across his bed in seductive enticement was a woman with the same beautiful face, her exact perfect body, her identical darting blue eyes. But most blaring difference was that this woman had abandoned all modesty of clothing, and now lay, bared before him, in nothing but one of his own shirts.

Forget the heat; the sight of her in this state, this bare, beckoning state, was like being hit by a wave of ice-cold water, stunning him where he stood, staring hopelessly, as he attempted to process what had unfurled before him.

And oh, how she had unfurled.

Her pale knees were bent, curved over the edge of the bed, dangling off its side. His sight travelled up her legs with a swiftness and fervency which startled him, but then the shirt began, teasingly sparing her some dignity as it just passed the tops of her thighs. The thin white fabric then began climbing across her lounging, limber body, brushing over her stomach… her upper arms… her pale breasts…

He could not even cry out subconsciously to God; a God who had obviously abandoned him to the fires of hell that had combusted to life within him, those first few seconds. All he could do was watch, burn, and feel his desire bubble up from his toes to the top of his head. She was the goddess Aphrodite, tempting all the men and angels and demons of the earth to come lie with her, as she lifted her arms and stretched out her arms, summoning them with a delicate wave of her fingers to descend upon her like the wolves they were. As a delectable little gasp emitted from her lovely, parted lips, Erik had to bite his tongue to prevent a tortured groan from escaping. Oh, how he wanted her! So much did he, that he felt he would burst. And to put on his shirt and lie so beguilingly in his bed… she might as well have been whispering, "I want you too, Erik… come to me… reclaim your shirt…"

When Serena heard the sound of his voice and the bang of the door against the wall, she gasped in mortified horror and sat up, crossing her arms over her chest as her heart nearly stopped in dread. What on Earth was he doing home so early? 'Oh my God…' she wanted to scream, 'how could this have happened today, of all days! When I'm dressed like… like this!'

Erik nearly choked as she sat up, her hair tumbling messily all about her face like waves of fire, with sinful grace and beauty, the shirt slipping off of one of her shoulders, leaving it bare and exposed and looking oh so lonely. Perhaps he should stride over to her, and introduce it to his lips, his teeth… allowing them embark upon an intense relationship that would make them both forget about this blasted heat…

Exchanging it for an entirely different sort of fire…

For a few moments, they were both silent except for the interweaving sound of their breath… both heavy and almost pant-like, yet for very different reasons. But then, Serena managed to squeak, "Wh… wh… what are you doing home so early?"

The terrified phrase brought back half of his fleeing sense; she hadn't known that he was returning early… she had done this for herself, not for him. "We… it got too h-hot on the grounds…" he grunted hoarsely in response, "I sent everyone home early, then left myself to… to check on you."

'But it appears you have managed just fine on your own, haven't you? Please, tell me all about how you handled the challenges of the day… each detail of how you stripped away your clothing and picked out one of mine to wrap your tiny, winsome body in…' he thought, the words burning against the side of his head, longing to be freed and allowed to roam closer to her.

Serena felt as if she were going to cry. "O-oh…" she continued, choked, but then exploded in chagrin, "I am so sorry! Oh, this is mortifying… I did not expect you this early in the day! I was going to change back as soon as the hour arrived during which you were to return, I swear it upon my life!"

'Please, my girl… my sweet, exquisite temptress… do not speak of your changing into anything right now…' Erik moaned internally, casting his starving gaze to the floor so as not to cause her any more embarrassment than he obviously already had. But oh, how he wanted to continue drinking her in… how he wanted to see more, to send that blasted shirt fluttering to the ground. A shirt that he would never again be able to wear without thinking quite vividly of what its soft fabric had touched—

'Turn away, Erik. Get away from her before you do something shameful and evil,' something inside him whispered. He nearly laughed aloud as it did… he thought his conscience had died years ago, when he had begun thoughtlessly killing for sport. But of course it would revive itself now, when something he wanted to steal more than anything else in the world was sitting on a pedestal before him, practically waiting to fall into his hands.

But he knew it was right, and though he wanted to scream and put his fist through a wall, he could not do it. He could not abuse her trust in such a way.

"Do not apologize, Mademoiselle," he muttered as he fully turned his back on her, trying to put even more distance between them as he made use of the cold title, "It is my own fault for not supplying you with something lighter to wear. Get changed, and I will go out looking for something that is more suitable to days like this right now."

He heard her begin to respond, still apologetic and she rose to her feet, but he had already fled the room before he could make sense of the words.

~o~0~o~

Erik took a very long time to return to the wing, and Serena had almost fallen asleep in an armchair by the time he did later that night. But even once he had, he did not speak to her. He simply threw a soft package onto the table in front of her and disappeared down the long hall. She wrung her hands anxiously, thinking, 'Oh, he is furious with you. Having such loose morals in his house! Disrespecting him in his own clothes!'

Yet still she gingerly tore open the package, reaching down to feel a light, short-sleeved cotton dress sitting delicately inside of it, and atop it, some sort of leafy herb…

She lifted the plant up to her nose and sniffed it—it was peppermint! A plant she knew from her time in Rouen to help one stay cool on warm summer days…

She got up and hugged the new dress to her chest in delight, then trudged into the kitchen to make tea from the gifted herb. But she could not stop worrying, over and over in her mind, 'What if he is upset with you again? What if he remains upset with you; how will you possibly be able to make it up to him? Will you even live to see the end of this heat spell?'

A/N: Show of hands… how many people are getting frustrated by the amount of times I sorta just leave these two hanging?

*raises own hand and waves it around furiously*

Haha! So good news… things will be picking up relationship-wise between our beloved Phantom and his new "friend". Thanks to judybear236 for the idea about the peppermint… putting it in at the end there gave it a lot more resolve than I originally had planned!

Next week, the public announcement of courtship happens. DUN, DUN… DUNNNNNNNNNN. And after this little rift, will Erik and Serena even be able to come back together for long enough to face the curious crowds? What do you all think?

Review, review, review! You know what I love to do when my inbox is full of them… EARLY RELEASES!

Song of the week: "Temptation" by Billy Joel. Because… well, you saw why. ;)

Question of the week: Most awkward situations you've ever been in? Like Erik walking in on a half birthday-suited Serena? Or, if that's too personal, just tell me a funny story! Look forward to hearing from you… have a wonderful day!

~DonJuana