This chapter is pretty intense…not for the faint of heart. Oh, yes, and it's rated R too.

Also, just giving my readers fair warning that I am going to be out of town next week and may not be able to get to a computer. I shall try to write and update if I can. Thanks for all the great reviews.


As if I were nothing but a rag doll, Erik pulled me up from out of the chair roughly, my hair entwined in the powerful grip of one hand while my mouth was covered with the other. I bit down on his hand in terror, yet only succeeded in snagging the leather of his glove. Quickly, I realized that struggling was useless in his merciless clutches.

He was no longer the Beast but the Phantom, dressed in his attire of black cape and hat.

Grasping my chin, he forced me to look up into his face, at the pitiless harshness of his white mask. His eyes were ablaze, hardened with a determination to subject me to his will…

"You scream, madame, and it shall be your last…"

He released me only to grab my wrists and tie them together behind my back. I gasped with outrage and fear.

"Why so distressed, sweetheart? This was one of your favorite positions in our bedroom, was it not?"

"Please…Erik, do not do this…please…" I sobbed, crying from fright and from the pure shock of seeing him again.

He licked the tears from my face before whispering low into my ear.

"You shall come with me quietly lest you want this pretty new theater to fall down in flames with everyone still inside."

Firmly grasping me to his side, he pulled me through the back corridors of the Atlanta Theater House. Then we proceeded through a maze of dark twisted alleyways, leading to a part of the city I had never seen before. I was straining to keep up with him, tripping in my expensive heeled shoes. But so tightly did he hold me that I did not fall but was merely dragged along.

After some time, we came to a deserted tenement in a shoddy part of the city. I had been warned by Brett never to venture over this way as it was inhabited by none but scoundrels, prostitutes and criminals.

Erik none too gently shoved me inside of the tenement before locking the door behind him.

We were in a dark empty room barren of any furniture or decoration, save a simple straw mattress on the floor covered with a large red silken sheet, a wash basin with a sponge and a basket of fruit with a loaf of bread beside it. Obviously he had only attained this place as temporary quarters while he meant to kidnap me.

Erik flung off his cloak and hat. Then backing me against a wall, he towered over me with his imposing height, both hands on either side of my head.

"Have you missed your ugly lover?" he goaded, practically snarling at me. "Have you missed your monster?"

"I-I n-never thought you were an ugly m-m-monster, Erik," I stuttered, swallowing hard and fighting to remain calm in the face of his fury.

"Did you not?" he lashed out at me. "Then why did you treat me as such? Why did you believe me a killer that night? Why did you betray me to de Chagny and the police? Why did you leave the country with Watling?"

"Brett told me about Firmin's arrest. I had been tricked, deceived. We all were. I had no idea that…"

"It's too late for apologies now," he interrupted. "You were bound and determined to believe the worst of me, weren't you? You wanted me to be a monster!"

"No, Erik, that's not true!"

With a tug, he pulled off his mask and threw it across the room, revealing his cursed face to me in all of its hideousness. As close to me as he was, I could not escape the sight of the puckered flesh, the yellowed skin, the black hole where there should have been a nose…

I tried to look away but he would not let me.

"Open your eyes, Angelica! Open them or I shall break your fragile little neck!"

I had no choice but to obey him.

"Look at me. Now you have your monster!"

As I was forced to observe his face, I thought of the grief he must have suffered all of his life to live with such a grotesque visage. How that face had doomed him to live life as a criminal, to never know the love of a mother, to be whipped in a cage…

I had forgotten how Erik could always see into my eyes like open doors.

"Don't you dare pity me, you she-devil!" he roared at me with rage. "I will not tolerate such from you of all people!"

For a moment, I thought he would strike me.

Instead, he attacked me with a punishing kiss, deliberately rubbing the disfigured side of his face against my face as he did so. The strange flesh felt odd against my skin. Not repulsive...just odd...

Despite my fear, or perhaps because of it, a powerful explosion of desire assaulted my senses. I was too aware of my vulnerable breasts crushed against his chest, of the unfurling sensation of wet and heat between my thighs, of his hard manhood pressing against me. It was as if I had been asleep for a thousand years and was now being wrenched violently back into life.

"How does it feel knowing that you have lain with such a creature?" he hissed against my throat. "That you shall be married to him and chained to such a face for the rest of your days?"

"Married?"

"Oh, yes. Perhaps you did not take our promises in earnest, but I did…oh, yes…I admit marriage was not the first course of action I considered taking," he said as he traced the lines of my neck and shoulders with his fingers. "I had thought to kill you for your betrayal…but I found no pleasure in the prospect…"

My awakening desire intensified painfully as I felt his hand cover one of my breasts.

"This prospect, however, gives me an enormous amount of pleasure..."

There was no escaping his strong grip or my bindings as he fondled me relentlessly.

"You shall be my wife…for real, this time. Will marriage to the Phantom of the Opera be as gruesome as all of the young schoolgirls talk about? Will it be, as they say, a fate worse than death?"

I was mortified when I felt my nipple harden against his hand.

"Ah, perhaps not such a horrible fate as all that..." he murmured as he teased me cruelly with his fingers.

If it had not been for the support of his strong embrace, I was sure I would have collapsed upon the floor in a heap.

"But there is one thing you have not accounted for..." I managed to say.

"If you are about to refer to your earlier husband, save your breath," Erik said. "As soon as I came to this accursed country, I started to make inquiries. I know he is dead. So there is no need to wait. We shall be married...tonight!"

"And just how do you propose to do that?"

He steadied me upon my feet before releasing me and retrieving his mask from across the room.

"It has all been arranged. I have a rather corrupt Justice of the Peace on his way now. A man who is willing to perform the ceremony in the dead of night for a sizeable fee with no questions asked. And you shall say the proper vows and be the loving bride if you don't want that Watling man dead at your feet, understood?"

"No, I do not understand!" I sniped, fighting against the tight binding of my wrists uselessly. "And speaking of Brett, he is probably having the whole city of Atlanta out searching for me right now. After all, you only abducted the Director of the Atlanta Opera House! Did you think no one would notice?"

"That is where you are wrong, my dear. Quite wrong. In fact, if I were you, I would be concerned about that man as he seems to have some sort of death wish against you. When I had heard word that he was back in Paris, I sought him out. Taking him to a back alley, I threatened to kill him if he did not tell me what he knew about your whereabouts. Never have I had such an accommodating source of information. He not only told me you were working for him in Atlanta, but that it was at the Atlanta Opera House, that the opening of the theater would be on this night…he even gave me directions to your office. The only thing he asked of me was to teach his little sweetheart how to carry a tune."

Damn Brett Watling and his matchmaking interference! I suddenly wished that I had never confided in him that night. For we were not Rhett and Scarlett Butler. Our situation was very different.

"Before I escaped, I still had enough presence of mind to retrieve our booked tickets for passage to America. And luckily, my funds were sufficiently stored elsewhere to enable me to make the journey. So here I am, burning up in this Godforsaken hellishly hot state of Georgia…and all for you, my sweet…"

"So that you could force me to marry you. Why? I should think that what you did that last night in Paris would make all of our past promises null and void!"

"And which heinous crime of mine has offended you so much?" he asked sarcastically. "After all, I have committed so many atrocities, sometimes I cannot remember them all!"

"How about infidelity for a start?"

His eyes were blank with my accusation.

Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door.

"Ah, our guest has arrived at long last!" Erik cried out with obnoxious bravado as he cut loose my bound wrists and went to the front door.

A heavy-set man, red-headed with a beard, wearing a dark navy blue cloak, entered the room nervously.

"Justice, how kind of you to oblige us with your visit!" Erik said with a mocking bow.

"Well, this is a damned strange...oh, pardon me, ma'am," the man stammered at the sight of me. "...a darned strange place to perform a wedding in. And in the middle of the night, too."

"Quite," Erik agreed as he shut the door behind him. "But we are an unusual couple. It is only fitting that we are married under unusual circumstances. And if you do not mind, Justice, my luscious wife is extremely eager to experience connubial bliss. So if we could get this taken care of as soon as possible..."

I gasped and blushed furiously at his horrid statement.

The man cleared his throat as he looked my way.

"You are willing to be married to this...er, to him, ma'am?" he asked me in a thick Southern accent.

Although I had no choice but to nod accordingly, Erik began to lose his temper.

"Need I remind you that we agreed upon no questions, Justice?" he commanded loudly.

For a moment, the Justice of the Peace had a look of fear in his eyes at Erik's threatening tones.

"Very well, but we need a witness."

"A what...?" Erik asked coldly.

"A witness. I mean, well, I assume you want this to be proper and legal..."

"Goddamn it!"

Erik stalked out of the front door like a wild animal.

The Justice of the Peace and I stood silently in the room awkwardly for some time, unable to meet each other's eyes.

"I am so sorry for my groom's manners," I said sheepishly. "He is just a bit anxious, what with this wedding and all..."

"Oh, of course," he harrumphed. "Well...I am sure you two will be very happy together..."

With a loud bang, Erik came in with what appeared to be a beggar off of the street.

"There is your damned witness! Now let us proceed!"

The ceremony was very brief and legal. As we sealed our union with a kiss, Erik's lips were cool. A staid ceremony for this loveless farce of a marriage, I thought bleakly.

I was asked to sign the wedding certificate. Erik and Angelica Leroux. So that was my new name now.

As soon as the Justice of the Peace and our beggar witness were escorted out, Erik slammed the door and locked it. He then leaned against the door and glared at me with smoldering lust in his eyes.

"Now you are my wife and belong to me!"

His heated gaze and fierce words made the hair stand up on the back of my neck as I realized his intentions.

"This forced marriage means nothing!" I cried out at him, backing away from him. "Things are not the same as they were back in Paris. You may use brute strength against me but I feel nothing for you. Do you hear me? Nothing!"

I did not know who I was trying to fool by my words, but I was so angry that I could not stop myself. I did not desire a marriage where I was to be used as a whore at night and despised the rest of the time. And this husband was not the same man I fell in love with. He was so mean and nasty to me…worse than he had ever been before…

"Do you not?" Erik sneered.

With the speed of lightning, he grabbed me, pulling me across the room and down onto my back upon the straw mattress. He lay atop me and proceeded to kiss me so deeply that I could not breathe.

"You are shivering, my dear. Are those shivers of revulsion, I wonder? Or something else?"

He yanked the bodice of my dress down, effectively ripping the material, pinning my arms down to my sides and exposing my naked breasts to him at the same time.

"I love how responsive you are," he said in silken tones as he fingered the tips of my breasts. "I always have. How you blush when you are naked…how you scream when you come…"

Biting my lip, I tried not to listen to him or think of my traitorous body's response to his touch. I would not enjoy such voluptuous sensations when he was being so hateful to me. I would not be his little plaything, married or not, while he dreamed of Christine. I would not think of his wicked fingers on my breasts. I would not moan at the feel of his mouth against that sensitive spot at my throat. I would not pay any attention to the wet heat between my thighs. I would not...I would not...I would not...

But my resistance kept weakening as he persisted in driving me mad.

"You play the suffering martyr of a wife poorly, Angelica. Do not hold back what I know is in you. Let it come, love," he whispered as his hand snaked underneath my skirts and pressed between my legs, insistently rubbing and playing and teasing. "Let it come...Scream for me just like you used to..." He then lowered his mouth to my breast.

His soft words and insatiable mouth triggered me to climax helplessly in his arms. And I did scream...over and over...

"Yes, sweet, yes..."

My pleasure had been so intense that afterwards I cried for no reason that I could guess. Erik kissed my tears away before he undressed me completely, tearing any fabric that got in his way and turning me onto my stomach to unlace my corset.

"I shall not force myself upon you, although it is now my legal right to do so. What do you want from me, Angelica?"

I did not answer in words but I turned about and pulled the weight of his naked body upon my own. Once again, I was lost in his touch and his scent and his caresses. There was nothing in the world but him. Nothing in the world but this. Oh, how I had craved him for so long…

And he must have felt the same for his cries were more of an animal than a man as he found release inside of me, clinging to me as if I were his last hope for salvation.

As I lay beside him on the mattress, exhausted from our exertions, I remembered that I was mad at him about something. Oh, yes...I was angry at him for being so mean to me. For unreasonably blaming me for everything that had happened that night in Paris. For being such an arrogant bully.

I should give him a piece of my mind about all of those things.

Yet I was so sleepy and my body was so sated and I felt so comfortable nestled as I was in his arms…I decided that I could wait to tell him of my anger tomorrow. And although Paris was nowhere in sight, as I pressed my face against Erik's shoulder, I felt as if I had at last come home from such a faraway place.