Back to 1870. Short chapter. Might have more tonight.

Ch 12

The Goddess closed her eyes and listened to the winter wind rattle the thin windows. A draft hissed through a crack in the window pane and forced its way through the curtains. She shivered and thought of better days in India where she had spent part of her youth, days when she had been a contented child eating mangoes from the trees.

Where had those days gone?

The Goddess rested her hand in the middle of Erik's back and sighed. His breathing had evened out as he slept. Twice he had tensed, his fingers curling tightly around the silk of her skirt. The Goddess had shushed him by running her knuckles down his back. She had brushed her hand through his hair and came away with strands between her fingers.

He was distressed. His hair had begun to fall out and his skin was unnaturally pale. His coloring was due in part to living underground, she knew, but it was also caused by his misery. His face was thinner than it had been three weeks ago. She could hear his stomach grumble as he slept. He had exhausted himself into a comatose state which she had no desire to disrupt.

Her phantom needed his rest.

A soothing caress and a whispered lullaby had parted the heavy curtain of nightmares threatening his contentedness. One soft note at a time she gave him peace. That was all he sought from a woman of profession. Not love, not release, only solace. He had found it in a voice. Her voice.

She enjoyed his voice as well.

The Goddess shivered and stared longingly at her paisley shawl across the room. She was cold from sitting on the floor and stiff from spending two hours in one position. She made no attempt to move. Ten thousand francs had purchased a night with a whore in a most unconventional way. The Goddess smiled to herself. She had been expecting his company all week.

If only he had come to her sooner, she mused. Perhaps he would not hurt so much.

The Goddess looked down at Erik's slumbering form and grimaced at the dark bruise. Without touching him, she moved her finger just above the contusion and traced its outline. She pursed her lips to keep from weeping.

He had been a terrible man, but he had been a gentleman as well. Where did that wanderer go? When had he lost himself? In Persia? In India? On the shores of France?

The Goddess gently moved his shirt collar to see how much skin the bruise covered. How many more scars does he carry? She wondered. How much heartache and defeat could one man tolerate?

Erik jolted without warning. He exhaled sharply and gasped for his next breath. Another nightmare, The Goddess knew, another reality emerging from his restless sleep. He was so haunted, so hunted.

The Goddess caressed the skin behind his ear and tried to start the lullaby again before he woke but it was too late.

"I won't!" he whispered. He gasped again, harder than the first time. His hand whipped out and he punched the dresser with his fist, splitting his knuckle on the violent impact. He hissed a breath past his teeth as the pain registered. His green eyes opened, searching the room with a feral response to danger.

A sound left his lips, a growl of confusion and frustration.

The Goddess pushed against his shoulder and freed herself from where she had been pinned beneath him. He lifted his head immediately and shot up, crawling away until he collided with the wall. His sudden outburst had alarmed her. With her back against the bed, she stared wide-eyed at the man before her. There were only several feetbetween thembut the distance she felt from him was suddenly unbearable. He disappeared into shadows, melded with night.

"I won't kill them,"Erik blurted out, this time softer than before. He stared at The Goddess and touched the unmasked side of his face, the cheek that had been warmed against her legs. Realizing where he had slept, Erik turned his gaze away from hers and closed his eyes again. "I won't kill them."

He glanced at her once again, and The Goddess knew what hewas doing whenhe met her gaze. He wanted to check the color of her eyes even when he could barely see her face. Every time he had come to her, he would reassure himself that she was different, exotic but familiar. A need, perhaps, more than desire.

"You've nothing to fear, Phantom. They are still black as night," she said quietly. Her hand reached back and turned up the lamp."Never jade."

He looked away and nodded. His eyes had fixed on the door.

"Never jade," The Goddess whispered.