Chapter 3

Christinewoke several hour later. She turned from her side to her back and yawned, remembering at last. Everything seemed so distant, so strange, so much like the stage rather than reality.

The stage, she thought with a smile.

Her performance left her feeling exhilarated. She danced to the chapel, intending to escape the crowds for one moment of reflection.

It was then that she realized what she had known all ready in her heart: No matter how many thousands of people listened to her sing there would always be one person who would never witness the birth of her career. The man who had first played the violin for her and piqued her interest in music had been dead for years. He would have been proud, she thought.

Before she realized it, Christine found herself with her head buried in the soft pillows to muffle the sound of her crying. The last thing she wanted was for Erik, her former Angel of Music, to walk in. But, try as she might, it was impossible, and as she continued to cry she heard him approach the bed.

"What's this?" he growled.

"Go away," she hiccupped, doing nothing to abolish her childish appearance.

He stood over her, a frightful, stone-faced monolith glaring down at her, his arms crossed and feet shoulder-width apart.

"You should be back in your own bed," he said at last.

His words made her cry harder, and Christine knew that she was to a point where she needed to exhaust herself, as there was absolutely nothing that would end her tears.

She heard Erik exhale hard, clearly annoyed by her emotional display. With one long, wailing cry she lifted her head and slammed her fists against the soft mattress, which failed to accentuate her anger.

"You heartless, ghastly, wicked man!" she raged. "Have you no sympathy? No understanding?"

His stone-cold expression changed to panic at her outburst, encouraging Christine to climb to her bare feet. She stood on a soft fur rug, knowing that lying down for so long had done nothing beneficial to her hair. It angered her to think of what he saw:A blotchy-faced, tear-streaked, sniveling girl in wrinkled clothes looking quite mad with her disheveled hair.

"I wish I were in my own bed! With my own sheets and my own pillows and without you!" she screamed, hearing her angry echo carry through his apartments.

"Say another word and I will gag and bind you and drag you upstairs!"

Her eyes flashed around the room. "I will swim home!" she seethed, her chest heaving and face burning in anger.

"That is utterly ridiculous and infantile!"

Christine turned away for a moment and hefted the music box of a monkey in Persian robes, shaking it to emphasize her point before she tossed it back on the bed. The cymbals played once in protest.

Nostrils flared, he stared at her, disbelieving what he had witnessed.

"Find your own damned way back," he said between his teeth before he turned on his heel and stormed away.

"Everything is your fault! You're the reason I'm down here...like...like a prisoner!" she screamed, seeing him cringe at the pitch of her voice. She coughed into the crook of her elbow, her anger becoming painful to her vocal chords.

He glared at her over his shoulder. "You're destroying your voice."

She screamed for no other reason than to antagonize him despite realizing that she wasn't angry with him. Her outburst was one of mourning, of pain that she buried but that constantly reemerged like a stubborn phoenix.

Almost immediately Christine realized her mistake as he stalked toward her, his green eyes turned icy blue. He grabbed her by the arms and shook her, ending her tantrum.

"You will ruin your voice, you stupid girl," he said so calmly that it made Christine's knees weak.

"And that's all you care about, isn't it? My voice. 'Christine, you have a beautiful voice, Christine you sang lovely tonight, Christine your singing improves each time I teach you'," she mocked. "Is that all you care about? How well I can sing?"

His eyes pierced through her but he didn't speak, and for a moment Christine thought he would drag her up the stairs. He was always very strict with her, constantly insisting that her voice was good, but she wasn't perfect. She knew music, but she didn't know enough. He could make her excel, give her what she needed to be the best soprano Paris had ever seen.

Her expression suddenly changed, her lip quivering. "Or is it my voice? Is it me that you care about…or is this all…for you and your triumph?"

His eyes hardened, his tone emerging soft and low, like thunder in the distance voicing an approaching storm. She saw him struggling for power, for the sway he had held over her for so long as he stood in shadows and encouraged her talent. Part of her had yearned for his constant guidance, for his commanding words to show her the way.

"You lack passion," he had said to her one night.

"Will you show me how I may obtain passion?" she had innocently asked.

That night he had gone silent, muttering that it wasn't yet time.

But as she grew older, another part of her—a deep and dark part of her—wanted to find her own path and her own passion. She was tired of his persistent need to keep her under his wing. She needed more from him.

And now she wasn't sure if he helped her out of love for her or out of his own selfish needs.

"Why?" she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Just as quickly as she had felt the pendulum swing it had turned against her, sweeping her from the pedestal she climbed upon once she refused to leave his home. She looked into his eyes and knew he would not easily back down. He was not a man to be cowed.

"Because I saw your talent. I saw what you were and what you could become if you took the time to see it for yourself. Is this what you want, Christine? To argue with me? Is this how you intend to repay me?"

"You offered to teach me as my angel. I never asked you to spend your nights as my teacher."

"I've given you everything," he said coldly.

Christine slowly shook her head. "That's not true," she whispered, turning her head to the side as she gazed into his torrid eyes.

"What in the hell are you doing?"

The way he gripped her arms and stared at her was the most powerful thing she had ever witnessed. He exuded fierce, masculine strength and stubborn, aggressive possession. She should have been quite frightened, as for every ounce of manliness before her was equaled by rage. But while he could harness his anger still, there was nothing to hold back what he was: a very passionate man.

Christine looked into his blazing eyes and saw her own anger, her own passion, and her own pain. She closed her eyes to all of it and parted her lips, finding his mouth fit perfectly against hers, begging him to surrender one last thing.