A/N: Thank you for the reviews :) ...chapter deserves the rating...and now…

Chapter LXXXI

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The dream began as always.

In the whorls of silver mist, Christine seductively danced nude around where he lay chained and shackled in his confinement of pillows. She drew closer, her smooth skin radiant with the sheen of a pearl, until she hovered over him, taunting and teasing, her hands making stimulating trails along his quivering flesh. Only to tease, never to satisfy. The detestable pattern replayed itself as she lifted his hand to cup her breast, holding it there, her nipple pebble hard against his palm.

Expecting his arm to fall like a dead weight from the agony of wounds that would suddenly appear in rivulets of blood over his chest, as always, expecting her to shriek at him and mutate into the vindictive bastard who shot him and feel the fiery anguish of a second bullet, then a third – Erik was taken aback to find her form remained and his wrists freed of the iron weights that once bound them.

The victor of the nightmare at last, he rapidly rolled her over onto her back and plunged into her with a vengeance. The pleasurable feel of her velvet walls surrounding him caused him to hold steady for a short breathless span before he pulled back. Her lashes fluttered as he filled her fiercely a second time, then a third.

"You'll not defeat me," he growled low near her ear, barely above a whisper, "not this time."

"Wha-?"

Another mad plunge. She moaned, her nails raking his back.

"You don't own me with your lies," he gasped.

"Wha- what do you mean?" she whispered. "Erik?!"

He pushed into her as deeply as he could go, his hands gripping the bottom of her silken thighs. Her body trembled beneath him.

"You'll not escape, you little deceitful Delilah…"

"Erik," she begged, "Please!"

He grabbed her wrists, holding her hands above her head on the pillow, giving no mercy as he branded absolute ownership of her body.

"You will be in chains to me…"

Another fierce stroke.

"You are mine!"

And again…

"MINE!"

Her soft sob broke him from his vengeful dream that faded away like black vapor into the much harsher light of reality. He stilled inside her, blinking his eyes fully awake in the near darkness, looking down to see hers glazed with tears of shock. She was wet and warm around him, there was desire there, but also a pain in her eyes he never wished to see. Fearful confusion drew her brows together.

The real flesh and blood woman. Not the ethereal dream.

"Christine," he whispered her name as an apology, never having wanted to hurt her. The demon siren from his nightmares, yes, but never his beautiful living wife.

"My Christine…"

He cooed her name as a song and gently sucked the tender flesh of her neck, causing her to gasp.

Slowly he rocked inside her creamy depths, enticing her response, coaxing back her trust…until soon her hips matched his sensual rhythm and all that left her parted lips were the soft, desperate cries of pure passion and need. Only then did his strokes resume the determination of before, no longer fierce, but just as deep...

Her fingers dug painfully into his back. Her limbs pressed tight around his, bone crushing bone in the hunger to get closer. Within moments, she shuddered violently beneath him, her heated walls fluttering around him in tight spasms. He seized, pushing his hips flush against hers, his hot seed rushing forth to sear her womb.

For long moments they lay motionless, breathless, clinging to one another as they recovered stability. Once clear thought began to return from the weightless void in which it revolved, he felt Christine pull her arms away from him and push at his shoulders with the heels of her hands. Grimly reminded of what first transpired, he offered no resistance, instead rolling away from her and onto his back.

She struggled to sit up, clutching the sheet to her bare breasts, and glared down at him.

"What in God's name was that?!"

The Phantom closed his eyes, remaining silent, wishing she would forget his initial reaction to her unexpected seduction, though of course such a wish was futile.

She forcefully pushed his shoulder with her palm.

"Erik – answer me…Erik!"

"Forgive me," he said. "I never meant to hurt you."

"You did hurt me – but not how you think. It was your words…" She trailed off and he despised himself for the tears that gripped her voice. "They hurt tremendously. Why would you say such horrid things? To accuse me of deceit? Speaking as if, as if you hated me."

A weary breath escaped his parted lips. "I don't hate you, Christine. I love you."

"You looked at me, at first, as if I was the lifelong enemy you had just captured, a prize won after a bloody battle. Much like you used to look at me, when you first brought me here."

"It was the dream," he muttered, realizing she wasn't going to yield. "It is of no significance."

"I disagree – what dream?"

"I was unaware, half asleep. Barely awake. It's not important."

"No, it is. I was clearly in this dream you were having – and you were aware of that, speaking to me," she insisted.

Jacques had slept well in his own bed the past two nights, and Christine had hoped to seduce her husband awake into passion, running her hands over the muscles and planes of his chest, tracing each terrible scar with loving tenderness – when the wildcat surfaced, lunged, and abruptly she'd found herself beneath him. Even then, even as he took her with such fierce claim, she had been nothing but desirous for his touch.

A dreadful thought struck her mind.

"Unless, it was not I but some ballet floozy you were exerting complete ownership over. Tell me, is there or was there a dancer above named Delilah? Perhaps you've had other conquests never realized and only fulfilled in this dream?"

At that he sat up with a growl and leaned in toward her, his eyes narrowed a dangerous gold.

"You and I were the sole occupants of that damned dream, Christine. Leave it at that."

He rose from bed, naked, and moved across the chamber to claim the bottle of wine they had lightly touched with an early supper. Pulling the cork free with his teeth, he poured a generous portion into the glass left there. His every action proclaimed his aggravation, while still managing to be fluid and graceful. Somberly she stared at his scarred back, her gaze dropping briefly to the arresting view of his tight buttocks and long, muscled thighs, but for once she felt too upset to admire his svelte masculinity.

"What kind of dream has you treat me like a hated enemy?" she insisted and came to a sudden realization. "Earlier you said 'the' dream, not 'a' dream. You've had this dream before…"

He muttered something under his breath and took a long drink.

"Erik?"

"Yes, damnit, if you must know." He set the glass down with a bang she was surprised did not shatter the crystal. He calmed somewhat. "Not for many weeks, though. This is the first night, likely brought on by our trip into the city and what I learned at the market."

She puzzled over his words. "That I'm wanted in England for murder? But what does that have to do with your dream? You had no knowledge of my crime then."

He turned his head to look at her. "You're not going to let this go."

"You should know me well enough to answer that."

He chuckled, not amused.

"I wanted to forget all of what once happened," he said, "to leave every minute of that time in the past. It can do neither of us any good to speak of such things now."

"Well, clearly that hasn't worked. 'That time' has surfaced into our lives, into our bed, and I want to know what it is you're holding back so that we can finally deal with it and put it forever behind us. Tell me, Erik," she said more softly. "I have sensed for some time that you're keeping something from me. What is it that makes you call me a liar and think I'll turn against you to harm you, speaking as if I've done so before?"

"You did," he muttered tersely, as if he did not wish to say the words but was unable to prevent them from slipping out.

"Did what? Turn against you? I never would. Have I not proven –?"

"The things you said."

"Things I…?" She sighed as the answer came to her. "You mean Berta. I told you, I was angry and hurt and said a lot of things that night that weren't true…"

"Not Berta."

"I just don't understand why you won't believe me when – what?" she asked more quietly, sharply, just comprehending his low words.

He turned fully to face her. "It wasn't Berta." He walked toward the bed and grabbed his wrapper from the floor, throwing the sleeves up around his arms and tying the sash with a violent snap.

"If not Berta, who?" she asked in confusion, a prickling of disquiet making her sit forward.

The grim precision with which he moved, the intensity with which he stared, not with ire but with a studied caution made her now wish to retract everything said and suggest they go back to bed. Yet certainly the mystery behind the uneasy silences when the veil would so suddenly fall across his eyes was worse than the truth that could set things right once and for all, and without that she doubted she would find any sleep. Better they clear up this misunderstanding, as they had all the others, so she could reassure him in whatever else he had mistakenly heard about her.

"Erik…?"

"The Vicomte," he sneered, his eyes narrowing.

"Raoul?" she asked, completely bewildered. She searched her mind for those occasions he cornered her in her dressing room to talk. Was that what upset him so?

"I thought we'd gone past this. When Raoul and I spoke, I only ever took up for you. And those weeks he kept me at the hotel for my protection, I told him numerous times I wanted to go back to the theatre –"

"I do not speak of Paris."

"What then?"

Likewise she reached for her wrapper as if it were a shield, feeling as if his sharp words might wound her, but she had to know, especially if it involved another lie about her. Never taking her eyes off her husband, she carelessly punched her arms through the wide sleeves and brought the wrapper tight around her, tying the sash.

"What, Erik…? Tell me!"

The bitterness previously missing crackled in his incandescent eyes that burned like twin flames.

"You want to know so badly, Christine?" His voice flowed like dark silk, musical, a gentle hum of barely concealed danger. "Very well, then, know you shall. Only you may come to regret those words…"

He prowled closer as he spoke, his anger controlled and simmering beneath a thin surface, pain shadowing his features.

She held her ground, anxious by what he would say, dread evident in each tightly held muscle, but she did not move an inch.

"You told him that you could never be free of me. He asked you to extend your stay at The Grange. You told him that you dare not do so, that I would not be pleased. You told him I was a beastly ogre, brooding and dark, an insufferable boor – your character appraisal hardly complimentary and much the same as what you told Berta. You told him you dare not linger any longer, that you did not wish to make me angry…"

The blood slowly seeped from her face with each sarcastic word quietly uttered, each terrible sentence resurrecting a memory long forgotten. An unwanted conversation she sought to forget the moment it thankfully ended...

It had been during her convalescence from the nasty cur's bite. Raoul found her sulking in the garden, bitter about Erik's absence, which at the time she had not known was a lie. Had not known her childhood companion and lover made every attempt to see her and was turned away. In her hurt pride, she spoke harshly of Erik, using the same horrid names she'd said to Berta, though her verbal attack had not been near as fierce and explosive as that night in the kitchen. And Raoul had taken her angry tears and ill-spoken words completely out of context. Sure that harm might come to her by "the beast's" hand, Raoul urged her to extend her stay at The Grange indefinitely. Frustrated with his tiresome talk of a protection from Erik she did not want or need, frustrated with Erik who seemed no longer to care what happened to her, she had been vague with further discussion, stating only that she must return to The Heights soon, that no matter where she was, he would not let her go – when what she really meant was that her soul was forever bound to Erik's whether she wished it or not. Raoul clasped her hands in comfort, erroneously taking her sudden evasiveness as fear and vowing he would think of something to help free her. Alarmed by his adamant declaration, she harshly stressed that he mustn't do a thing, that it was useless at any rate. Begging him to please let the whole matter drop and wishing he had never found her in the garden, she left him sitting on the bench and hurried into the manor. He never again brought up that vexed moment of her weakness and she had cast the brief discussion far from her mind.

"How could you know such things?" Christine whispered.

"How indeed," he said cryptically. "I was told."

"By the Vicomte?"

But that made no sense. The sole occasion the two bitter rivals had spoken to one another was at the church, and with the seriousness of the situation at hand, their escape and Jolene's death, she doubted such a conversation took place.

"No, my dear. By his lackey, the groundskeeper. He made it a point to shatter my heart with every condemning word he overheard you say in the garden – the vital need you and your boy expressed to be rid of me – and took great delight in informing me between each shot fired into my flesh. It was those words I suffered to hear again and again when my pathetic life was spared, those words I built my revenge upon, those words that haunt me in my dreams where I lie in chains and you taunt me in all your siren-like beauty before you turn into my would-be executioner –"

She listened in horror, desperate not to believe a word he spoke as being true.

"I – I would never plan something so horrible with Raoul," she barely whispered, "I never could…"

He tilted his head, looking at the cave ceiling as if considering the words he'd just spoken and did not hear her.

"He seemed to think that by destroying the monster he would regain favor with the Vicomte, since it was the fool's hound that attacked you. He also mentioned Henri and owing him a debt…And you…"

He turned those burning eyes fully on her.

"He made sure that I knew you wanted nothing more to do with me, that he heard you say it, and would be doing all of you a favor to see me dead – so you could live at the bloody Grange with your insipid Vicomte as long as you damn well pleased. And you did, didn't you? For two entire years you made your home there!"

Oh, God, oh God…she could scarcely think. Her breaths grew trapped, constricting painfully in her chest. She felt dizzy, weighted down, as if the room was closing in on her. Desperately she grabbed the sheet in tight fistfuls on both sides, fighting down the panic.

"I meant none of it," she insisted, the words sounding weak and fragile. How often had she said them? "He came to the garden when I was angry. Hurt. I didn't know that awful man was spying on us. I ..."

The full impact of what he said struck her with a vengeance, severing into her already bleeding soul.

SHE was the wretched fiend responsible for Erik being shot? It was HER careless words overheard that put his near death in motion?!

Now she understood his past bitterness toward her, his outrage, his demand for revenge…

"How you must have hated me," she whispered.

How she hated herself. Her repulsive aid to spur such a horrendous act was never intentional, but that did not change the fact that he almost died because of it!

Erik paced away then sank to the other side of the bed and closed his eyes, wearily shaking his head. He said nothing but didn't need to – she remembered his words about having hated her as much as he had loved her, and how the revelation troubled her so at the time. At last she understood.

"To think all this time you believed I would actually wish for something so utterly horrid as your demise," she went on, her voice trembling, "to, to know that my foolish words would have caused it – that they did cause you being shot…"

Almost brutally, she swiped at the tears streaming onto her cheeks.

"I deserve every bit of what happened in England," she bitterly made the verdict, her punishment just.

"No, Christine," he spoke at last, looking at her over his shoulder. "You do not deserve what Henri did to you. Nothing you ever do would make you deserving of such brutality."

"I don't mean Henri – before that. The things I said and did to hurt you and that caused you to be hurt – God, I never meant to. But I did – I hurt you and still do. It seems I hurt everyone I care about without even trying! I'M the true monster," she sobbed out the words with a condemning laugh. "No more than poison! A serpent, a Medusa, like that awful statue you had. Raoul's friends were right to say he should have locked me in Bedlam and mislaid the key – perhaps a closed cell is where I truly belong!"

Too late, she realized what she'd revealed with her mad spiel of dismay…

And by the mounting horror in his eyes, he understood every word.

x

With a distressed little cry, Christine lurched from the bed and raced out of the chamber, down the stairs, toward the far exit of the main lake room - with no true idea of where she was going, only possessing a burning need to get as far away as possible.

She was appalled by what she'd said, by what she'd done, by what he told her she'd done.

She never once suspected, never once dreamed the truth of his disclosure.

How was she to live with the knowledge that she had very nearly cost her soul mate, her dearest friend and lover his very life?

And how could he ever again look at her the same after what she'd so thoughtlessly spouted of her madness, her wild tongue again proving to be her executioner?

Christine heard his rapid steps hit the stones, coming closer, louder, as he gained on her. He made no effort to conceal his pursuit. She had known all along that escape was futile, had only reacted mindlessly in her devastation to hear, to know, to speak – and when his hands caught her, wrapping around her back and legs and lifting her against his broad chest, she gave no resistance.

"Have we not had enough of running between us?" he rasped and continued at a swift pace down the corridor.

She avoided his eyes, closing hers, and said nothing.

He carried her to her old room, but instead of throwing her to the bed as he once had done in this chamber after she attempted a brief escape when she knew him only as Phantom, he sat on the high mattress, never taking his arms from her, so that she sat in his lap.

"Tell me, Christine, tell me what you meant by what you said."

"Let me go," she insisted, still breathless from her mad run.

"Not bloody likely." He tightened his hold as if afraid she might somehow struggle free from the bands of lean muscled steel around her.

Her emotions teetered on a downward spiral beyond her understanding or control – one moment bitterly sardonic, the next utterly devastated – and a belligerent willfulness to keep what remained hidden crowded past her horrified despair of what he had revealed. She crossed her arms and stared at the rock wall through her tears, refusing to look at him.

This was not how she wanted to reveal the worst year of her life to him. She had been a coward, a fool, each time losing courage before she could tell him. Deciding later, such a revelation would be better said in the dark, lying in his embrace with her back against his chest, so she could not see the pity or the disgust that was sure to be in his eyes. She could better empathize with why he shunned speaking of his face, even baring it, superstitions aside, not wanting to be the recipient of such degrading emotion. For once, darkness would prove a blessing, and she wished that a strong wind would rush inside and blow out the nearby torch.

To her consternation, it continued its steady glow, seeming brighter than ever.

"Surely you heard what I said, Erik. You are reputed to be a genius by all who've met you."

He looked at her gravely, steadily, unfazed by her vain effort to deter him with cynicism.

"What did you mean by those words, Christine?"

She closed her eyes, until time proved her enemy and she could bear his silent demand no longer, knowing him well enough that he would sit in this position with her all night until she told him what he wished to know.

Again she turned her stare to the solid face of the wall that had no eyes to look back. When she spoke, her words came low, clipped and unemotional, hiding the wealth of emotion it took to say them.

"I was a madwoman. Demented. Though not hysterical, except for that first day. The rest of the time, I was sedate and lifeless. You've heard of Bedlam, surely? It's where they put the crazed and insane..."

"I heard rumors that you were deemed a bit mad," he said after a moment, shock filling his voice. "But I did not believe them."

She laughed wryly, loath to give into tears again. "You chose to believe the fiction that I was engaged to Raoul, that I was his mistress, but discounted the truth of my lunacy as idle gossip. You of all people must see the twisted humor in that."

"What happened, Christine?" He sounded far from amused.

"Happened?"

"How did you come to be in such a state?"

"I lost the love of my life," she said without hesitation, braving a look at him as she said it.

His pained eyes went wide with astonishment, one question written plainly in their bright amber depths.

"Yes, Erik – you. Of course you. Who else would it be but you?"

She laid her palm against his scars, relieved that he'd left his mask in their bed. He had allowed her alone to see his true face, flawed and beautiful. Surely she could let him see the true nature of her mottled soul that had been battered and bruised until that one awful day it exceeded its limit. Oddly, now that she admitted to the vile madness, filling in the details wasn't so difficult, especially with him living and breathing and holding her close against the warmth of his body. He had not pushed her away, instead holding to her more strongly. She may have bruises tomorrow, but at the moment she didn't care.

"After I chased you in the storm, begging you to come back, I came down with a terrible fever and almost died, as I told you," she began slowly. "I had barely recovered, still abed, when he told me what happened." She took a deep steadying breath and nestled her head against the comfort of his shoulder. "Henri came into the room and threw your bloody mask at my lap. He gloated that you were dead, shot, burning in hell. I-I could barely comprehend such words, and after they'd all gone from my chamber I flew into a rage, weeping and screaming and tearing what could be torn, breaking what could not. Berta rushed in to stop me, and I attacked her too. And then…" She struggled to remember. "It became difficult to breathe – darkness started to crowd into my vision. I don't remember much after that really. Just a sense of being…closed away from everything." She sought for words to explain the experience. "It was as if I alone existed in this…place of quiet and solitude within a muted sort of darkness. This dense cloud surrounded me, where no one could get to me and I could not leave. At times, I was aware. When they tried to take your mask from my hand, I fought through the cloud to prevent it from being stolen. Other times I heard people speak to me, trying to reach me. I heard Raoul's friends advise him to lock me up in Bedlam and relieve himself of the burden I'd become. That's how I knew I must be mad."

Erik's muscles jumped beneath her, whether from shock of her past dilemma or aggravation to hear the Vicomte's name she wasn't certain, but she realized she'd omitted an important piece of the story. Pressing her brow to the warmth of his neck and the rapid beats of his pulse helped make it easier to continue to speak of such dark things.

"That's how I came to be at The Grange. Arabella later told me that she and Raoul visited The Heights and found me sitting in the kitchen in my nightdress, as if I were one dead, a specter. They took me back with them to receive what care I needed. Berta tried, but she had her hands full with Henri and his new wife and Raoul has a huge staff of servants. I had to be spoon fed and have all my needs met. I could do nothing for myself, only sat like a ghost and stared within the cloud. I don't remember any of that day or the days that followed, except for those brief snatches when I was aware. But there was…pain beyond that cloud of madness, so I chose to stay safe inside where nothing could reach me. Until the day Mozart landed in my lap."

She giggled softly at the thought of her little feline friend, though her heart still felt heavy.

"He was being chased by a maid and found refuge with me. One moment there was nothing but the cloud, the next I was looking into golden eyes – golden, like yours. It was as if I saw your eyes demanding that I come back to life – and then I woke up."

She shook her head a little in remembered surprise and confusion. "I was stunned to discover an entire year had passed and so disgusted and distressed that my body was weak from disuse. I had to learn everything all over again, like a child. How to walk, how to eat, how to speak – even how to brush my horrid nest of hair. I'm surprised they didn't cut it all off for convenience sake. Arabella told me she was tempted a few times, but could never actually bring herself to do such a thing and did manage to brush out the snarls or had one of the maids tend it every morning…"

Christine halted her lighter recounting as drops of hot moisture hit the thin silk of her robe, seeping to her skin. She lifted her head from Erik's shoulder in concern.

His eyes were closed, his cheeks wet with tears.

"Erik?" she whispered, her heart hurting to see his pain. She laid her palm against his twisted damp cheek. "It's alright. Please, don't…"

He grabbed her hand fiercely and held it there. His chest heaved in a curt sob. For a moment he said nothing.

"My God, Christine - how could I have not known any of this?" he asked hoarsely, bitterly. "All I have done to you, all I once believed true…" His eyes at last opened, shimmering with vivid remorse. "How can you not despise the very sight of me?"

Her laugh came soft and abrupt at hearing the mirror of her own fears, with regard to his loathing for her that she had so horribly and blindly orchestrated his death.

"The loss of you is what brought me to that state." Her voice was gentle. "How could I despise what I had so long desired to have back with me, but never once believed possible?"

He shook his head. "I'm not worthy of you. I'm not the same man that left The Heights. You've seen. I fear I can never be that man for you again."

"And I'm not the same woman. My trials have changed me. In some ways, I hope, for the better. I told you once, years ago, that time changes all things and just as the seasons change, we also change – but some things are meant to stay eternal. Do you remember?"

He nodded reflectively, pressed a kiss into her hand, and lowered it from his face.

She had to know though she might regret asking. "Does what I told you, about that year of my madness, and about – about the rest of what I did – does any of that alter how you feel about me now? Can you still love me the same way, knowing all this?"

"How can you even ask that?" He sounded angry though his voice was a lure of velvet softness. "Christine, I have loved you, all the while knowing what you learned only tonight. I brought you to my world, to these caverns, and the insanity of my revenge gave way to the helplessness of my deep-rooted love for you."

She smiled faintly. "And that is what makes what we share eternal, like the air we breathe and the earth under our feet, no matter the changes of who we become. Time can never change what we are to each other." She drew her brows together. "Though I wish I could shape time to take back those words that betrayed you…"

The Phantom frowned at her quiet despair, his mind still swimming in a mire of disbelief and anguish with all she had told him. All she had endured.

"I never intended to tell you that part of what happened. I wanted only to forget. Once I saw you again, after I first brought you here, and witnessed your many kindnesses to Jacques, even to Jolene when she was less than deserving of it, I realized that the sweetness that was within you to care for all living creatures was still there, that you could not have plotted with that insolent boy. That all of what happened was somehow…a mistake."

"Well, I'm glad for that."

He did not tell her of the enduring battle he had waged with heart, soul, and mind to come to that conclusion.

Her dark eyes shimmered with melancholy, and he kissed her temple.

"We have both hurt one another dearly, Christine, and I wish only for us to start anew with our lives. And we will, once we leave these damp, dark caverns and leave Paris. It is clear to me now how much you have greatly suffered, how we have both suffered during the past four hellish years, both of us victims of those who tried to separate us. A calamity I'll not let happen again, whatever I must do to ensure that. But you're not mad, my dear."

"Others might disagree."

"To hell with the others! May their black souls rot."

She smiled sadly at his rapid shift toward anger in her defense.

"There have been times, since then, when I felt it would be easy to slip back into that void of nothingness, even when I first came to these caverns…"

Her pensive words brought to mind her strange behavior the week of her convalescence from the fever, when she seemed to recoil within herself after her vague and panicked reply to his insistence that she speak of her bruises and how she received them. Alarmed at the frightful memory of not being able to reach her, he abruptly stood, forcing her to her feet.

She looked at him in stunned surprise, and he grabbed her shoulders, leaning in so that he was at level with her and staring intensely into her wide eyes.

"Never say such things," he said low, his words vibrating with terrified anger. "Never think of going into that foul cloud of darkness again." He shook her sternly. "Do you HEAR me, Christine?! I won't allow it. You're mine, and I'll NEVER let you go!"

He drew her to him fiercely and held her close, burying his lips in her hair.

"You're all that prevents it," she cried softly against his chest, her arms around his waist holding him just as tightly. "I have no desire to go there ever again—it would no longer be an escape, only a prison. Because I cannot live in a world without YOU in it!"

A still, prolonged silence followed the last of their fervent words of devotion that rang off the cavern walls. And for a time they did nothing but cling to one another like two shipwrecked survivors, and soak up the warmth and reassurance of each other.

"You're not mad, my darling Little Angel, but if so, then what am I?" He forced his words to come light in an attempt to bring a measure of levity to the situation.

"I call myself a ghost, a Phantom. I make my home in a cave five cellars beneath the earth and have brought you here to join me in this life. I frighten people and manipulate them like live puppets with my tricks and taunts. The masterpiece of my Don Juan opera, even with all its acclaim, is said by critics to derive from a madman in form and style. Perhaps, as you are the mate of my soul, my muse, and my diva - we share in this madness?"

He was reassured to feel her softly giggle against him.

"A madness I gladly embrace, this life with you, though I must agree with the critics, Erik. Aminta, as written, is a wretched predator and surely more than a little mad - and not the good kind..."

With his hand wound in her hair, he slowly pulled her head back, his lips twisting into a grim half smile.

"You are never going to let this go, are you?"

She smiled sweetly. "Not until you rewrite the role."

He sighed, brushing the traces of earlier tears from her cheeks. "That I cannot do, my love. I cannot live that desolate time in my life over again. But my next opera, I - we - will shape the lead you will play into a character that pleases you, I swear it. I will even name her Aminta, if my diva commands."

He lifted her gently into his arms, this time laying her on the princess bed. She reached for him, as if she could not bear to be parted even for the short time it took for him to stretch out beside her. Gently he trailed his fingertips along her jaw and down her neck as her fingers trickled against the curls of hair dusting his chest, damp from where she had pressed against him.

The smile on Christine's lips faded and she grew serious once again.

"Erik, there is one more thing I wish to address."

Curious at her abrupt change of mood, he warily nodded for her to go on.

"I have tried exceedingly hard to change those flaws in my nature, and though I've made some progress I haven't always succeeded. I know that's not news to you. But just as you have always wished me to accept you, regardless of your face and your faults and all that went on before, I ask the same. I need you to accept me for who and what I am. I vow to try and curb my wretched tongue, but I have a frightfully wicked temper, as you well know, and I hate the fact but will likely some day again say things when I'm upset and we quarrel that will hurt you. Things I don't mean. And you must promise, if that should happen, never, never again leave me. I can take your angry outbursts much better than your eternal disappearances. And if you should need to walk away for a time – you must promise always to come back to me. Always, Erik."

Seeing the sad tears of reminisce gloss his Angel's eyes and her small shoulders give a faint shudder as if she was about to cry again, he certainly had no desire for that and thought it imperative once more to alleviate the situation.

"I will remind you, before the damnable Fates decided otherwise, I was on my way back to The Heights to confront you for those rash words of yours to Berta, and quite possibly to take you over my knee for a well-deserved spanking. In fact…"

Her eyes widened and all distress evaporated.

"You wouldn't…"

"Oh, wouldn't I?"

He smiled devilishly and she squealed as he grabbed her thigh, pulling her sharply toward him while she vainly struggled to rear back. His strong leg captured both her slender ones, making escape impossible. His palm gave a few good resounding swats to her lovely rounded backside and she yelped then swore at him in her outrage.

"Or maybe another punishment would suffice," he considered calmly, as if speaking to himself, "one that I seem to recall has much more satisfying results than tears of despair or angry curses thrown at my head…"

So saying, his hands found every ticklish rib, causing her to squirm and plead with him in laughter, until she threw her head back on the pillow, tears of mad glee streaming from her eyes.

"Mercy – please! I confess!"

His brow lifted at that. "You confess?" He grinned at the childhood memory of the same justified punishment to fit the crime when she admitted to stealing a peek at his dangerous inventions he ordered her never to touch -

– and he tickled her again.

"Erik- Erik- stop! I can't breathe – mercy! Oh, please - mercy…!"

With one final squeeze to her side, he noted that her wrapper had conveniently come undone in their tussle. Unable to stop himself with such a delectable temptation laid out before him, he leaned in, his lips brushing the rosy peak of her breast.

"You beast," she whispered, faintly hitting his back with her fist as he took the breath from her yet again in this much more enjoyable of torments.

He smiled against her flesh with his victory when she sighed in dreamy submission as he lazily suckled, and her fingers wove through his hair. His hand slipped between her thighs, gently rubbing the sensitive area, already so wet.

She moaned as once again she fell under the dark spell of pleasure her despicable, wonderful Phantom wove deeply around them….

"If this is madness, Christine," he whispered against her in all seriousness as he lightly bit her skin. "Then let us revel in this madness together, for all of one lifetime and beyond..."

Had she the breath and the presence of mind to agree, she would, but Erik immediately captured both, along with her lips and tongue and body, all of which she readily surrendered to him.

xXx