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Phoenix	By : LadyMeda Category: M through R > Phantom of the Opera Views: 4486 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Phantom of the Opera or any variation thereof. I do not make any money from this fiction. Tags include things that will be in future chapters.

Chapter List
- 15
- 16
- 17
Meg could not suppress a smile as the fearsome and elusive Opera Ghost napped peacefully beneath her head. He had been asleep for nearly fifteen minutes, still wearing his mask. She couldn't help but wonder if he always slept with it on. The hard surface looked far from comfortable.
Stirring Erik as little as possible, she rose off his chest. With delicate fingers, she lifted the mask from his face to reveal the marred and disfigured flesh beneath. It was a sight that should have caused her to recoil; but instead it was like a secret part of him that he trusted only to her. In that way it was beautiful. She touched his distorted cheek with a tentative hand, testing the way it felt under her fingertips.
As her fingers ran across the ridges of his scarred skin, Erik began to stir. Meg hid the mask behind her just as his eyes slowly opened. He focused on her face, and for a split second his brow furrowed. But quickly the look of confusion turned into a quirky little half-smirk that made her heart melt.
“I thought this was another dream.” He said blearily before propping himself up on an elbow to look at her.
“If it is, let me never wake.” She replied with a warm smile. As Erik swooped down to steal a kiss, she wrapped a hand around his unveiled cheek. As soon as her palm touched him, his entire body solidified like a steel rod.
Meg watched him bolt upright, gripping his face to hide himself. A swift hand began rifling through the bedsheets.
“Looking for this?” She asked, holding up the slip of ivory. She knew it would most likely ignite his rage, but she didn't care. She wanted him to learn to be comfortable around her without it.
To her surprise and dread, he only looked at her with a tinge of sadness.
“This is the second time you've decided to steal the monster's face.” Erik lamented, still covering half his features. “Why do you torment me so?”
Her heart wrenched at his words, but she held to her convictions. He moved to take the mask from her, and Meg snapped her arm back behind her shoulder, holding it away. He leaned farther in; their noses were nearly touching as she reached up to grasp the hand that covered him. With a gentle pull, she moved to coax it away from his face.
“I am here with you.” She said, looking into his silvery eyes. “ALL of you. No second thoughts.”
Erik hesitated for several moments before reluctantly letting her pull the hand away from his profile.
“Trust in that, and maybe some day your scars will begin to heal.”
His eyes skirted away, another twinge of pain traveling over his expression. “They cannot heal. I have had them since birth.”
Her soft chuckle drew his conflicted gaze back to her.
“Not these scars.” Meg placed a tender kiss on his ruffled cheek. “I mean the ones here.” Her hand fell to cover his heart.
As he looked at her with a slow understanding, there was a moment of realization in their shared glance; indescribable in significance and yet so palpable it was as though it etched itself in the expanse of time. For several long seconds his emotions were utterly unreadable; but a shaky, quivering smile swept across his lips. The mask dropped forgotten from Meg's hand as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her body on top of his.
“You amaze me.” Erik said, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “You have a way of looking at me that makes me feel... whole.”
“You are whole.” She answered, running a hand through his hair. “You are brilliant, mysterious, talented, passionate, brave, generous... To ask the heavens for any more virtues would be unfair to the world.”
Erik's arms tightened around her as he pushed forward to bind their lips together in a desperate kiss, a single tear transferring from his cheek to hers. The shift of energy was almost electric as she felt his arousal press once again into her thigh. Wordlessly he pushed inside her; and the indecipherable mix of pleasure and pain made her gasp aloud.
“This is what you do to me.” He whispered in her ear with a soft thrust of his hips. “I want to be a part of you in every way, at every moment. How am I ever again to think of anything but you?”
“You will have to try.” Meg told him with a soft giggle. “People will worry if I do not return soon.”
Erik groaned into her neck. “Those people be damned. You are mine, and they cannot have you” For a split second, Meg worried that it was not a jest. But with a sigh, Erik pulled out of her and deposited her back on the bed.
Meg smirked as she nestled back into the covers. “I think the real owner of the Opera would disagree with you.”
“Is that so...” Erik's voice suddenly trailed off as if lost in thought. In a flash he was up and donning a black satin robe. He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes darting to his mask as if contemplating whether to put it back on. To Meg's relief, he made no move for it.
“I will return shortly.” He told her, and rushed out the door without any further explanation. And so she was left there, sitting alone on his bed, feeling quite out of place.
Seconds grew into minutes. Meg began to rustle in the sheets as minutes piled into what felt like hours as she sat unoccupied and unsure in his room. Eventually she grew restless. She climbed off the mattress to go find him.
As soon as Meg stood upright, a flood of moisture crept down the inside of her thighs. She looked down to see them tinted with the blood of her lost virginity. Her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. Quickly as possible, she wrapped his bed sheet around herself like a toga; thanking the heavens that they were black.
Meg shuffled out and then through the expansive hallways, listening for any sound of where Erik had gone. Finally she found him in his music room. He was sitting at a desk with his back to her, scribbling away at something.
“I told you I would return shortly. Did you not believe me?” His hand didn't even pause its movement as he spoke into the paper.
“That was some time ago.” Meg approached, curious to see what he was so urgently writing. “What are you doing?”
“What color would you like the new carpet in your room to be?” Erik continued as if she hadn't spoken.
She looked at him with dumbfounded confusion. “What? Why? How could you... you have no way to... How would you get them to--”
Erik cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Choose.”
“Erm... red maybe? I don't know. What is this all about?”
He continued scribbling. Meg stepped up to stand over his shoulder just as he folded the piece of paper and tucked it into an envelope. Practiced hands dripped wax on the envelope's flap and embossed it with a blaring skull seal.
Seconds ticked by and he still he did not answer her, even as he hopped up and opened what appeared to be a chute of some sort. He placed the letter inside, closed the hatch, and began pulling on a loop of chain that draped from the ceiling; stopping only when a clank sounded from far above. Her thoughts were alight with curiosity, confusion, worry, irritation and a plethora of other emotions she couldn't quite put a finger on.
“Erik, answer me! What is going on?”
It felt like an eternity before he finally turned towards her. She was relieved to see that there was a tender smile on his face. When he swept forward and picked her up to carry in his arms, it took her by complete surprise.
“Did I worry you?” He asked, placing a kiss on her cheek. “I was simply requesting a few things.” It did not escape her attention that he still kept the blemished side of his face turned away.
“From who?” She asked as he took her back down the hallway.
“I had a mind to tell you during the masquerade.” He said as he pushed through the door adjacent to his bedroom. “But it seemed like neither the time nor the place.”
Meg looked around at her new surroundings to find a cozy bathroom with a very large tub. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched steam rise from within the expansive basin. It had been a very long time since she had been able to enjoy the luxury of a hot bath. As in most places in Paris, it was cold or nothing.
Erik placed her on the floor and began to unwrap the bed sheets. She seized up with embarrassment as the fabric slid past her thighs; doing her best to cover the tinge of blood on them. To her relief he paid no attention, taking her hands to help her into the bath.
She sank into the exquisitely warm water with a blissful sigh, watching as he shed his robe. Her cheeks flushed again as she saw that he too bore the mark of her prior innocence. But he seemed to neither notice or care, and climbed into the tub behind her. His strong legs cradled around as he pulled her to him. Meg laid back against his solid frame.
“What were you going to tell me at the masquerade?” She asked as his hands began to rove over her body; half cleaning and half exploring of their own volition.
“Well...” He started. She could hear the smirk in his voice. “The night of the masquerade, I was parading about as the owner... because I am the owner.”
Meg let out an incredulous laugh, splashing water back at him playfully. That wasn't possible. It just wasn't. “Come on, tell me! What was it really?”
She waited for Erik to answer, but he simply locked his arms together beneath her breast, pulling her in tight. The longer she sat waiting for him to speak, the more her mind began to race. “Erik?” She questioned unsuredly.
He chuckled into her hair. “It is a long story. Are you certain you wish to hear it?”
“Of course I do!” She insisted.
He ran his strong hands down her arms and interlaced his fingers with hers.
“When your mother brought me here as a boy, I had no concept of money. I hadn't the slightest idea how much or little a franc could buy. I knew only that people found them important enough to kill for. So I decided to acquire some. I began acting as the Opera Ghost, chose an amount at random, and demanded it as a monthly salary. To a 12 year old boy, twenty thousand francs seemed a reasonable number.”
Erik's voice was laced with amusement as he continued. “How was I to know that twenty thousand francs was enough to buy a small estate? The irony is that its very difficult for someone who looks like I do to actually spend money. I learned it aroused far less suspicion to simply take what I wanted instead of buying it. So by the time I fled Paris nearly three decades later, I had accumulated a little under six million francs.”
Meg's head was reeling. She wasn't sure if it was from Erik's words, the steam, or both. “Six million...” Her voice trailed off as she attempted to process it all.
Erik continued on, but some of the twinkle had faded out of his voice. “After the fire, I longed for a place that was as different from Paris as possible; some place where the sights and smells wouldn't constantly remind me of... her.”
The mention of Christine brought Meg out of her stupor a bit. A twinge of jealousy reared its head. Erik must have sensed it, because he hugged her tighter as he spoke.
“I wanted to leave my old life behind. Tales of Persia had always fascinated me, and before I knew it I was on a boat. Soon I was a stranger in a strange land. The people of this new place seemed to take my mask in stride with my pale skin and light eyes. They regarded it as nothing more than a curious custom of my foreign birth. I found work as an engineer, architect, and even magician as I learned their language. It was the latter of the professions that earned me the attention of the Shah-- the Emperor-- of Persia. He employed me to do an endless number of odd jobs.”
“Like what?” Meg interrupted, glancing back at him. It was obvious by the way his eyes skidded away that he'd hoped she wouldn't ask.
“Some were wonderful things.” Erik answered nonchalantly. “He had me re-design his entire palace, sparing no expense.”
A storm of emotion suddenly clouded over his features. With a heavy sigh he continued. “Other things the Shah demanded were as terrible as his new palace was magnificent. And those are things that you do not want to hear about.”
“I DO want to hear about them.” Meg insisted even as worry spread through her stomach.
Erik hesitated before giving her a single, terse nod. “Very well. But please understand that I am a very different person now.”
“I understand.” She told him, turning in his arms to place her head on his chest.
After a hefty pause, he continued. “It wasn't long before he demanded that I build him an elaborate torture chamber beneath the palace. I had a mind to refuse, but the Shah is not someone you have the option of turning down. Little did I know that he had larger things in store for me. A few months after its completion, I was sent on my first mission to hunt down a political spy. It was far from the last. The Shah's blood-lust far exceeded mine, but there was little I could do without forfeiting my own life along with his victim's. Before I knew it, I became the Shah's personal Angel of Death.”
Erik paused again, looking at her with worry as if gauging her reaction; but even Meg wasn't sure how she felt. This new knowledge filled her with a dull fear. But the words were almost unreal to her. It was difficult to imagine the tender hands that wrapped around her now, killing at the whim of another. After searching her eyes for several moments he tentatively continued.
“With that power and prestige came a wealth that made my earnings in Paris look like a pauper's wages. Before long, I was one of the richest and most feared men in all of Persia. But I could not enjoy it. It felt no different than being in the gypsy's cage; only this time it was I that inflicted the pain on others.”
Erik seemed lost in reflection, running an absentminded hand down the curve of her hip. “Some part of me thought it would be empowering to act as the hammer instead of the anvil. It wasn't. I quickly learned to deal in secrets; desperate for anything that would free me from the Shah's grasp. After a year or two, my plan backfired. He sentenced me to death for knowing too much.”
Meg looked up at him, utterly overwhelmed but desperate to hear more. Thankfully he did not disappoint.
“If it had not been for the Daroga... the head of the Persian police and the man who now sits as manager to our very Opera house... I would have been tortured and eventually died in the prison I myself created. He used his position to fake my suicide, leaving me just enough time to collect my assets and escape back to Europe.”
Erik's voice grew quiet with contemplation as he stared off into the past. “To this day, I do not know why he did it. I have never dared to ask.”
Meg had a mind to speak; but as she opened her mouth, a thousand thoughts tried to tumble out at the same time. “Butwha... howdidyou... ”
With a shake of his head as if to clear away the memory, he continued. “I traveled back to my home continent, glad to be free of the Shah's hold. I toured Europe for a time, still unwilling to return to the shadow of a life I'd left behind. Eventually news reached me that the Paris Opera was to be condemned. No one was willing to risk the investment to re-build it. With everything I had experienced across the ocean, there was a large piece of me that longed for the simplicity of residing in the Opera once again. I finally came back to Paris to visit the ruins, and found none other than the Daroga himself. It seems that shortly after I'd left Persia, his deceit had been discovered and he was exiled for aiding me. Together again in Paris, we hatched a plan to buy and rebuild the Opera.”

A bit of the storm returned to Erik's eyes. “Martine Beaudet Senior was more than happy to accept the 19 million riyal I offered him and convert it into francs.”
Meg caught the turmoil in his voice. “What does that equate to in francs?” She asked, half in curiosity and half in an attempt to distract him from the unrest of giving money to her attacker's family.
“It came out to somewhere near 44 million francs.”
Meg's gasped, looking at him with wide eyes. He held up a cautionary hand. “But I spent most of it rebuilding the Opera house. I have less than 10 million left now.”
“Oh, is that all?” She asked with bewilderment.
Erik's grip around her waist tightened. Water splashed everywhere as without warning he spun her around to place her beneath him.
“Do you think you could ever love such a poor man?” He asked with a hint of renewed jest. It took only a moment for Meg's own spunk to surface.
“I think that for love... I could manage.”
- 15
- 16
- 17
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Phoenix