Page 40 of Angel's Fall

“Mostly?”

“I told you about the doctor we worked for and lived with, Doctor Mainville,” Christine went on. “He told me after I got better that the disease meant I might not be able to have children. I thought it was so odd to say that, but now, maybe, I think he was right, and—”

Erik pulled her to him before the tears could come. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if that’s even the right thing to say, but I am.”

“I don’t even know what I feel or why.” Somehow, it was safer to whisper it into her lover’s shoulder in the dark. “I know it would ruin everything and I wouldn’t be ready and all of that, but I think I was hoping for some sign I wasn’t broken or—”

“You’renotbroken.” Erik hooked a finger under her chin to make her look into his eyes. Christine opened her mouth to protest. “And I don’t say that because I don’t want you having a child. That’s not for me to decide for you, I know. I mean to say that either way, whatever happens; to me, you will never be broken. You’re perfect.”

“You know I’m not,” Christine breathed back. “More than anyone, you know what I’ve done.”

“And more than anyone, I know that you are good,” Erik protested, twining his fingers into her hair, a familiar gesture for them now. “Your soul isn’t tainted. Not like mine.”

It was her turn now to argue. “You know I don’t think that.”

Erik shook his head ruefully. “You are too kind, as always. I lied to you too, you know. Or omitted.” Christine blinked in concern. “You told me to write an opera, and I didn’t tell you that I’ve already written one. Or started to.”

“That’s not really the same—”

Erik’s frown stopped her. There was something deadly in his eyes. “I had the idea decades ago, to rewrite a story of damnation into triumph. That’s why I called itDon Juan Triumphant. It was an idea that kept coming back to me in my darkest moments. When I was hurt in the fire – when I left my father to die – I ran here, to the Opera, and began to compose. And more than that.”

Christine tightened her grip, holding on to the warmth of Erik’s body against hers as cold and darkness seeped into his voice. “More?”

“I was delirious with fever from old wounds and new. I didn’t just write an opera, I devised a plan. It was more than music – it was the design for the end of the Opera above me and everyone in it.”

“Erik...”

“I have conceived of evil beyond your dreams,” he pushed on. “You say you love me, for all the terrible things that means and that you are willing to do. But what I was willing to do for hate...”

“Imagining is not doing.” Christine stared into his golden eyes, hearing her own words of consolation to the killer who shared her bed. “And you didn’t do it. You said you started yourDon Juan, but you never finished it.”

“I thought I would though; that I’d take the score to my tomb with me and—” Erik shook his head. “My better angels stopped me. Still, what I want to say is that I know what darkness is – what broken is. And that is not you.”

“It’s not you either. I won’t allow it to be. Do you hear me? That’s all done. It’s in the ashes with your lasso.” Erik opened his mouth, perhaps to protest or confess more, but Christine stopped him with a kiss, deep and tender. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Erik replied, utter devotion in his eyes now, and it terrified Christine to think of the power she had over a man who confessed to such crimes. Or maybe that power was as much of an illusion as anything else.

“Hold me, please,” Christine ordered, and again, Erik complied, pulling her against his scarred skin. “Tell me that it’s better this way, if I can’t bear a child.”

“It’s better for my bloodline not to carry on, but I think you’d be a good mother, if you wanted to be,” Erik said, and it stung Christine’s heart in a new way. “What we have now, it’s good enough. Remember that we have this. Close your eyes and forget everything else but this.”

Christine tried. It was easier when he began to sing; easier to forget all the pain and death and loss and useless dreams. Her hopes of a normal life that would never be real were as futile as Erik’s plans to destroy everything above. It was all dreams. All illusion and nothing more.

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