The Angel's Shadow || The Phantom of the Opera || Book Two

7. Uninvited Guests

Chapter Seven || Uninvited Guests

Erik

During the next few days Mélodie spent most of her time catching up with her brother. It was amusing watching them tease and pick on eachother. Over the years I have tried to avoid wondering what it would be like to have a brother or sister of my own. Would we share the same eyes like Mélodie and Dantes do? Would we both have the same passion for music? Or would we be completely different. Would they shun me and cast me out like my mother and father had? Would they fear me, think me a monster like the human race does?

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I am to be a father myself now. I am starting my own family with Mélodie, my wife, my only family. It both frightened and exhilarated me beyond imagination.

Tonight is the night of the grand party Dantes is throwing for Mélodie and me and the two of them were all over the place preparing for it. Dantes told Mélodie she needn't do anything but her fingers itched to help with something. I imagined how miserable she must of been when she had been Queen with maids forbidding her to even lift a finger and I had to laugh. The lair loved her for her need to clean. I think if the lair actually had a spirit it would despise me for abusing it the way I did.

I looked around my music room, sheet music splayed out everywhere. Mélodie hadn't complained, most likely because it reminded her of the lair and made her feel more at home. Passing the small table I came across the bundle of sheet music Mélodie had wanted me to play for her. Picking up the stack of papers I read the title, "Beneath A Moonless Sky". My breath shuddered on its way out.

It has been so long since that night with Christine. It was the night I had left her. I didn't leave her as a form of revenge for when she left me. I left her because I knew I couldn't bring her happiness. I left because of what I often thought when I was with Mélodie - I didn't deserve her.

Why did Christine choose now to reenter my life? Why now after all these years? Why now when she had a son and a husband? Why now when I finally have a family of my own?

I held the sheet music closer to the light and read the lyrics I had written. Images from that night so long ago invaded my mind and I had to put the music away before I...before I don't know what. Scream? Cry? Find Christine?

No. I wouldn't find Christine and I wouldn't allow her to find me. Not now. Our time has passed and a new chapter in our lives have started. New chapters in completely different books.

Sitting down at my organ I saw the note I had received a few days ago. I read the first line: Angel,

I crumpled the note in my hand and tossed it into the fire place. A knock on my door brought me from where I had buried my head in my hands. The door quietly opened and my wife's head popped in, "Darling, are you busy?"

The flutter I got whenever I heard her voice danced in my chest, "There is always time for you, mon amour (my love)."

Her smile lit up the dark room when she entered and my jaw went slack when her gown came into view. She stood with her gloved hands behind her back and a shy smile on her crimson lips, "What do you think?"

My eyes raked down her gown, the color crimson like her lips. Red. The color of desire. There were gems on the inside of the top see through lair of the skirt, making it twinkle like stars. The lace bodice was slightly loose around the middle to accommodate the roundness of her growing stomach and the neckline dipped a little too low for my approval. It exposed the tops of her breasts that I could tell were beginning to swell. No one but me should be able to see this much of her skin. Thin red lace went up her chest, forming a wide V and morphed into gauze sleeves that stopped below her shoulders. I trailed my finger over the top of her breast and along the lace lining going up to her shoulder. I could see the goosebumps form on her ivory flesh. I brought my hand down her arm and stopped where her red satin gloves began right above her elbow. My other hand gently pulled one of her curls and my voice came out raspy, "You're breathtaking." I softly dragged my finger along her jaw to her chin, "But when are you not breathtaking."