My other hand, wandering through his silky black hair, finds the thin cord of his half mask. And without truly considering my actions, I tug at that cord.
The mask slips from his face.
The music stops with a discordant crash.
The Phantom jolts away from me with a snarl. “Fuck you!” He seizes the mask and claps it to his face. But I glimpsed a handful of deep gashes through his cheek and something…somethingmovingwithin those wounds.
A shudder runs over my body, and he notices the involuntary recoil.
“Are you pleased with yourself now?” His voice is like black ice. “You’ve seen what you wanted to see? Time to call the authorities and tell them about the monster? Play out the role of the handsome prince rescuing the damsel from a marauding dragon?”
“No, I—”
“You kissed me to put me off my guard.” His whole body is rigid with fury, but this isn’t just anger—it’s pain, deep as any I’ve ever felt.
I rise from the bench and face him. “I kissed you because I wanted to.”
“Liar,” he hisses.
“You’re the liar.” I’m shaking, like I always do during a confrontation. My stomach feels like jelly. “Stop pretending this is only about Christine!”
His lips clamp tight, and a muscle twitches along his jaw. “It was only supposed to be about her. Her voice, my music. I didn’t expectyou.”
“Right. I’m always the unplanned one. The afterthought, the disappointment.” My lips curl back in a pained sneer. “I know what you think of me and my songs. Yes, I came here to save her from you, but now I’m starting to think she never needed my help. She has fucked you before, hasn’t she? That night when she came to hear me play, I could smell you on her—insideher. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought I was going mad. I don’t trust myself because I’m the worst of my kind, unreliable and dysfunctional. I doubted my own senses, but now Iknowit’s true. You don’t want me? Fine. The two of you just stay here, okay? Stay in your fucked-up stalker fantasy. I’m going home.”
“Home, where they lock you up and revile you?” He takes a sudden step forward. “Where they twisted your mind so thoroughly that you came for me while I was critiquing you?”
“It wasn’t the critique. It was your goddamn gorgeous voice. And…you said my poetry was godlike.”
“I understand you now.” He’s right in front of me, shirtless, glorious, dominant. “You crave praise, little poet. I can give you that. And as for Christine, shechoseto have sex with me. She came on my cock like she came on your fingers last night. Yes, I heard the two of you. Iwatchedyou.”
“You fucking creep.”
The Phantom wraps his hand around my throat, a light compression, but the threat of his strength is there.
“I don’t play by human rules,” he hisses. “I am agod. I have every right to observe anything I please, especially when it takes place in my domain, not to mention in my fuckingbed.”
“A god?” I choke out a laugh. “God of what? Candles and canals?”
“Delightful alliteration, little poet, but no. God of death, in fact.”
“Death, huh? And you’re going to kill me now?”
“Kill you, kiss you, tie you to the canal gate and edge you until you scream—I haven’t decided yet.”
Shock rolls through me in a blazing thrill. I can’t decide which fate I’d rather endure.
A rustle of curtains draws our attention, and we both look toward the bed as Christine emerges, flushed and sleepy. “What thehellare you two fussing about? I was having such a nice dream…”
She yawns, and I stare, speechless, because Christine hasfangs. A double set of them. Long, white, sharp fangs.
The Phantom clears his throat. “Could this dream of yours possibly have involved blood?”
She frowns. “What?”
He taps his lips, and Christine’s hand goes to her mouth.
She prods the fangs. “Oh…shit.” She sighs, shrugs, and looks helplessly at me. “Fine, I’m a vampire. He’s a god. Get over it.”
