Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet Read Free Page A

out behind them as they passed. It saddened her, as if something precious were being swallowed up again.
    At the dock, he set her down, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her, white hair and black cloak falling around them.
    “My priestess, you’ve served me well. Allow me to serve you.”
    He knelt, dropping kisses along her throat and collarbone, then gathered her breasts in his hands and rained licks and kisses on them. Under his ministrations, their ache lessened. His hands ran over her back as he kissed her belly, never once hesitating over the horrible scars. Cupping her bottom, he eased the sting there, too, and his tongue between her thighs sent wings of rolling pleasure through her limbs.
    She buried her fingers in his silky hair, her thighs flexing as the sweet, slow orgasm suffused her limbs. His mouth drank from her, strong arms holding her steady as she sighed and moaned.
    With grave gallantry, he swung off his cloak and draped it over her nakedness. Stepping into the boat, he held out a hand to help her in.
    He rowed her back across the lake, darkness deepening as the last of the candles winked out behind them.
    Time to return to the other world.
     
    “Does it have to end?” She stopped him, after he removed her blindfold but before he could dissolve or slip away or however he disappeared. She wound her fingers into his still loose hair, white in the shadows. “Come with me. Or let me stay.”
    He wrapped his hand around hers, those lips she knew so well curving while he cupped her cheek. “I cannot. And you cannot. Our worlds are divided. I cannot live in yours and you cannot live in mine. Though your sacrifice, the pain and pleasure we shared, has changed much, it hasn’t altered the chains that bind me.”
    “What will?”
    His thumb passed over her lower lip and he followed it with his mouth, tender and sweet. “To ask the question is to answer it.”
    “I don’t understand what that means.”
    “You are both the lock and the key.”
    “Are you saying that I’m keeping you trapped?”
    “In a way.” His lips found the urgent pulse beat in her throat and she lifted her chin, offering herself again and again. “I smell it in your blood—both my captor and my savior.”
    “I don’t understand enough.”
    “You will. You have brought me gifts beyond price, my priestess. My Christine.”
    “I love you.” She said it in a rush, wishing she had better words than the bare phrase that had to represent the depth of emotion rushing through her like a river.
    “You are forever my love. Nothing will ever change that. Though I’m trapped below, I am with you in thought and feeling at every moment. Remember that.” And then he gave her one last kiss and slid from under her hand, a drift of white sand sliding from the shore and out to sea.
    Her prince, trapped in the tower.
    But not forever. Because she had the power to save him.

3
    S he stepped out of the opera house into the cool June night, locking the doors behind her. Overhead, the Milky Way stretched in a brilliant glitter. Stars flickering with prismatic color seemed to wheel in spirals like the swirling galaxies depicted at the planetarium.
    Her body ached in every way imaginable and inside she felt as sparklingly alive as the night sky. The two seemed to be reflections of each other. What had Roman’s priest called it? Mortification of the flesh . Somehow Christine knew he hadn’t been thinking of the kind of carnal ceremony she’d just gone through. Ursa Major, the great bear, strode through the glittering stream of stars and she smiled to think of him. They would find a way. She knew it.
    Love conquered all, didn’t it?
    It couldn’t be just a cliché.
    Shivering, she pulled out her phone to call a cab company. Then she spotted Hally’s little VW Bug, not far away under one of the muted, downward-facing parking lights. Inside, Hally slept in the driver’s seat, tilted back nearly horizontal, her unnaturally red hair catching