Chapter 4

Cherrill opened her eyes and stared up at the dark, cathedral ceiling. She could feel something pressing down on her very tender skin and moved an arm to find out that it was only a silk sheet – the lightest Michael could find, she somehow knew, so that she could sleep and heal herself.

"You're awake, mon Cheri," she heard a special, loving voice from beside the bed.

She smiled at the romantic phrase and only now realized that, with all the pain and punishment she had permitted yesterday, there had not been a single, damaging mark to her face. None of her facial muscles complained in the least as she turned her head and smiled at him.

Other movements immediately attracted her attention, though, and she felt confused for a moment. She was still cut and injured. "You didn't heal me?" she asked, surprised that her voice sounded so dry and unused.

"You're a Phoenix," came the reply as Michael stood up and gazed down at her in what she thought might be a concerned, perhaps even perturbed manner. "You can heal yourself. My question is, 'Why didn't you?' Why did you want me to see you like this?"

He pulled the sheet away, holding it in his hand as he gazed down at her wounds. He had done quite a bit of healing on her last night, after he had found her at his door, but he only did enough so that he was certain she wouldn't die.

"I wanted..." she croaked, realizing he really was upset with her and wishing her voice wasn't so raw. Thinking about why she should sound like that, Cherrill realized she'd likely strained her voice with all that screaming when Frank had horsewhipped her.

"Good! She's awake!" Elaine chimed as she swept through the rounded, curtained doorframe. "Here's some water for you, darling, and one of Jonathan's special pastries."

She sat the tray down on a dresser and scowled at Michael, who was still holding the sheet up away from Cherrill's very naked body from when he'd been frowning down at all the whip marks and cuts. Unless his wife had run a gauntlet of knife-wielding men, there was only one instrument that would cause that kind of damage. 'Frank whipped her!'

Angrily dropping the sheet down, he made an image of Frank in his mind in order to teleport to wherever Frank was. That man needed to answer for what he'd done. Before he could focus his energies, however, the image was suddenly clouded over. Elaine's voice boomed inside his head.

'Do not leave this room! Your mate has something to say to you!'

He stared at Elaine, not realizing she had that kind of power. She simply smiled at him, then handed the goblet of water to Cherrill, who drank it, eagerly and noisily.

Cherrill swallowed, more than grateful for the refreshing, life-giving sensation of welcome, cool wetness in her mouth and throat, then sat up, still somewhat confused about the fact that she was still injured. The sheet had fallen from Michael's hand and slid sideways off the bed like a soft, fluttering wing and pooled on the floor so that all the cuts and welts on her body were easily visible.

Cherrill sat up, ignoring her whip welts and bruised nakedness. "Please..." she murmured, grateful that her voice sounded much more feminine, now.

Michael stepped back, his frowning face easing a bit when his angry eyes met her pleading ones. He sighed and looked around for a second, embarrassed by his earlier anger. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine why you would allow..."

'Michael... ' he heard Elaine gently silencing him in his mind. 'Sit down so she doesn't have to stare up at you and let her speak.'

"Alright," he replied audibly and, after locating a low footstool, pulled it up and sat down on it.

"I'm..." Cherrill began, then started over. "I didn't mean to make you ... to upset you. I did this..." she looked down at herself, "to show you. How much I love you, and how much I would be hurt if you ever left me. I thought it would be ... more ... romantic, maybe."

'She thinks I'm going to leave her?'

"I ... I ... Where?" Michael stammered. "Where did you get an idea like that? And why do you think I might ever want to leave you?"

"I ... it's ... We were at the lodge," Cherrill began, "and ... Frank and Tanya were, well, Tanya was bragging about how she lets Frank do things to her, you know? Like – with whips and knives and, sometimes, he even shoots her – empty a whole box of bullets into her."

"And you wanted to find out what that was like?" Michael asked. "Didn't you experience that during your Phoenix training?"

"Well, yeah," Cherrill agreed, "but that was just for learning. I never really let anyone, uh, 'max me out' like that. I mean, I would die, and then regenerate. But, I never..."

"I'm not sure I understand," Michael replied. "You wanted to be, like, skinned or something?"

"No, of course not!" Cherrill denied. "I just ... Vanessa said that sometimes a woman would..." She bit her lower lip as she tried to explain. "She would ... maim herself ... to prove to her warrior how much she was willing to endure – because of her love for her man. You see. It's an old custom and it sounded a lot more romantic when she talked about it than it was actually doing it..."

"You're talking about Frank and Tanya?" Michael asked, his eyebrows making several cute curves as they rose up his forehead. "Tanya's been a Phoenix for more than a week, unlike you, and she can take care of herself. What I want to know is why you let Frank do this to you?"

Tears began running down Cherrill's cheeks as she opened her mouth and tried to explain. Several times. She blushed and turned her head away, hoping it would be easier to talk without seeing him stare at her like she was crazy.

"I wanted to show you how much I loved ... I love you," she said, her voice shaking with fear and uncertainty. "It probably seems really dumb to you. But..." she looked back at him, "I thought it was important ... something you should know."

Michael gazed at her for a few minutes, then got up and sat down next to her on the bed. Placing his hands gently on her skin, and all the welts still visible, he pressed his cheek against the side of her head.

"You don't have to prove anything to me," he promised her. "I chose you because you are the most beautiful, the most fascinating, the most..."

"That's too many 'mosts' for me to believe," Cherrill interrupted, trying to put a smile in her voice.

"Fearless..." Michael continued, ignoring her interruption, "woman I have ever met. I fell in love with you the moment our minds touched."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Cherrill murmured, pleased that he was no longer upset with her. "And, just incidentally, Tanya's been letting Frank whip, stab and shoot her for a lot longer than she's been a Phoenix. Frank showed me some of the stuff they've collected over the last century or so."

"She has Goddess Blood in her veins," Michael replied. "It's in her nature to seek out pain."

"I don't have the Goddess's blood in my veins," Cherrill replied, turned so she could look at him. "But I still wanted to know..."

"You want to know what it's like to feel that way," Michael smiled at her. "What was your strength to be able to die as a Phoenix?

"It's always painful to be shot, or gutted," Cherrill explained. "I hated that part. But, the promise of regeneration kept me at it until I succeeded. Regeneration feels like ... nothing else on earth!" Her eyes gleamed as she spoke. "It was worth all the pain to learn to do that. To experience that, and know that I'll never permanently die."

"But you don't seek out pain..."

"I did, yesterday," Cherrill grinned. "And it still hurt like hell. That guy shooting that ugly little machine gun at my tits – Oh, Goddess, it hurt. But I still had an orgasm. If I could just learn how to..."

Michael kissed her, knowing he had the solution to her desperate wish. As the wonderful kiss deepened, Cherrill suddenly jerked back.

"You bit me!" she exclaimed. Feeling around the inside of her mouth with her tongue, she added, "You drew blood!"

"Exactly," Michael replied, an odd smile on his face. "Now you do it to me."

"Bite you?" Cherrill asked, clearly horrified at the thought of harming her beloved. "Why would I do that?"

Michael sighed, realizing it would be easier to simply do it himself.

"What are you doing?" Cherrill yelped as she watched Michael bite down on his own lower lip, drawing blood.

Instead of answering, he simply leaned forward again, kissing her deeply and forcing his lower lip between her own lips.