Her Dragon Professor

by Jasmine Wylder

  “It’s weird how different it all looks, now, compared to how it did in my visions.” She recalled the first one she had, of the two of them making love on this very spot. “There used to be a room up here at the top, but it’s gone.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said and kissed her neck. “But I agree. There had been more trees, then…and the temple had been intact, not in its current state of deterioration.”

  Melinda reached into the pocket of her denim capris and tugged out a folded brochure. “According to this,” she said, opening it up, “the Aztec people had waited for Quetzalcoatl to return. They even thought he had, when Cortez showed up from Spain.”

  She craned her neck to grin up at him. “Kind of funny how that’s my last name.”

  “Appropriate,” Roth mused. “After all, you did conquer my heart…”

  “Oh my God.” Melinda laughed and rolled her eyes. “Can I get some wine with that cheese?” She relaxed into his arms and rested her head against his shoulder. “At any rate, they were expecting you – the sky-serpent who came from the stars – to come back. And here you are.”

  She glanced up at his chiseled profile. “Better late than never, huh?”

  “The time of dragons has passed for Earth,” Roth said, squinting out over the land that now appeared dry and barren compared to the lush green jungles of long ago.

  “There are other worlds to explore, now.” He sighed. “I do not think I would like to be looked upon as a god again. Too much responsibility.”

  “Yeah,” Melinda said. “And messy, when you think about all the human sacrifices…”

  “No such rituals occurred under my reign,” Roth said with an indignant snort. “You confuse me with someone else.”

  “My bad.” Melinda turned in his arms and plucked at one of the buttons on his blue chambray shirt, fighting the urge to open one more and expose the full expanse of his hard chest.

  “So, I guess you’ll be taking off soon to go check out those other planets…”

  She found it difficult to look into his eyes, knowing he would see the doubts that had started to surface since they returned to Earth.

  He touched her under the chin with one finger and gently forced her to lift her head.

  “You hide your mind from me,” he said, “and yet I feel your sorrow.” His brows drew together in a frown. “What troubles you?”

  She could have let him see for himself, connect to his energy and allow him to feel her pain as she had once felt his.

  “Hearing you talk about other worlds,” she said. “You’re an explorer. That’s what you were always meant to be – out there in space, making new discoveries…maybe even finding a way to help your people rejuvenate without having to trick women into being sex slaves.” She grimaced. “I guess I’m just afraid it’s all going to end, now.”

  “What will end?”

  “This. Us.” Melinda gave a hopeless shrug and shook her head. “You’re eternal, but what am I?” She smiled and finally managed to look up into his eyes. “I want the best for you…but I’m also going to miss you.”

  Roth stared at her. A rumbling laugh rose from his chest like the roll of thunder on a distant horizon.

  “Still as ignorant as the day we first met,” he said, with a teasing grin. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “As I have told you before, you are mine. You belong to me – but I also belong to you. Our souls are entwined and cannot be separated. Where I go, you go.”

  She blinked. “Are you saying you want me to travel the universe with you?”

  “Of course.” Roth gazed into her eyes and opened his own mind, allowing all his thoughts and feelings to flow forth like a gentle stream, warm and comforting.

  “I spent so many years being angry and rebellious,” he whispered, “I forgot how to be tender and kind.” He smiled. “Then I met you. You unearthed my broken heart, pulled it from the grave and gave life to it once more. You have reminded me how to love. For that and so much more, I will always need you, Melinda. Never leave me.”

  Hearing someone say they needed her, to know she held a place of importance in someone else’s life, filled Melinda with a profound feeling of contentment. Something else he said caught her attention.

  “Hang on,” she said. “Did you just say...I reminded you how to love?”

  “Yes.”

  I need to hear him say it, she thought. I need to know it’s real. She had held off using the words herself, even as she began falling for him. Deep down, despite all that talk about bonding and connections and shared energy, she still did not believe she would ever be capable of finding a special place in another person’s heart.

  Maybe you need to say it first. Even if you’ve been hurt a million times over by everyone you ever said it to, before.

  “Melinda?” Roth looked at her, head tilted slightly. “Are you all right?”

  “I love you,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  Roth blinked. Melinda braced herself, certain that she had just ruined everything.

  Then he said, “I love you, too.”

  Startled, Melinda raised her head and stared at him. “R-really?”

  He chuckled. “I see you have reverted to your former habit of not listening to me. Have you truly heard nothing I have said to you? I tell you I need you, I cannot live without you, I want you with me always.”

  He spread his arms, palms up, and looked around. “Shall I shout it to the world?” He cupped his hands around his mouth and, drawing a deep breath, began to bellow, “I lo—“

  “Okay!” Melinda grabbed at his wrists and yanked his hands down. She still didn’t know if they had permission to be up here… “All right. I believe you. You love me.”

  He loves me! On impulse, she reached up, took hold of Roth’s face, and pulled him down to give him a quick, firm kiss on the lips.

  “I’m still trying to get a handle on this ‘listening’ thing. Just…be patient with me. I’ve got a lot of years’ worth of issues to clear out.”

  “I will endeavor to assist you in any way possible.” Enfolding her in his arms, Roth covered her mouth with his in a deep and passionate kiss that lasted several minutes.

  “Guess we should be going,” Melinda said when they separated. She looked back the way they had come and grunted. “Hm. Well, unless you want to do your little teleportation trick, I have a feeling the climb back down is going to take longer than the climb up.”

  “Why climb,” Roth asked, “when we can fly?”

  As Melinda watched, he unfurled his wings, momentarily blocking out the sun as they flexed up and outward from his shoulders.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Are you serious?”

  “Are you afraid?” Roth challenged.

  Melinda looked up at him. She saw the love in his eyes, and the smile on his lips made her break into a grin.

  “Not with you,” she said. She snaked her arms around his neck. “Fly, Dragon-man.”

  Locking his arms around her, Roth sprang into the air, his great wings beating. As they shot up through the clouds, Melinda let out a whoop of delight. She didn’t look down.

  And she never looked back, either.

  *****

  THE END

  Chosen by the Vampire King

  Description

  An aspiring opera singer is in the clutches of losing her voice when she meets the world’s most lauded baritone, a man whose biting charm might be just what she needs to make all her melodic dreams come true.

  Eva St. Marie graduated as the most promising young singer from Julliard, but all that seems all for naught when her voice mysteriously starts to disappear. The best doctors in the field don’t know what to make of her voice but a run in with the world’s most alluring and prestigious baritone seems to magically transform her voice back to its full strength.

  Ambrose Leroy is a man of secrets and shadows. With the appreciation and praise of the world at his feet and a last name that means “The King” it is
no wonder that the handsome man seems to attract female attention everywhere he goes. But Ambrose’s attention is caught when he meets the budding Eva, a woman on the either the verge of greatness or edge despair, but will her beauty and voice be enough to hold and keep his attention?

  When Eva falls under the spell of Ambrose she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. As her attraction to him and her voice flourish in his presence, life seems ready to take her by the throat. With the moment of decision ever creeping forward, Eva will have to decide between the silent darkness and the biting, lyrical light.

  Chapter One

  “I think we’ll need to run some more tests. You don’t seem to have polyps, lesions or bleeding like we see in other singers.” The doctor’s voice gave the impression that he was intrigued.

  Eva got the sense that he viewed her x-rays as he might view a good book.

  “But there’s something we can do?” Eva’s voice rasped out.

  She’d gotten to the point where even talking was difficult and she now tried to live her non-singing life in a mute silence as much as possible. Today, like everyday, she had a thick gray scarf wrapped around her throat and a bottle of warm honey water by her side.

  “I suppose there might be an option to operate but I’m just not sure.” He turned from the computer, where photos of her laryngoscopy illuminated the screen. “Truthfully, I’ve been doing this for twenty years and this is different from most of my cases. You will, of course, need to stop singing for the time being.”

  Eva felt like she’d just been thrown in front of oncoming Manhattan traffic.

  “Stop?” she asked. Her voice was even less intelligible than normal.

  “Well,” his expression turned pensive as he digested the look of stricken panic on her face, “at least for a few months until we find a viable solution.”

  A viable solution? Eva wanted to scream. But screaming, or any sort of noise whatsoever, would only make her problem worse.

  “I understand that this may be hard to hear.” He pushed his fingers together until the tips of his fingernails turned white.

  “And if we operate…will I be able to sing again?”

  “If that is an option then there is a possibility that you may experience some loss of your normal singing range… you may also have a full recovery after several months of vocal rest. It’s hard to tell in these cases.”

  Eva felt tears sting her eyes and the chubby doctor, with his wisps of thinning black hair, looked uncomfortable. He lifted a box of tissues and handed it to her. Eva took a tissue and pressed it to each eye.

  “Let’s set up a follow-up in a month. Give yourself a full month of vocal rest then there might be something new to see. Good?” He stood, obviously trying to get the crying girl out of his office pronto. “Get lots of good rest and perhaps things will look better in a few days.”

  Eva let out a strangled sob.

  “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but maybe you should look into other careers as well, keep your options open. You’re very young.” The doctor’s voice took an almost paternal tone and Eva hated him for it.

  She opened her mouth to respond but found nothing to say. What sort of training did they give doctors for talking to their patients these days? Things would look better in a few days? Look into some other career? Things would certainly not look better any time soon unless her voice magically reappeared. And of one thing she was certain, there was no other world for Eva outside of the musical one.

  Ten minutes later, out on Fifth Avenue, Eva gave serious consideration to walking straight into oncoming traffic. The rain, that had been gusting down all day, was only a drizzling imitation of what it had been and Eva let the small droplets fall unabated onto her face.

  Her life was crashing around her and she had no idea how to fix it. The small scratching feeling in the back of her throat had begun during her finals. She’d sung Dido’s Lament and all the while there was a sensation of vocal chords growing thick, clogging up her throat, keeping air from getting through. She sounded as if her voice box were filled with marbles.

  Eva had quickly stopped speaking when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, used honey, water, cough drops, and sprays that tasted like bitter raw herbs. Nothing worked. It seemed that every day the problem got worse.

  It made no sense to Eva or her teachers. She had been trained by the best instructors her whole life. She had perfect technique. She had the perfect genes. But it was no use.

  The only thing she’d ever wanted in her life, besides wishing her parents alive again, was growing further and further out of reach.

  Another tear slid down her cheek.

  The patter of rain began to pick up again and Eva felt glad for it. She wanted the rain to hide her tears, to make her invisible to the thrusting crowds of tourists and Manhattanites around her.

  She walked back to her Central Park apartment, climbed the four flights of stairs and left her wet clothes on the floor at her door.

  Three days later she was still in her pajamas, listening to records of her mother when singing the title role in Aida.

  A loud knock at the door pulled Eva out of her malaise and she walked over to see who it could be. Looking out of the eyehole, she saw her school friend, Bridget, standing on the other side.

  Eva paused. She didn’t feel like seeing anyone, she didn’t want to tell anyone that her career was over before it had begun.

  Bridget knocked again and, with a sigh, Eva opened it.

  “Where have you been?” Bridget walked in without being asked. “I’ve called you like twenty times, and sent emails.”

  Bridget was a few years older than Eva, she’d been a child star on Broadway before deciding to study classical opera. She was one of the most wretchedly optimistic people Eva knew, with milk chocolate skin, and a tiny body that made her look more like a teenager than a woman.

  Eva, on the other hand, had always been mistaken for someone much older than her actual age. She’d grown full hips and the curvy body of a woman when she was still only a girl herself. Even as a child she had carried herself with a sense of purpose and maturity unknown to the girls her own age. Julliard had been the best thing that had ever happened to Eva. Until then she’d never known that people her own age could be just as driven, dedicated, and serious about their work. She’d also never fully understood how unique her talent was.

  Bridget looked around the apartment with a sigh. Eva’s discarded clothes still lay on the floor where she’d left them three days ago. Dirty mugs of Throat Coat tea lined the coffee table and records lay strewn across Eva’s piano bench.

  “What’s going on?” Bridget turned to look at Eva, “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks,” Eva rasped.

  “And you sound worse, I thought you were going to the doctor,” Bridget sat unceremoniously on the green velvet couch that Eva had inherited from her parents.

  “I did,” Eva said as she picked up several mugs from the coffee table and walked them to the kitchen.

  “Bad news?” Bridget looked at Eva as she came back from the kitchen but Eva looked out of her window, away from her friend.

  “Not good news.” Eva picked up a discarded scarf and wrapped it around her neck. The day was unusually cold outside for that time of year but didn’t seem to deter people from their daily romps in the park.

  “Well, tonight will be good to get your mind off it then,” Bridget said as she leaned back into the couch.

  “Tonight?”

  “Don Giovanni? Ambrose Leroy singing Don Juan?” Bridget lifted her eyebrows. Eva and Bridget had nursed a serious crush for the famous and extremely handsome baritone. Eva had even let his recorded voice sing her off to sleep for a number of stressful weeks.

  “Oh,” Eva felt a pang at the thought of watching an opera she might never be able to perform herself. Of seeing one of the men she’d most admired and adored onstage, dangling the delights of something that might be forever out of her reach.
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  She felt the tell-tale heat of threatening tears burning behind her eyes.

  “I’m not ready.” She looked down at her pink silk pajamas but she meant the sentiment in more ways than the physical.

  “So go take a shower, I’m meeting Jerome and Leslie for dinner, you can just meet us at Lincoln Center.” Bridget stood up like everything was settled. “Do you want me to help clean some of this up before I go?” She looked around at the mess.

  Eva took a shower telling herself all the while that she could always cancel with Bridget afterward. She blew out her hair, put on a pair of black seamed stockings, an emerald vintage dress that accentuated her curves, then looked herself over. She looked good.

  It wasn’t a terrible idea to go out tonight. She loved the music of Don Giovanni, and she loved the sound of Ambrose Leroy more. His voice was like a million warm and wonderful sensations crawling over her body all at once. She could listen to him for hours and not get hungry or cold. She shivered with anticipation as she thought about seeing him live onstage.

  She would go for a walk through the park toward Lincoln Center and then she could decide once she got there. She wound a black silk scarf around her neck and tucked her bag under her arm.

  It felt strange to be outside after so many days cloistered in her own world. The air was chilly and brisk. As she walked down the path she couldn’t help but feel that she was being looked at. Eva turned casually but found no one. A shadow passed her left side and she gave a little jump when she saw one of the famous Central Park horses standing a few feet away.

  Eva smiled at herself and continued on, still thinking of what she would say to Bridget when she cancelled.

  But Eva didn’t cancel. With every step closer to Lincoln Square and the vast glass panels of the Metropolitan Opera House she felt as if she were being pulled. As if the building itself were drawing her in.

  “You look much better.” Bridget winked at Eva when she arrived.

  “Green is a good color on you,” Jerome whistled as she moved in for a kiss on each cheek.

  “Thank you,” Eva rasped softly into her friend’s ear.