Unchained Melody

by S. K Munt

  Calliope’s tears were beginning to slow. Despite everything, it was nice to know that someone had valued her before she’d had any value. ‘So father chose you for me then?’

  But Ardos shook his head. ‘No. The next day, I was feeding the sheep in the barn, when I heard a scream. I ran across the field and saw the little girl, still with your Lyre- and she was being chased by some of the guards from my owner’s farm. My owner’s daughter had a Lyre that was missing. They were going to take the girl to be stoned for stealing, and my heart broke. I knew she was innocent, for I’d seen you leave there with it, and Adria’s was not as lovely as the one you had gifted. I didn’t know where you were, or if you’d ever return, so I spoke for the girl; I said that I’d given it to her.’ He swallowed hard. ‘They released her, but took me instead. The only chance I had to have my name cleared, was if you stepped forward, or if Adria found her own Lyre.’ He let out a shaky breath. ‘It was crowded there in the markets but I saw you Calliope- you were playing an Aoul on the other side of the square, and you were so lost in your song, that you did not look up to inquire about the boy about to be punished. And they-’ Ardos turned his face away.

  ‘No!’ Callie was stricken. ‘I was right there?’

  He nodded, and a tear slipped down his cheek and ran under his jaw. ‘Yes.’ He swallowed. ‘In fact, while I was waiting to be executed, you danced away with another man. But they only got to throw two rocks before Zeus appeared and turned the stones in their hands to horse hair. He turned to me and said that I would be rewarded for my kind gesture- he would clear my name and make me a hero, one of his favored sons, or… or I could be taken to Helicon, enchanted with immortality to exist as your soul mate. He was convinced that you’d love a man, who had been willing to die for music.’ He paused, smiled gently. ‘There was no hesitation. I accepted the latter and he brought me here, to win your favor. Just as he brought all of us.’ He looked over at the water and Calliope wondered if all of their ‘mates’ were gathered there, waiting to be acknowledged into flesh and blood as she had acknowledged Ardos in her initial confusion seven years before. ‘I might have vanished thousands of years ago, if you were not so cruel in your dismissal,’ he smirked down at her, ‘but your belief that I am a thorn in your side, rather than nothing at all, is the only reason why you can see me. Some of the others, as I’m sure you can tell, have not been so, er, lucky.’ He chuckled. ‘In fact I annoy you so much that I have outlived Zeus and Memoria.’

  Callie didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing and the wry smile on his face told her that he wasn’t sure either. She touched her fingertips to his perfect pink lips and said: ‘I am sorry, Ardos. Once I get through this business on earth… I will try and linger here more often. ’

  ‘Oh Calliope… I would love to believe that but, history repeats. You were once almost useless for nine hundred years and yet you still charged after the music. When your senses and power are restored, you will forget me again, like humans forget to walk their dogs.’

  Calliope opened her mouth to protest but what did she know? She’d had a dog once and she’d walked it so rarely that her mother and father had given it to another family. She looked into his eyes, wondering why he bothered to be so kind to her at all if he had no faith that it was sustainable? ‘So what would you have me do?’

  His green eyes shone with hope as he pressed his lips against her forehead and whispered. ‘Stay. Forget this plan. Let Hunter and Ryan be their own champions, and stay with me.’

  She stiffened, sitting up. ‘Stay now? You mean, never see them again?’

  ‘That’s crazy!’ Imogen cried out, reminding Calliope that she and Ardos were not actually alone. ‘If she fails this mission, she must start another! As a human again!’

  ‘Not if she unites with me.’ Ardos’s eyes didn’t leave hers as he responded to Imogen. He took her hands, squeezing them. ‘If you could love me Calliope, if you could stay here, have a child with me and let it pursue your destiny- we could exist together, happily forever.’

  Stay with Ardos? There was some merit in the plan. They could exist together in the created world of their imagination or on earth. They could become lovers and parents, and Callie could stop having to do the awful things she did for the music.

  But… if she stayed, would she be happy? Or would she forever feel like she’d made the ultimate sacrifice for a stranger? Neither side of the coin held enough weight to sway either Callie Clay or Calliope the Muse. If she stayed, she would never see Hunter again. He might not fulfill his purpose. She would have done all of this, and put herself through twenty-four years of humanity, just to get a decent fella who literally couldn’t break her heart. She pulled her hands from Ardos’s, shaking her head sorrowfully. ‘I am sorry Ardos, but I am not ready to make that decision.’

  ‘If you are not ready now, with a soul full of regret, then you never will be.’ Ardos also rose, and it was like curtains had been drawn behind his eyes, like his voice had flattened to nothing of substance.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Callie protested, but without much vindication. Because she did not know otherwise. ‘Maybe when I’ve seen this through…’

  ‘If you see this through, you will give your heart to Hunter or Ryan, or become drunk on your own power again. Any idiot can see that. I just wish I’d seen it before I dared get my hopes up.’ Ardos turned and strode away, and Callie did not follow him because once again, she did not know if she could deny that either without lying. So she turned back to Hendra, who was now clasping her mate’s hand. Calliope swore to herself then and there, that the next time she returned to Helicon, she would make an effort to converse with everyone there, even those she couldn’t see.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ She asked softly.

  ‘Fifteen minutes. So, half a day perhaps?’

  Callie nodded. That was better than three years of time-lapse! She swung back to Imogen. ‘I will make this up to you, sister. I just do not have time right now.’

  Imogen’s arms were folded across her ribs and though she was staring to the side, as though staring back into time, she nodded. ‘Go, Calliope. I do not have to like you, to understand why you are compelled to do as you have.’

  Calliope dove back into the gorge, knowing instinctively, that she would come out exactly where she needed to be.

  Part Three

  A Song With No Melody

  25.

  Hunter almost fell to his knees with relief when he stormed into one of the dance rooms on the darkened and silent AVPAC campus and saw Callie whirling across the floor, a frenzy of pale pink and black as she whipped and leaped from barre to barre, her pink slippered feet touching down only briefly before taking flight again; just as she’d said she would be.

  He reclined against one of the mirrored walls and clutched his throbbing temples in his hands, trying to work out if he should cuss her out or cover her with kisses for scaring the shit out of him again by vanishing into a storm- a storm she wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anymore.

  The sound system was built into the wall on the other side of the door and he turned the volume of Gwen Stefani’s What You Waiting For down to almost off. Callie did not stumble, and she did not whip around like he’d expected. Rather, she slowed her turn to half-speed and pivoted, facing him in a perfect ‘fifth position’ as though she’d intended to do just that. He knew what it was, because she’d had him drill her on them when they were nine. She lowered to her heels and gracefully let her arms fall. She was sweating, glowing, breathless.

  ‘Have you finished your song?’ She asked.

  Hunter snorted softly, shaking his head as he crossed the room to her. ‘Have I finished my song?’ He repeated. When he was only a few feet away from her, he crossed his arms and gave her a: ‘Don’t fuck with me’ look. ‘That’s all you have to say for yourself?’

  Callie went to the barre, staring at him in the reflection as she lifted one foot to rest on the timber rail and stretched the
opposite arm towards it. ‘You know?’

  ‘How could I not know?’ He snapped, coming up behind her reflexively, putting his hand on her side and pushing her closer. Her flesh was taut and hot, and as much as he wanted to check out her ass so close to his hands, he didn’t dare look away from her eyes. ‘Ryan saw you flip out. He said he couldn’t catch you.’

  ‘The only thing Ryan was in any shape to catch today, was the clap,’ Callie joked, standing up and moving her heel so that she could work her inner thigh.

  Hunter stiffened inside his jeans when he took her hips and pressed her into the barre. ‘I don’t think it’s funny,’ he muttered.

  ‘VD rarely is.’ Callie bumped him off and then turned, bracing her hands against the barre and nodding towards her foot. Hunter bent to catch it and then slowly began to raise it to the side. Callie braced her supporting leg against his foot, then brought in her knee and extended it up until her calf was pinned between their shoulders. Her leg trembled, the only sign that this wasn’t as effortless as she made it look, and then she whispered. ‘Now push. Hard. There’s no need to be gentle from hereon out.’

  Hunter panted as he leaned his weight against her. Callie’s calf stretched further, until it was tilting over her shoulder. Hunter glanced down at their bodies and sighed in pleasure at the sight. ‘I want to take you like this.’ He whispered, sliding his hand up her ankle like she was the neck of his guitar. He pressed himself into her. ‘But I’m too pissed off still and you’re not exactly trying to explain anything.’

  Callie sighed as well, her eyes closing. ‘I had an episode Hunter, and I handled it and I’ll go see a doctor next week.’

  ‘I thought you were past your fear of storms.’

  ‘I am. That panic attack came from nowhere.’

  ‘If it was Ryan’s fault, I’ll kill him.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ Callie moaned as his pressure increased- her pointe shoe touching the glass mirror behind her shoulder as her eyes fluttered open. ‘And if you want to take me like this… well why are you telling me what a bad little girl I’ve been, rather than showing me?’

  Hunter grunted, dropped her leg, twisted her, pressed himself into the curve of her backside as he steered her face to meet his eyes in the mirror. ‘Sometimes I wonder…’ he tugged the straps of her leotard down her shoulders. Pale pink fabric gave way to gloriously bronzed breasts, trapping her arms at her sides. He reached around, both hands caressing her sweat-moistened flesh, his cock hardening further when she bowed her back, filling his hands with her swelling breasts. Her nipples were tight, and he could feel them tickling the centre of his palms. ‘If you’re not playing some game with me without explaining the rules first.’ He tweaked her nipples with his fingertips simultaneously, a little harder than he usually would and Callie gasped, rolling her hips into his encouragingly. It looked so hot that his brain began to cloud.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about Hunter,’ Callie opened her eyes so that he could see how they smoldered. That secret smile was back on her lips, telling him that he didn’t know Callie Clay as well as he thought. ‘I just want to make music together, you know?’ She slid her hand down between them, grasping his cock, squeezing it encouragingly and making him snarl primally. ‘You’re the one who keeps provoking me to fuck you.’

  Hunter pressed his tongue into the roof of his mouth, hooked his thumbs over her leotard again and bent, shoving it down to her knees, taking the little black chiffon wrap she wore around her waist with it and rising again, licking an appreciative trail up the back of her thigh, sampling her sweet, salty taste all the way up to her tailbone, and when he got there, he reached his fingers around, rubbing her clit while he playfully nipped at her ass with his teeth; biting, suckling, tasting her- groaning when she ground against his fingers and yelped in delight.

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about music right now.’ He stood, not taking his hand from her sex, pressing into her harder, slower, wetting the tips of his fingers as he sucked hard on the base of her throat. ‘I want your heart Callie. And this of course; this I’m going to play with until you give me the other.’ He slid the tips of three fingers inside her, just enough to tease, watching her reflection as she groaned and fell against him, opening her body to his hands- to his eyes.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re asking for Hunter. This is dangerous. I could hurt you. You could kill me.’ Her body trembled, her hips moving back against his hand, establishing a rhythm he knew was responsible for her quickening breaths.

  ‘I would never hurt you again,’ he whispered back, plunging his fingers inside her more deeply. She was so wet that he couldn’t even stand it. Keeping her pressed into his hip with his circling hands, he withdrew the other from her and used it to ease himself out of his jeans and guide it between her thighs. Callie moaned again and he thrust up into her as roughly as he had the night before, knowing that she needed it now, that she was as frustrated with their unusual romance as he was and all he had to do to get her to stop over-thinking it all, was to fuck her senseless.

  Feeling her slide onto his length, feeling himself ram into the softest, clenching parts of her was like sliding into heaven all over again but burning in hell because she still hadn’t told him that she was his to keep. He wanted her love even more than he wanted her tight body and the frustration was fueling his passion. He thumbed her as he thrust up and into her, and when her sex spasmed around him he let out a shout of pure elation and pumped into her wildly as his hand continued his assault. In and out in and out, heaven then hell then heaven then hell. Callie sounded like she was drowning in satisfaction from the inside out and when he was sure that he’d milked her clit for every last undulation he withdrew from her limp body, pulled her leg up as he’d had her before and thrust into her again.

  ‘Oh! Hunter...!’ Callie’s hands reached around, gripped his hips, her head falling back, her black hair spilling from her loose bun and sliding along the mirror behind her as she rode him right back, standing on one pointed toe as she rolled and tilted her hips to meet his thrusts- insatiable. Just when he thought he couldn’t get any deeper, or that she could feel any tighter, Callie’s knee hooked over his shoulder and slammed him into her and Hunter caught one of her breasts in his teeth and clamped it tightly on her nipple as he grunted and spilled himself inside her.

  ‘Yes!’ Callie began to spasm again, her voice echoing through the studio and his very soul. ‘What are you doing to me? Oh..!’

  He ground his teeth together as the orgasm fell short of its expected satisfaction, making him realize that he wasn’t done yet, that this woman, this wild woman who’d been driving him out of his mind since he’d first been capable of lusty thoughts was now over-extended up against the ballet barre and milking his cock for every drop he had as in his hottest of fantasies.

  His hand rose, pinned her ankle to the mirror so that she was stretched beyond contortion and thrust once more, than twice and then felt himself release again, harder overjoyed not that he’d come twice, but that Callie had come apart for him at last. She was shaking, tears were rolling down her face and he couldn’t remember the last time she’d inhaled. And so he breathed for her, catching her mouth as he lowered her leg and jerked inside her once more, crushing her against him.

  Crushing the melody… he thought drowsily, as he claimed her parted lips. My Melody, sweet melody...

  *

  Hunter’s song seemed to creep out from his fingertips, sweep across the room, splash sound up against the walls and then slide back in a smooth retreat. ‘Melody / come to me / I live and breathe / our chemistry...’ Hunter sang with a slight shake of his head, a gentle curve to his lips, as though he’d forgotten that he had an audience and was just playing for sheer pleasure. His bandmates were leaning towards him, instruments silent in their hands, eyes shining.

  ‘Melody / you never dream / you spend your sleeping hours / haunting me…’ Hunter’s eyes flashed towards Callie and he winked before inhaling a supportiv
e breath and letting his eyes fall shut again for the bridge: ‘You’ve never known your hold on me… You’re the beat of drums, the stroke of chords, the pitch in harmony… A guitar without strings, is an angel without wings, and without you I will always be…A sad, unfinished love song…With no Melody…’

  Callie had to tear her eyes away from Hunter, afraid that her heart was going to leap from her chest and thunk silently to the floor at his feet. As the piano notes began to soften and fade, everyone began to clap and Callie did the same, letting a single tear roll down her cheek and hoping that its release would stave off the thousands more pressing against her eyes.

  It was the most beautiful song she had heard in her life. And it was about her. She didn’t know how she’d managed to enchant Hunter so much with none of her usual resources in place but he was in love with her and never had infatuation transferred so clearly into someone’s voice.

  ‘Hunter… man!’ Callie heard the slap of hands against hands as Nick raised himself from behind his drum kit to congratulate the pianist. ‘That was incredible!’

  ‘It truly was bro,’ Rathe said, and there was another slap. ‘I didn’t even know you could tap the keys like that! Where’s all this been hiding?’

  ‘It’s always been there. I’m just…’ he glanced at Callie and winked. ‘Feeling it more lately.’ He bit his succulent lip. ‘Did you like it?’

  Callie blushed, glad that Ryan was behind her so he couldn’t see how infatuated she was with Hunter at that moment, though she could still feel him burning holes into the back of her neck. She wiped the tear from her cheek and smiled a watery smile. ‘It was… everything, Hunter.’

  His body relaxed and he pivoted on the seat, opening his arms to her. ‘Can a guy get a kiss from his Muse then?’