The Dragon's Secret Prize

by Jasmine Wylder

  “But you’re much too young to ever have seen them,” Eva knit her brows. She didn’t actually know how old he was, at least a good ten or fifteen years her senior.

  “Not too young to have listened to the recordings though.” He smiled and Eva kicked herself. There had seemed something in the manner of his saying it, something that had suggested a closer connection… but of course it must have been the recordings. Perhaps he had the type of connection to her parents that she’d always felt to Ambrose himself and she had never met him before tonight.

  “And does the daughter sing as well as the mother or perhaps conduct like her father?”

  “She sings… and she’s better than her mother was,” Jerome said from behind Eva. It was the sort of statement that Jerome had never voiced directly to Eva before.

  “She was best in our class at Julliard, all our teachers said Eva would go on to be one of the greats,” Leslie looked at Eva with the slightest tinge of envy.

  “Oh come on,” Eva admonished her friends.

  “It’s true,” Bridget added.

  “Then I must hear for myself.” Ambrose turned to Eva as if she would start trilling that very moment.

  “No, but I…” She was about to protest that her voice wasn’t up to it, that she was on vocal rest, but her voice felt, in that moment, as if it wanted to leap out of her body.

  “I suppose this room is a bit too small for a real performance.” He looked around at the upright piano in the corner. Eva assumed that he warmed up in that very room before every performance. “You should have a real stage and I happen to know where we can find one.”

  Ambrose nodded to his friend in the plaid suit then ushered the whole group out of the room.

  The man in the plaid suit walked them to the wings of the stage.

  The stage had already been wiped clean and the opening scenery replaced. The orchestra had packed up and left, the other singers gone home to a warm bath or an after-performance meal with friends.

  Ambrose walked out onto the stage and opened his arms. “This will do nicely, what do you think?”

  Eva followed slowly behind him. She heard a few bars from the piano and she looked down to the orchestra pit where the man in the plaid suit seemed at home on the grand piano.

  Bridget, Jerome, and Leslie all walked down into the first row of seats and Eva had no idea what to say or do. It was all too abrupt, she should warm up, she didn’t have anything prepared. She had been daydreaming about a moment like this for years but now the reality of it made her go weak with apprehension.

  “Ray can play anything you like.” Ambrose put his hand on the base of Eva’s back and she felt his warm breath against her neck.

  As Ambrose walked away, down the stairs, and out into the audience in front of her, Eva began to panic. Her voice hadn’t been working, she was rusty, it wouldn’t come out well she was sure of it. She couldn’t bear to let Ambrose down after he’d said all those things about her parents, the way he’d looked at her. What if she crashed and burned? Then she would be destined to live out the potentially horrible moment over and over again for the rest of her life.

  She looked to Ray who was looking up at her expectantly.

  “Um,” Eva tried to make her mind work.

  “She sang Dido’s Lament for her finals,” Bridget offered to Ray who immediately began playing.

  The sound of the piano lifted up to Eva’s ears and embraced her. She felt the music in her soul, felt the lift and strain in her belly as she pulled in breath. Her body began preparing without her having to ask just as it had done so many times before.

  Eva’s mind had been ready to walk off, to dismiss the ploy, but her body, her soul said otherwise.

  As she began she started slowly, softly. Her voice was dancing slowly over the words, holding each, testing them out. Then, she felt the weight of her breath push against her ribs, begging to be set free. Eva obliged.

  She let her voice unfurl into the full space of the opera house. She held nothing back and her voice felt agile and young. She pressed to the edges of each note and her voice surpassed any expectation she might have held.

  The music gained in force and Eva let her body move, let her arms lift and pull in, extend out as the notes built to a full and brazen high note.

  When the song ended, it was a few moments before Eva remembered the emptiness of the seats in front of her, the cavernous space of unfilled seats where only four human souls focused their attention on her. With a quick glance, she remembered her three friends, then her eyes searched into the space and found Ambrose.

  She could read the look of hunger and delight in his face. She felt his attention so fully given over to her that it was like a hundred eyes focused all at once. She accepted it greedily.

  Ambrose started clapping and Eva’s friends followed suit. Ray stood to examine her as if she’d only just becoming truly interesting to him.

  “That voice,” he said as if she were not the owner of it, “deserves an audience.”

  “I have the best possible audience right here,” Eva gushed—too pleased by Ambrose’s praise to feign any sort of nonchalance.

  “Drinks are in order,” Ray called out from the pit.

  Ambrose lifted his eyebrows in question toward Eva who was still blushing at the burning sensation his eyes left on her. She nodded in response to his look.

  “I’m in,” Jerome called and Eva once again remembered her friends.

  Ray jumped out of the orchestra pit, “I know just the place.”

  “Oh my, what a gentleman,” Bridget clapped her hands together twice as Ray offered her his arm. Ray waited for Jerome and Leslie to begin up the aisle before him, then followed behind with Bridget who, while clutching Ray’s arm, looked back at Eva with wink.

  Eva walked to the side of the stage but before she could make it to the stairs, Ambrose held out his hand for her. She went to the lip of the stage where Ambrose lifted her like she weighed nothing at all and placed her on the floor. He kept his hands at her waist for a long moment as he looked into her face.

  “I hate to take you down, you so obviously belong up there… but I think you already know that.” His voice was soft and intimate, his face close to hers.

  His smell, his proximity, the line of his jaw, all made Eva break out in goose bumps. She felt his hands on her waist so intimately he might have been undressing her.

  Eva leaned into his smell, felt herself pulled toward him. Perhaps it hadn’t been the opera house with the magnetic field after all. Perhaps it had been Ambrose. She smiled at the thought.

  “Coming?” Jerome called back, interrupting the purely intimate space between them.

  “I guess we’d better,” Ambrose said with a smile.

  Eva nodded then moved in the direction of her friends.

  The night felt electric. The feel of Ambrose’s strong hand on her back thrilled and terrified her. She was hardly able to concentrate on anything anyone said. The group walked a few blocks to an underground, speakeasy style bar only a few blocks from the opera house. It small but packed to the gills with the most stylish people Eva had ever seen. Cravats, hats, bold patterns, film noir clothing splashed in modern artwork fashion.

  “Just think, we were right down the street all this time and never knew of this place.” Bridget shook her head. “It’s fantastic!”

  “Probably for the best, we would never have gotten our work done.” Eva followed Ambrose who seemed to be creating a path to the bar just with his presence.

  Bridget watched the people move out of Ambrose’s way, some nodding, some smiling, one woman running a hand across his chest. “He’s like royalty, I need to learn that trick.”

  “This,” Ambrose put his hand down on the bar top and turned to Eva, “is one of Manhattan’s best kept secrets.”

  There was a live quartet in the far corner and Ray lifted Bridget’s hand spinning her onto a makeshift dance floor.

  Leslie smiled widely, no doubt, thrilled to be p
artnered with Jerome for the night. She held up Jerome’s arm while she spun a circle underneath it. Jerome looked to Eva plaintively, but Eva just laughed at her friend. Jerome laughed too and gave in to Leslie’s spinning. He looked to Ray and began copying some of the other man’s dance moves—not too poorly either.

  Ambrose smiled as he leaned easily over to the bartender and ordered a round of drinks.

  “He likes you,” Ambrose said nodding to Jerome.

  “No, we’re just friends…school friends…” Eva looked over at Jerome then back to Ambrose. It wasn’t a bad thing for Ambrose to think of her as a desired woman.

  “I can see that I have a rather substantial amount of competition.” She looked across the many female faces that seemed permanently turned toward him. Some of the women tried to hide their interest, others looked like they would come in and swallow Ambrose whole if Eva so much as looked the other direction.

  “Competition?” He raised his eyebrows.

  Eva blushed to her roots. She quickly lifted her drink and took a long sip.

  Ambrose reached down and lifted Eva’s free hand. He turned her hand palm up then bent and kissed the inside of her wrist. It was a startlingly intimate gesture and Eva felt her nipples grow hard at the feel of his cold lips.

  “You should not say such foolish things,” he said looking up from her wrist. “You must know that there is not a woman here who could compete with you.”

  Eva took in a heavy breath, her chest rising and falling fully. His eyes met hers and she felt a rush of desire for him. Her desire echoed back in his eyes and Eva took another long sip of her drink.

  “And you?” Ambrose asked.

  Eva raised her eyebrows, “And me…what?”

  “Do you dance?” Ambrose downed his drink then stepped away from the bar as he held out a hand. Eva followed suit, drinking her drink in one long swig, then took his hand with a smile.

  They danced into the evening and Eva couldn’t remember ever having so much fun.

  Bridget switched partners a few times, Leslie commandeered Jerome for the night, and Eva and Ambrose ended up locked close in a tight embrace of sensual dancing. When they had all regrouped around the bar for another round Bridget leaned in.

  “I have to leave, I have a flight and an audition in the morning.” Bridget looked over the crowd and Eva could tell that she didn’t want to leave. Bridget was set to fly to Cincinnati for an audition with the Cincinnati Opera on the following day, Eva had almost forgotten about her friend’s opportunity.

  “I can’t believe you stayed out this late,” Eva said as she hugged her friend. “Thank you for bringing me out tonight.”

  “There’s nothing quite like the prospect of Ohio to wake you up early.” Bridget rolled her eyes. “But it is the second oldest opera company in the states,” Bridget threw in this redeeming fact as if bolstering herself for the possibility of its being her only option for the following year.

  “I should be going too.” Leslie pushed herself in between the two girls.

  Eva kissed both girls on each cheek.

  “Are you going to walk us to the subway?” Leslie looked to Jerome.

  Jerome looked at Ambrose’s hand touching Eva’s hip. “Will you be ok getting home?”

  “Yeah, you go, I’m going to stay for a little longer.” Eva appreciated Jerome’s concern but all she wanted was to be alone with Ambrose.

  “She’s in good hands,” Ambrose turned into the conversation.

  “Ok,” Jerome hugged Eva. “Call me if you need to come back and walk you home,” he whispered in her ear.

  “I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine,” Eva whispered back.

  Eva watched her friends leave, giving them one more wave before they were out the door and into the night. Eva turned to Ambrose, feeling the tingle of knowledge that, for all intents and purposes, they were here alone together.

  Ambrose eyed Eva for a long moment.

  “You don’t have any auditions tomorrow?” Ambrose moved his hand over her hip.

  Eva thought about how she’d cancelled everything once her voice had rolled steadily downhill. She pushed the thought out of her mind. “Nothing,” she said boldly.

  “Perhaps I could do something about that. At the end of the month we start on a new opera… I think you would be perfect.” His fingers lifted from her hip to the dip of her waist.

  “And how many women have you told that to recently?” Eva tilted her head with a coquettish smile.

  “None, I never lie about opera,” Ambrose looked at her with steady eyes.

  Ambrose shifted his pose. “Luciano Costantini,” he said the name of the composer and famous opera genius as if it were the only thing that needed saying, which was true in Eva’s eyes. If it was to be a Costantini production, there would be no doubt of its greatness.

  The name must have had the desired effect on Eva because Ambrose smiled widely, “I thought you’d be interested.”

  “I am, I can hardly…” Eva broke off at a loss for words.

  “I’ll tell you more about it at my place,” Ambrose turned and put cash on the counter behind him.

  “Ok,” Eva’s mind was telling her to be prudent but her body and heart were saying otherwise.

  Ambrose waved to Ray who was now seated among a group of good-looking, well-dressed people who all seemed to be in the throws of deep conversation and debate. Ray waved back and a few other people Eva hadn’t met tilted their heads in Ambrose’s direction. They seemed to be watching Eva rather closely. She lifted up, proud to be leaving on the arm of Ambrose Leroy.

  Ambrose lived on the Upper Eastside almost directly across from where Eva lived across the park. He lifted one perfectly confident arm for a cab but Eva stopped him.

  “Let’s walk,” she smiled, “it’s the perfect night for it.”

  “As you wish,” Ambrose began to walk in step with Eva. Eva knew that she shouldn’t sleep with Ambrose so quickly. Her great aunt had always warned Eva that being too “easy” was a sure way to make a man lose interest. But just walking next to Ambrose was having an unexpected aphrodisiac effect.

  “Let’s walk the back streets.” He veered off down one of the darker and less crowded streets and Eva followed.

  “Did you ever get to see your parents at their work?”

  A glimmer of a memory lifted in Eva’s mind, a swirl of color, the Vienna opera house, a blue dress, and a vague sound of a swelling voice was all that represented her mother now.

  “When I was very young, I had just turned four and my mother was singing Lakmé—my father was conducting.” The flower duet from the opera began to flow through Eva’s mind.

  Two men were coming toward Eva and Ambrose down the sidewalk. Eva began to move as if to make room for the two to pass by them but Ambrose moved her behind him just as the two men approached.

  Eva watched as they passed by and thought that Ambrose’s gesture, though a bit extreme, had been sweet. She was just about to say so when she felt the grip of a hand grabbing her arm from behind.

  Before she could be pulled into the man’s grasp Ambrose had moved her to the street as he took a knife from the man and held it up to the moonlight.

  Eva stared at the glinting knife, trying to focus her mind, force herself to understand what was happening.

  “You were going to ask for something?” Ambrose was calm, he spoke as if he were telling Ray to play something on the piano. “Our money perhaps?”

  The men looked at each other, unsure what they should do. Eva could see the panic and fear float in their eyes. One looked about to run away but the other tried to move in to knock the knife from Ambrose’s hand.

  Ambrose quickly redirected the man and turned him so that his arm was behind his back. He’d done the entire movement with only one arm, the other hand still holding the knife. He lifted the man’s arm up demonstrating his complete control over the man. The man cried out in pain.

  “Fuck—Ricky—,” the man yelled at his companion.
>
  The other man looked hesitant. He dodged right then moved in on the far side of Ambrose, away from the knife bearing hand.

  Ambrose pushed the captured man away from himself toward a nearby light pole then threw the knife in a straight line. The knife landed with crisp and perfect aim, two inches from the first man’s head. The man turned and stared at the knife. Ambrose, however, did not. He had been busily moving Ricky into the same compromising position the first man had just been released from.

  “Jesus fucking chr…!” The first man reached up to pull the knife away but it was stuck so deeply in the wood of the pole that it took a good deal of pulling and he finally gave up trying. The man looked back to Ricky and shook his head, this time in recognition that he was getting himself into something he wasn’t sure he could get out of.

  The man rushed at Ambrose like a linebacker and Eva screamed. Ambrose turned Ricky to meet the impact of the rushing man, then with a magnificent show of force Ambrose pushed the pair back so hard their feet left the ground before they fell on each other in a confused heap.

  Eva looked on with wonder. Ambrose didn’t look the least perturbed or worried, his countenance was everything it might have been onstage. He was beautiful, mesmerizing, and ungodly strong.

  Chapter Three

  The two men stumbled, falling over themselves, in a ragged run. Ambrose walked to the place where the knife had landed. He easily pulled it from the pole and released the switchblade back in upon itself. He tossed the entire thing into a neighboring trash bin.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to Eva as if nothing of note had happened.

  “You just… those men…” She pointed helplessly off in the direction the men had just gone running.

  “Are you ok?” He moved to Eva and put his hands on either side of her face. “You’re in shock?”

  “I just…I’ve never…” Eva exhaled a nervous laugh. “That scared the shit out of me.”

  Ambrose laughed, “I guess it should.” He kept his eyes on her face, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead, his head dipped and he kissed one eyelid then the other, then his lips met hers.