Chapter Eight
Melinda strained against the force field surrounding her, trying once more to break free, only to give up with a moan of frustration. Closing her eyes, she sobbed at the futility of her situation.
This can’t be happening, she thought. All my life, I’ve never been able to catch a break. What did I do to deserve this? I’ve never hurt anyone. I go out of my way to help other people. I swear, it’s like someone out there has it in for me…
Another pop of bright light made her open her eyes again. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Roth standing before her.
“Oh my God,” she groaned, awash with relief at the sight of him. “Where have you been? You’ve got to get me out of here! You were right, everything you said about Athan is true, he’s just going to use me – please, you’ve got to help me!”
“I will,” Roth said, “but only when the time is right.”
Melinda stared at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” she mumbled, still unable to speak clearly. “Oh my God, you’re just as sick as he is! You’re messing with my head, lying to me – you’re probably gonna be one of the first in line at the temple when the ceremonies begin, ready to nail me again!”
Roth rushed up on her, coming within inches of the stasis field. “I am nothing like Athan!” he snarled, pointing to himself. “You know nothing of me, nothing of what I have experienced, the things I have lost!”
She scoffed. “Do you see me right now?” she asked. “Do you see where I am? I just lost the only thing I have left: my freedom. What did you lose?”
Roth stared at her for another long moment. He raised his hand again, this time making a sweeping gesture. The red light around Melinda disappeared, and she found she could move again.
“Thank you,” she said.
He paced away from her, dragging his fingers back through his white-blond hair.
“Long ago,” he said, his voice lower now, “I had been the leader of a four-member party of Volosian explorers, a scientist trained in botany and agriculture. We were sent to study your Earth. We found a race of people who were dying, starving to death. I taught them how to grow crops and how to irrigate. As a show of their gratitude, they gave me a name.”
“Quetzalcoatl,” Melinda provided. When he turned to look at her again, she nodded. “Athan told me about it. He didn’t say you were the one who did all that.”
“Did he tell you of Meztli?” Roth asked. She shook her head and he snorted. “Of course not. Meztli was a Human woman. Her name meant ‘moon.’ They called me ‘Morning Star.’ As far as I was concerned, she was all that existed in the heavens and on Earth.”
Damn, that’s pretty romantic , Melinda thought, surprised. And here I thought he was just some manipulative bastard…
“What happened to her?”
“I married her,” Roth replied, a smile curving his lips. “She had been married once before, but her husband had died, leaving her to raise their two young children on her own. I took her as my personal Oracle, caring for her and her family. She had been unlike any other woman I had met in that time – intelligent, clever, witty. Shortly after she became my wife, she conceived a child. Never before had a mating between a Human and a Volosian resulted in conception. We believed it to be a rare mutation of the gene which made her an Oracle, bringing our races one step closer together.”
His smile faded. “One day, she had been out with her handmaidens. She became separated from them. They found her only after they heard her screams. She had been mauled by a jaguar. They brought her back to the temple but it was too late. She died in my arms.”
Melinda felt overcome with grief, as though she had just lost the love of her life. “Oh, God…Roth…I’m sorry.”
“The loss of Meztli hardened my heart,” Roth said. “I left Earth immediately, returning to Volos where I surrendered my titles as Explorer and Scientist and joined the Warrior ranks.”
“Putting yourself on the front lines,” she murmured. “You would be one of the first sent out on dangerous missions where you stood a good chance of being killed.” Melinda shook her head again. “Losing her made you suicidal.”
“Until now.” Roth looked at Melinda. “The vision you had during our coupling when you achieved the trance state – it was a memory. A genetic memory passed down to you along with the trait that makes you an Oracle.” He reached out to cup her face. “And they are not the only qualities you inherited.”
Melinda caught his hand and pulled it away slowly. “What are you saying?” she asked, frowning at him with suspicion.
“You are the direct descendant of Meztli,” he said. “I sensed it the moment I first saw you – it called to me like a signal. That is how I found you. You are more than an Oracle, Melinda – you are Meztli .”
She blinked and backed away from him. “So that’s why you came to me in my room that night,” she said. “Why you fucked me, and then told me you wanted to keep me for yourself. Not because I’m an Oracle, and not even for me – because I remind you of your dead wife.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Or maybe I did not want Athan to have you. Dragons are, by nature, greedy creatures. We love to hoard what others treasure.”
“Is that what Meztli was?” Melinda’s eyes narrowed. “Oh my God. You didn’t love her – she was just a possession to you. And now you want me for the same reason.” She let out a short, hollow laugh. “I don’t know what’s worse: Athan, for wanting to use me to make him feel superior and help him to live forever…or you, for using me because you can’t get over a woman you used and lost centuries ago.” She shook her head. “I hate to break it to you, Roth, but I am not some souvenir you get to take home and keep. I’m a person. I have feelings, and I also have a say in what happens to me and my body. Letting you and your friends put me in a trance is no different from the guy who roofies a girl’s drink at a party so he can get busy with her while she’s unconscious. Where I come from, that’s called rape. So to hell with you and your entire race, you’re not going to make me do something I would never consent to do. Like I told Athan, I will kill myself before I let that happen.”
Roth became angry again, his rage sparked by Melinda’s. “I have told you that I will not allow Athan or anyone else to have you,” he growled, advancing on her. “I mean to keep my word.” He stared into her eyes, his own seeming to crackle with fire. “And you will never speak of my wife again – or I will kill you, myself.”
He stepped back from her and in another brief flicker of light like the pop of a camera’s flash, he was gone.
Melinda staggered back and fell against the wall, shaking – not from fear, but from the pain and anger, she could feel rolling off of Roth in that last moment, crashing into her like ocean waves during a storm. Her legs threatened to give out from the sheer force of it.
Does this have something to do with these ‘special abilities’ they keep telling me I have? She wondered. She also had to question her sanity, because she felt something else when Roth got right up on her: longing. Why do I still want him?
“Fuck,” she muttered, looking around at her prison. “I have got to get off this planet.”