Chapter Eleven
Melinda awoke to find herself in a large bed, in a room she did not recognize. She looked around trying to make sense of where she was and what had happened before struggling to prop herself up on her elbows. Her whole body felt like she had just been hit by a truck and someone decided to kick her in the back of the head for good measure. Her head was swirling with so many mangled and confusing thoughts that nothing really made sense to her.
“Good morning.”
She blinked, twisting around to see Roth standing beside the bed. She rubbed her face with one hand, trying to keep her eyes from closing tightly and whisking her off to sleep again.
“Mm,” she grunted. “What happened?”
“It would appear your powers are greater than anyone – myself, included – ever realized.” He smiled. “What do you remember?”
“You and Athan fighting. As dragons.”
“Yes. What else?”
“He…bit you? On the neck.”
Roth nodded. “He did. Do you recall anything after that?”
She frowned and massaged her temple. “Light,” she said. “Blue-white light, everywhere.”
“Do you remember where the light came from?”
“What’s with the Twenty Questions?” Melinda protested. “No. I don’t know where it came from. It was just…there.”
Roth settled on the bed beside her. “The light came from you, Melinda,” he said softly. He reached over and touched her hand.
She looked at him, and for the first time she noticed he didn’t have on that tight black uniform; instead, he wore a soft, pale yellow tunic and a pair of white trousers.
“Wait,” she said. “How is that possible?”
“Do you remember when I told you that my wife, Meztli, had more genetic coding that bore a closer resemblance to that of a Volosian?” Roth asked, and Melinda nodded. “Like a Volosian female, she had the ability to awaken the rejuvenation process within the male counterpart – what we call the Oracle Gene. She also had the compatibility required to allow herself to become impregnated by a Volosian.”
He looked down at his hands; his wrists crossed one over the other as they rested on his knee.
“My people possess a store of energy which allows us to transport ourselves from place to place. We can use it to transport others, as well. Together, we can make our ships travel across space in a matter of days, even hours. Meztli had one other ability, a kind of empathy which allowed her to tap into my energy and use it to her own will.”
He reached out and gathered one of Melinda’s hands in his. “It would appear you have inherited this trait, as well. You drew from my energy to heal me. You then used it to place Athan in a kind of stasis until I could dispatch him. It caused a surge within me, which is why my final attack on Athan yielded such…potent results.”
“Wow,” Melinda breathed. She sat up, tugging the sheet up over her chest out of modesty despite the intimacy they had already shared. “Do you think Athan knew I had that power-empathy thing?”
Roth shook his head. “Not until it was too late,” he said solemnly. “But I think I know why it manifested.”
Melinda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know – because I’m descended from your dead wife.” She frowned, thoughtful. “I wonder if anyone else in my family has it…”
“It is a rare configuration,” Roth said. “One which only occurs once in a generation, and then not in every generation.”
“Ah.”
“Have you ever heard the term ‘made for each other?” Roth asked suddenly.
Melinda chuckled. “In almost every love song or romance novel ever written,” she said. “Also in Valentine’s Day cards, movies, TV shows…” She looked at him and smiled. “Why? Are you going to tell me that you and I are ’made for each other’ because I could tap into your own private energy source?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “Telling you would be redundant,” he said. “I believe you already know the answer.”
“Oh, come on!” she scoffed and flopped back against the pillows. She looked up at him again. “Seriously, Roth. If you say people are meant for each other, then you can also argue the theory of Love at First Sight.”
“Why do you deny such things exist?” he challenged. “Both were a common occurrence between Volosian males and females. We had a symbiotic relationship. Once formed, our bonds lasted for life. It makes us stronger, more powerful. Athan must have known this about my bond with Meztli. I always suspected he would try to separate us, to weaken me until I surrendered my command to him – something he had always wanted.” He grimaced. “I never thought he would go so far as to kill her to make that happen.”
“That man,” Melinda said, “was a weasel. Which is an insult to weasels.” She shook her head. “I know I said it before, but I’m so sorry, Roth. Really. You didn’t deserve to have your happiness taken from you.”
“When the Great Plague wiped out our females, every male who lost his mate went mad. The reason our population dropped so drastically, driving us to seek Oracles to preserve those who remained, was due to the high rate of suicide.” Roth swallowed and looked down.
“I watched it happen to my parents. After my mother died, my father took his own life. His last words to me were ‘I cannot bear to be without her.’ When I lost Meztli, I knew how he felt…because she and I had shared a similar bond.”
This is getting way too depressing, Melinda thought. “Okay,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“How do you know when you’ve found the person who was ‘made for you?’?”
“We are drawn to one another,” he replied. “We can meet for the first time and be filled with a sense of familiarity that we have known each other before.”
Melinda thought about the first time she met Roth, and how she felt she knew him from somewhere. Uh-oh. “Okay…”
“Once we have consummated the attraction, it becomes permanent. We can feel one another even when we are apart.”
Like the way, I could still feel him inside me, days after our first time . Melinda threw her arm across her eyes and groaned. Oh my God – is that what this is?
“You have felt it, as well,” Roth said. “For me.”
She lifted her arm and peered out at him. “I think so,” she confessed. She sat up again, flipping her hair back off her shoulders. “But for the record? I am not Meztli. I may be her great-great-great…whatever…but I’m not her. I’m me. Melinda.”
He smiled. “I know.” Shifting, he leaned in toward her until their lips almost touched. His voice dropped to a purr. “I want you, Melinda.”
Melinda felt desire surge through her, fueled by the longing she had struggled with every day after her first time with Roth, and the hunger that gnawed at her even when they argued in that holding cell. “I want you, too,” she breathed.
A soft cry of joy broke from her throat only to be swallowed up a second later as Roth’s mouth covered hers in a deep kiss. She hooked an arm around his shoulders and dragged him down with her.
Roth broke away long enough to discard his clothing. Melinda grinned. Eagerly, she threw off the covers and opened her arms to welcome him in.
They rolled around on the bed, kissing and touching, playfully trying to see who would win control. Melinda got the upper hand when she got Roth down on his back and bent over him, stretching her full lips around his cock. She loved his helpless moans, and the way his fingers carded through her hair. Using mouth and hands, she soon had him at full mast, standing high and hard.
Melinda sat up and licked her lips. “I’ve never ridden a dragon before,” she said, smiling down at him as she swung a leg over him. She rubbed the swollen tip of his cock against her already wet pussy. “Think I should give it a try?”
“It will be a ride you will not soon forget,” Roth said, grinning. He held her hips and guided her down onto his cock.
Melinda’s eyes fluttered as she took in every wonderful, thick inch. Leaning forward, she planted her palms against his hard pectorals and began rocking back and forth in a smooth, easy gait. Roth’s hands glided over the full, rounded curves of her ass before sweeping up over her back to caress her shoulders. She tossed her head and smiled down at him. Her hair fell around her face like an ebony curtain. Roth reached up and buried his fingers in it before grasping a fistful of it and pulled her down for a kiss.
Melinda broke away, sitting up again. Her breasts bounced and swayed as she rose and fell along Roth’s amazing prick. “Feels so good,” she said, cooing with pleasure.
“This will feel even better.”
Wrapping an arm around her middle, Roth lifted Melinda and carried her over onto her back. He maintained eye contact as he hoisted one of her legs over his shoulder.
Melinda gazed up at him, content to let him take over. For a moment, she thought she had started to fall into the trance, the vision-memory of Roth fucking her in the Aztec temple merging with the reality of being under him now, looking up at his handsome face, feeling him moving inside her.
She lifted her hips to meet every thrust, spreading her legs open as wide as she could. Roth leaned over her, braced on one arm; his other hand dipped down between them, his thumb rubbing her clit in small circles. The added stimulation had Melinda whining for more. Her hips started to jerk.
“Please,” she said. Her lips trembled. “Please, Roth – yeah – like that, baby. Like that.”
To her surprise and dismay, he stopped suddenly and pulled out completely. She started to protest only to yelp when he flipped her over and hauled her ass up into the air. She tried to get up on all fours but a firm hand applied between her shoulders communicated what Roth wanted.
Obediently, Melinda rested her cheek on the bed and moaned when she felt him push back into her. She dug her fingers into the sheet as every fast, hard stroke drove a happy, shuddering whimper out of her.
In no time, he had her flying down that road again, racing toward climax. Impatiently, she pushed herself up and this time he allowed it. She slammed back into him, moaning.
“Fuck me, baby…fuck me hard…”
He ran his hands over her back and then under her, fondling her pendulous breasts with one while the other found its way back to her clit. Melinda could not hold out any longer.
The instant he began fingering her, she cried out and tried to curl in upon herself. Roth would not let her pull away. She could feel him inside her, still hard. He continued to pound into her, twisting one of her nipples between thumb and forefinger until the lines of pleasure and pain blurred.
He didn’t let up on her clit, either. He frigged her mercilessly, while Melinda’s legs flexed, desperately trying to snap shut. She began to laugh and sob as her orgasm rolled on almost endlessly. In that instant, when she thought she would pass out, she entered into another trance.
She laid on her back, gazing up at the wonder of the night sky, a cool breeze drifting over her sweaty, naked body. From time to time she would let out a little squeak or a sigh.
Her lover’s hair brushed across her skin as he suckled at her nipple. She squirmed and shifted her hips while two of his long fingers eased in and out of her, the slick, wet sound almost lost amidst the sound of the jungle around them.
She groaned when the pad of his thumb began to glide up and down her clit with the same agonizing slowness as the digits pushing into her.
They had finished coupling an hour ago. Shortly after, he began to touch her again. She had offered to reciprocate but he told her no.
“This is for you,” he said. He kissed his way over to her other nipple, nuzzling the valley between her breasts. “My beautiful, soft, woman…round and full as the moon.”
“Mm, my wonderful Morning Star,” she purred. She shuddered with pleasure. “The constant in my sky.” She tugged at his silvery hair and he lifted his head to smile at her. “You give me so much…now, I have something to give to you.”
“And what is that?”
“This.” Pulling his hand from between her legs, she placed his palm against her round belly. Her dark eyes looked up at him, the stars reflected in them, and she grinned. “A child grows inside me,” she said. “Your child.”
He stared at her in wonder and his face split in a wide grin. He kissed her lips. “I love you,” he whispered.
Melinda let out a loud gasp, ripped back to the present by the sheer force of her climax. She shoved herself onto Roth’s cock and took him deep just as that familiar pulsing heat filled her.
He had a fistful of her hair, which he had grabbed as he pounded into her during his final sprint toward completion. Melinda had already experienced at least two orgasms by that time.
They lay together afterward, side by side on their backs. Her body twitching with random aftershocks, Melinda found herself feeling a bit wistful over this most recent vision.
If I inherited all my ancestor’s genetic traits, does this mean I could get pregnant? She wondered. What would a half-human, half-dragon baby be like? And one of the biggest questions that plagued her mind: Will Roth ever love me as much as he loved Meztli?
“So, now what?” Melinda asked once she had managed to catch her breath. “Am I going to have to go back to that temple and be the Oracle?”
Roth rocked his head on the pillow. “No. Oracles cannot have a unique bond with a single Volosian.” He took her hand, threading their fingers together. “You are tied to my energy, now.” He looked over and smiled at her. “As I said before – you belong to me.”
“You don’t have to be so smug about it,” Melinda chided, reaching across to pinch him. “And as I said before, I belong to myself. Not to you or anyone else.”
“Very well,” he conceded. He pointed across the room and a door slid open. “There is the exit. If you think you can walk out of here, feel free to do so.”
“You’re assuming I can walk at all, after what you just did to me.” Smirking, Melinda decided to rise to the challenge. “Okay.” She rolled off the bed and got to her feet. As she suspected, her legs felt a little on the rubbery side. “Damn.”
“Go on,” he said, waving his hand.
“Give me a minute, okay? Fuck…” Shaking her head, Melinda started for the door, determined. With each step, however, she felt an ache…a longing…a pull.
She frowned and tried to push on. She failed. I need to be with him , she admitted. Every part of me, right down to my fucking DNA . She gave up, her groan dissolving into laughter.
“What have you done to me?” She turned around to face him. “I can’t leave.”
He smiled. “Yes, you can.” Swinging out of bed, he stood and walked toward her. He had a sexy walk to him, especially when naked. “This is all about power – willpower. If you really wanted to leave, you would, just as I would leave you. But neither of us wants that.”
He took her face in his hands and gazed down into her eyes. “I desire you, Melinda. Not because of your bloodline. For you. Athan could have killed us both but you stood up to him. You called upon the strength within you and combined it with the power within me, and you used it to save us both.”
He stroked a thumb across her plump lips. “A woman like that is one who I would have at my side for all time…if she would have me, at hers.”
“Am I going to slip into a trance every time we have sex?” she asked, brows tilting upward.
He shrugged. “I suppose there is only one way to find out.” Leaning down, he covered her mouth with his own.
Melinda returned the kiss. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she allowed him to sweep her up and carry her back to the bed.