Liron's Melody by Brieanna Robertson Page A

She wanted to touch him so badly, soothe him when she
didn’t even know what was causing the misery. “You haven’t written anything?”
she murmured.
    He shook his head. “Hurt too much.”
    They were three words. Three very simple words that told her
nothing and everything. It was a truth she understood all too well. It didn’t
matter that she still didn’t quite know what he was or what was going on. It
didn’t matter that she was unaware of what had caused him such profound pain.
The only thing that mattered was that, in the simple acknowledgement of deep
heartbreak, they were the same. Through a piece of music he had written in his
pain and she had played in hers. It made no sense at all that she could be
transported to an alternate dimension and, yet, it made all the sense in the
world.
    She reached for his hand and gently took it between both of
hers. She trailed her fingers across his wrist, then smiled up at him. “I don’t
imagine my touch has the same effect as yours.”
    A brilliant grin lit up his face, chasing away the sadness
that had been there a moment before. He brought her fingers to his perfect
mouth and pressed his lips to them. “Melody, there is no music I could ever
compose that would express the effect of that one kind touch.”
    Melody’s cheeks burned and she bit her bottom lip in a
girlish gesture she hadn’t done since high school. And if he continued to
lavish kisses upon her hands the way he had been doing all night, she was going
to lose her mind. They were so gentlemanly and chaste, yet they brought forth
some kind of dormant inferno in her blood.
    For a moment, the dismal look in his eyes was gone and his
smile was soft. “Come with me. We will sit and discuss things.” He reached up
to close the window and led her out of the room and back up the staircase.
    Melody didn’t find the passageway nearly as disconcerting as
she had before and she found herself taking in more of her surroundings,
exploring with curiosity instead of wanting to run and hide.
    Liron’s home, despite the Gothic dreariness brought about by
the candle and torchlight and the stone walls and floors, exuded warmth and
classic elegance. It could have very easily felt like a dungeon, but it didn’t.
It felt more like she was walking in some kind of medieval work of art. Not surprisingly,
it looked the way his music had sounded.
    Once back in the main room, Liron indicated one of two large,
black leather chairs that sat on an intricate Persian rug in front of the
fireplace. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Tea? Coffee? Another glass of
wine?” A teasing smile lifted his lips. “A shot of whiskey?”
    Melody laughed softly. “As tempting as that sounds, no thank
you.”
    He sat down across from her, gazed into the fire for a
moment, then sighed and leaned back in his chair. “My marriage to Elizabeth was
an arranged marriage,” he declared. “That is very common for muses. As a muse,
our purpose is to connect with and inspire humans to create, to help make your
world more beautiful. We can contact a human on a telepathic connection, usually
in dreams. Our parents match us with a muse who will be a good complement. In
my case, I was a musical muse, and Elizabeth was a lyrical muse. The idea is to
match two muses of similar talents so that they will continue to inspire one
another, thus being able to continue inspiring humans.”
    Melody listened intently, her mind spinning with this
extraordinary new world she had never imagined could exist. She watched the firelight
play across Liron’s face, and noticed the sadness return as he spoke.
    “I loved her instantly,” he continued after a brief pause.
His voice was raspy with emotion, whimsical, and tinged with disappointment.
“The second I saw her, with her midnight hair and bottomless dark eyes, I was
lost.” He shook his head with a sigh. “She never shared the sentiment.”
    Melody frowned. “She didn’t love you? I mean, she didn’t