One
There’s a burn mark in the middle of Annaleigh’s bed, and I can’t stop staring at it. It’s like someone stuck a cigarette into the mattress. The last time I saw my best friend was two weeks ago, when she came back through the portal to Isiriel to tell me that she and her fire monster boyfriend, Kale, are officially trying to have their first baby, a process that’s apparently complicated because his cum is lava.
I stare at the hole in the mattress. Did…did Kale come on the mattress, and that’s why there’s a hole? I exert a full-body shudder and jump back up off the bed.
Ever since Annaleigh went through that portal to another realm that’s mostly inhabited by fire monsters, I’ve been keeping an eye on her house. She told me a while ago that I could move in because she isn’t really planning on coming back now that she’s happily shacked up with her boyfriend–who hashornsandfire instead of eye ballsandLAVA CUM. But I digress.
I told her I didn’t need to stay in her house because I was living with my fiancé, Matt.
Well…now Matt is fucking some woman he met in his robotics class, and I guess I’m moving into Alice’s house.
Just maybe not into the room where her boyfriend got his lava cum on the mattress.
My eyes flicker to the window, to the portal in the backyard. The last time Annaleigh came through, she showed me where the portal is. From this distance, it’s just a shimmer, like someone sprinkling fairy dust from the sky. But she told me that if I get closer to the portal, I’ll be able to see into the realm on the other side, Isiriel. She described the place she lives as a mountain cave.
Going to the window, I shove it open, immediately feeling stupid because the house does, in fact, have a back door. I don’t have to crawl out the frickin’ window. But here I am, climbing out the window and approaching the portal slowly. Annaleigh seems so much happier since she went through. She’s found a guy who loves her—even if he is a fire monster—and a purpose, which is something she swears she never really had here on Earth.
Maybe if I go through that portal, I’ll find purpose, too.
I’m standing in front of it now, and it’s almost like looking through a keyhole, if the keyhole was shaped like a very large vertical eye socket. I can see fire and stone, and possibly the end of one sharp horn.
I look back at Annaleigh’s house. If I stay here, I could be happy. I would have a place to stay that’s one hundred percent paid for. I have a pretty good job, and I’m working on getting a bachelor’s degree. I wouldn’t even have debt after school is over because I got a free ride to the university I’m attending.
But I’m curious.
I turn back to the portal. Something flashes across it, and before I know it, I’ve stepped forward.
The sunlight fades immediately, swallowed by darkness. My eyes are trying to adjust to the shadow, but before they can, something warm and sharp settles against my neck, and I freeze.My eyes slowly scroll to the left to see a very familiar fire monster, eyes alight with fire. A fire monster who’s holding a sword to my neck.
“Kale?” I’m only about fifty percent sure it’s Annaleigh’s boyfriend. He’s the only fire monster I’ve ever met, and I don’t know if they all look the same, or if there’s some way to tell them apart. Maybe this is some other fire monster that just looks like Kale.
“Alice,” the monster growls out, and I feel my shoulders fall in relief. ItisKale. But he’s still holding a sword to my throat… “I’m sorry to have to do this, but you came through the portal without leave to do so. I must take you to the king.”
He sounds so regretful of that fact that it strikes fear into my chest. “What will the king do?” I ask Kale as he takes the sword away from my throat and then turns me in the direction of a large doorway cut into the rock of the mountain. He wraps his very large, ashen hand around my arm, and I have a flash of the first time I met him, when I caught him and Annaleigh together and thought he was a demon trying to possess her. That was nearly a year ago, and now it all seems so ridiculous.
We walk by a throne made of stone in the middle of the room, sitting before a river of magma. The heat of it makes me sweat as we pass by it and into a room on the other side of an arched doorway. We stop just inside the room, which isn’t covered in the orange-tinted shadow of the other room. This room is dark and blue-hued.
Kale turns his head and speaks to another guard standing by the door. “Send word to the Ambassador that she’s needed in the king’s dining hall immediately.”
Dining hall. That makes sense. Stretched out before us in the shadow is a long table with one chair situated at the head of it. And just as I’m wondering where the king is, a large, dark form steps into the room, his fire eyes finding us immediately. Hestops inside the door and reaches over to something attached to the wall. I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing until a flame appears at the end of his hand. He touches his hand to the long stick he’s holding, and the room is suddenly much brighter. A torch. He reattaches it to the wall.
Now that there’s light in the room, I have to hold in a gasp at the sight of the monster before me. Just like Kale, his skin is the color of ash, and those veins cover the length of his body, glowing orange with the heat of fire or whatever is going on inside them. But unlike Kale, the king’s horns aren’t sharp and geometric. His steel horns spiral straight up out of his head, and where Kale’s body is slim and sinewy, the king’s is broad and shockingly muscular.
“Captain,” he says, his voice deep and his fire eyes flaming up just a little higher when he addresses Kale. “What has happened?” His chest is bare, showing off surprising muscles, pecs and abs well defined. All he's wearing is a pair of lose-fitting linen pants, and when my eyes fall compulsively to the bulge between his legs, I look away quickly, my face heating.
"My king," Kale says, "This woman came through the portal unbidden. I have sent for the Ambassador to speak on her behalf."
It's weird the way I can tell the king's gaze has shifted to me even though he doesn't have actual eyeballs. Something about the shape of his eyebrows. He moves to the table and sits down, never taking his gaze off me. "Coming through the portal without authorization is punishable by death.”
My heart seizes up hard in my chest. “But I didn’t know–”
The king’s hand comes down hard on the table in front of him, causing everything on it to rattle ominously, and the fire in his eyes crackles high, engulfing most of his head. I jerk away, doing my best to put Kale between the king and me, on the offchance that Kale would choose protecting me over his loyalty to his monarch. I’m thinking chances are slim.
The king points one long, clawed finger at me. “You will not speak in my chambers unless you have been asked a question.”
“My king!”
I spin around in time to see my best friend, Annaleigh, come through the stone doorway. Her eyes flicker over to me, and even though I want to run to her, she gives a subtle shake of her head as she steps up to Kale’s other side and lowers her chin in the direction of the king.
