“A lot of those who didn’t become dragons were still very loyal to Max’s and Blake’s fathers. They came with them. They refused to leave their side even knowing that they were dragons. I think that’s amazing.”
Christy said, “Yeah? Well, apparently Blake did something funky because if he hadn’t, they never would’ve forbade him from having kids. I mean, come on, how screwed up you have to be that they insist that you can never bear children?”
Heather leaned closer. “It wasn’t Blake at all. It was his dad. I don’t know what he did but Max said whatever it was, it was necessary. There’s a part of me, that law-school part of me, that wants to know what it is so that maybe I could, I don’t know, argue his case or something? That seems really unfair. I mean it’s a harsh punishment to begin with, never having kids, but never allowing any member of your family to have them either? That’s uncalled for.”
Christy said, “Maybe they just didn’t want Blake to breed. Can you blame them? The guy belched fire at a coffee shop. Remember that? Why are you sticking up for him?”
“I have no idea.”
She really didn’t. She had no feelings at all for Blake, but she knew that despite Max’s anger with Blake at the moment that they were not only closely related, but that Max cared for Blake. Max felt that the punishment was unfair, and he was right. Maybe that’s all it was.
Christy said, “I wonder if anyone even knows that we are gone.”
Heather studied her hands. She had a feeling that the thing that she didn’t like to talk about, that great big giant thing, was about to come hurtling at her, and sure enough, Christy said, “Do you miss your parents?”
A hard lump formed in Heather’s throat. The automobile accident that had taken their lives had occurred only days before Todd’s defection. Her brother had decided that he no longer wanted to live in New York and had taken a very prestigious job in Hong Kong. She rarely heard from him, and since he mostly ignored his social media and the phone, she doubted very seriously that he would notice that she was absent.
That she might not be missed at all brought a welter of hurt into her heart. Along with it came a longing to see her parents again and she found herself wishing that she had told Max that her parents were gone too and wondering why she hadn’t.
She did not like to talk about it. They had had something of a major fight the night before the accident, and she had yet to forgive herself for that one.
She said, “Of course I do. I guess the only good thing was that Todd left after they died so they didn’t have to be ashamed of their jilted daughter.”
Tears came up in her eyes. She was a disappointment. She had disappointed them so many times. It was a damn shame that the best thing in her life was the fact that her parents had not been able to see her cheating ex-fiancé walk out on her with her bridesmaid, who was the daughter of one of their long-time and best friends.
Before she could stop herself, she found herself sobbing out, “I never liked that bitch anyway! It was all their idea to put her in my wedding!”
Christy’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and hugged her tight. “Yeah, I never liked her either. You should’ve let me give her a good old-fashioned butt whipping like I wanted to.”
Heather said, “I guess if I was a better person I would have.”
Christy shook her head. “No, you’re the better person for saying no to it. You always were a better person than me.”
Heather hugged her back. “Oh, come on. You’re tough as nails. I always wished I was as tough as you. I mean, look at us now, sitting here in a castle, and I’m crying my eyes out and, because I apparently have no sense at all, I slept with a dragon. At least you had the good sense to say no to that.”
Christy said, “To be fair, I said no to Blake. There are a couple of really hot dragons around here that I might say yes to.” She ended that sentence with a saucy wink that made Heather’s tears dry up in laughter.
Heather cried out, “You are incorrigible!”
Christy said, “You are using words that make you sound like you’re eighty. I’m kidding, by the way. I don’t want to sleep with any of them. I want to get home and sleep with men I know won’t roast me to a crisp.”
Heather shivered a little as she remembered the exquisite and incredibly hot feel of Max’s flesh against hers. “Is it a terrible thing to say that the best guy that I’ve met lately is a dragon?”
Christy studied her carefully. “No, I don’t think it is. But listen, we are leaving here. I love you, and I know you, so I’m saying to you now that you have a tendency to get your feelings all caught up when it comes to men you are sleeping with. He’s a dragon, Heather. He lives here. You’re a human and you live in the other world, our world. Just please don’t forget that.”
Heather looked down at her hands. “How could I forget that?”
How could she have forgotten that? She had though. Max was so easy to be with, so exciting and so different, that she had somehow forgotten that they were nothing alike. What’s more, Christy was right. She did have a tendency to get her emotions tangled up in the men that she slept with. She always had. It wasn’t wise, especially when the man she had just slept with the night before wasn’t really a man, but a dragon.
A beautiful, fire-breathing and magical dragon. Oh no. Her heart sank as those thoughts kicked through her brain and she realized that she was thinking of him in a way that guaranteed that she wasn’t thinking clearly at all.
She was going to have to be very careful not to repeat last night. She was going to have to be very careful indeed. Because the last thing she needed to do at that particular juncture in her life was to start thinking that there might be a reason to stay in the land of the dragons.
