Chapter Seven
Blake muttered, “Well that was awkward.”
It had not been awkward until she had bolted though. In fact, it had been nice, sitting there with her, drinking the stout tea and talking. The light had come through the windows, highlighting her face, and for a moment he had let himself imagine that this was what it would be like to have a mate. To have a woman he could wake up to every morning.
“I could have gone without the whole flour to the face thing though. Yeah, he could have, but even that was funny.” He sighed and grit his teeth together. He wanted her, dammit, and he knew it. The question was, how to get her?
Blake was still asking himself that question when dinner ended. He watched her stroll out of the hall, the gown she wore that day clinging to her pert bottom in a way that made his entire body go taut and stiff. He muttered, “This is ridiculous.”
He stood up from the table and took off after her, following behind her and admiring the very delectable view as she made her way up the stairs to the roof. He spoke as he approached so that he would not frighten her. “This has always been one of my favorite places.”
She didn’t turn around. “I can see why. It’s stunning.”
“It is.” He wasn’t talking about the view though. He came up beside her and they stood looking out at the large vistas of sky and mountain, of the village situated just below, and she asked, “It’s so different here, isn’t it?”
He said, “At one time your world was not that different from this one.” She turned to face him then. Strands of her hair blew around her face, and he stared at those strands and at her dark eyes and full mouth. She asked, “Really?”
He let his body lean against the edge of the roof. “Really. My father and mother used to go there a lot, back when I was younger.”
She glanced out at the softly waving grass in the bustling village and then asked, “I thought they were cursed to stay here forever.”
He said, “They were. The portal was still here then. It comes and goes. You can never really know how long it will stay open. We have a sort of general estimate on it, but sometimes it fools us. The truth is the curse sent them here and turned them into dragons, and yes, the wizard cursed them to be here forever.”
She finished it. “It was once they became dragons that they couldn’t live there anymore. That’s what kept them from going back and staying.”
She was so close to him, close enough that he could feel her body heat and smell that delicious fragrance that was her skin. “Yes. For one thing, the time is different. When they went back the first time, they discovered that though they had been here only a few years, many years had passed there. Many of the people that they had known and loved were already gone. Then there was their Dragon-ess. It’s hard, when you’re a Dragon in a place where there are none, to feel at home. That’s not to say that some dragons didn’t return and don’t live there now, because they do.”
She looked interested. “They do? Really?”
He let his fingers stroke across the smooth stone of the roof’s wall. “Yeah. Really. Some went back in what would’ve been several hundred years after the wizard died. Some of the young that were born early on decided that they couldn’t stand not knowing what they might have over there and so they left. Many came back, but many didn’t. That was before we knew that the portal in your world changes its location. Sometimes it opens in your city, sometimes in completely different countries. There’s no way to know where it’s going to be and so some who wanted to come back found that they couldn’t. Many spent decades searching for that portal again.”
She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Some of the humans here said they came here through doors.”
The wind pushed him a little bit closer to her, and he let it. Their bodies were close enough to touch now if he simply leaned a little bit toward her. He resisted that for a moment. “Yes. Many of those dragons who chose to go back, to see what might be there, decided that rather than have to search for the portals that they would just build doorways. It took centuries and a lot of magic, but eventually, they made a few.”
The wind fluttered her gown. A small fold of fabric moved across his fingers and his body reacted by moving toward hers. They stood, a mere inch of space between them, and with their hands close enough to touch. He looked down at the stones and their fingers. Their pinkies were very close to each other. He nudged his closer yet, and just the tip of his finger touched the side of hers. She didn’t move it away.
She said, “You really have magic?”
He said, “Yes. Do you want to see?”
Her pinky pressed a little closer to his. “Please tell me you’re not about to bust out some cheesy card trick or magic trick.”
He gave her a look. “I like cheese, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t need it for magic.”
Her head went back. Her throat moved as laughter bubbled up from her chest and then exploded from her mouth. She cried out, “Oh my God! That’s not what it meant at all! I mean, I didn’t mean cheese like...You know what? Show me.”
Their gazes locked. Her eyes were dancing and twinkling and a smile highlighted her entire face. The sight of her, so caught up in humor, made a strange ache in his heart. He said, “Will you trust me?”
She responded with, “Not in your life.”
He gave her a look that he hoped made him appear wounded. “Why not?”
She said, “Do you really need a whole list of the reasons or do you just want a few of the highlights?”
He said, “Okay. I can see your point. I mean, all things considered. How about you trust me to take you for a ride?”
Her laughter came again. “You do know the last time you took me for a ride I ended up here?”
