Heather side and turned toward her. “I know. I just don’t know how I feel anymore. It’s so weird. It’s like he’s the perfect guy, but he’s a dragon. Also, I would have to decide if I wanted to stay here or not. If not, how could we be together? He’s a king here. I mean he’s the king here. That’s a lot to consider, isn’t it?”
Yes. It was. Not just for Heather either. Christy had not considered, not until that very moment, that Blake too was a king in that world. There was no way they could work out; she knew that. She wasn’t ready for what he wanted, and all he wanted from her was her reproductive organs anyway. But if he did want something more, and she decided she did too, how could that ever work out between them?
She knew she should be comforting her friend at the moment, not thinking about Blake, so she said, “Do you have feelings for him?”
“I’m really afraid that I do. I have no idea how he feels about me though.”
Christy said, “He’d be a fool not to care about you.”
They gave each other an impulsive hug. Christy said, “I mean it. You know, you’ve always thought you weren’t good enough or that you didn’t deserve something, and it’s always infuriated me. You’re the best person that I know.”
Heather surprised her then. “I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how awesome they are. I mean, come on, all you’ve ever done is try to prove yourself over and over again to people that aren’t even around for you to prove something to anymore.”
Christy’s face contorted in a grimace. “Ouch. What brought that on?”
“It’s just that it’s true. You always act like you have to work twice as hard as everyone else. That nothing you do is good enough until it’s absolutely perfect and then, even after it’s perfect, you act like it’s still not good enough. You work yourself half to death trying to prove a point, to prove that you belong in that company. But I don’t know who you’re trying to prove that point to. It worries me; it worries me because I’m your friend and I love you, and I hate to see you do this to yourself.”
She was right. She was like that, and her insecurity was often crippling despite the façade of self-confidence that she portrayed to the world. She said, “What do you think is going to happen if the Orcs do declare war? I mean, if we can’t get back home before then?”
What she really wanted to know was if Heather even still wanted to go home. She had a sinking feeling that she didn’t.
Heather said, “I don’t know. I’m scared though. It’s crazy because I should be scared that I’m going to die here if we don’t get home but really, what scares me the most is knowing that Max is going to fight them. He could die.”
So, could Blake. That knowledge hit her like a brick aimed right at her chest. Blake had been in other battles, and she knew that, but she also knew that he could die. The Orcs were deadly and terrifying, and the dragons were very few in number. There weren’t that many humans either. Could they really mount any kind of actual defense against an army of Orcs?
She didn’t know how to comfort her friend, and she didn’t know how to stave off the sudden anxiety that swirled through her being at the thought of Blake having to go up against those vicious beasts either. Instead, she just hugged Heather as hard as she could.
She said, “You spent the night with Max again?”
Heather said, “I keep trying not to. I swear to God I keep trying to avoid him, but it’s like...It’s like...It’s like he’s a magnet or something. Like he just draws me in, and I can’t stay away from him.”
“It’s a small castle.”
They both burst into laughter. That laughter covered up the confession that wanted to come from Christy’s lips. That she felt the same tug and pull toward Blake. That she didn’t know how to stay away from him either, even though everything within her said that she should.
Blake was a complication; complications had always frightened her. Complications always sent her running. Not the kind that came from having a difficult job filled with complications, no. She loved those complications. It was the personal ones, the ones that tied her emotions up in knots and made her question everything that she was doing and wanted that frightened her.
Blake was definitely wreaking havoc on her emotions at the moment. She did know how she felt about him and she damn sure had no idea how he felt about her, which was a complication all by itself. That he was nothing like anyone she had ever known was hardly surprising. She had never known a dragon before. That he made her question things that she didn’t want to question: her career, how much she truly loved, that apartment in the city, and whether or not she wanted a real relationship. It frightened her to the point that she was seriously considering going back down to the door and trying to press her way through it.
That brought their earlier conversation up and she said, “Blake said the door only opens from our world. I don’t know if that’s true though. I did open it but all I saw was the forest. He said whoever goes through it has to really want to go through it.”
Oh shit. Her heart sank. Was it possible that the door did open from this side, from this world? Had she opened it to see nothing but forest because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back or not?
There was a knock on the door. Christy turned toward it and then glided across the floor. Her hands found the knob and she turned it, opening it. The human woman named Marlene that she had met the day before stood there smiling at her. She said, “There you are. I was hoping the two of you would keep me company.”
The last thing on earth Christy wanted to do was hang out with this woman. She glanced over at Heather. Heather lifted her shoulders in a shrug that indicated that if Christy was down, so was she. Great. Leave it all up to her! Christy looked back at Marlene’s smiling face, meaning to make some excuse, but then she didn’t. “Sure.”
Marlene moved backward along the hall and Christy and Heather exited the room and followed her. Marlene said, “I’m working on trying to replicate coffee. Blake told me that you were fairly...upset when you discovered that there is no coffee here.”
Heather said, “I think she was more upset over the grease fire he started on the stove.”
Marlene said, “You can never let a dragon in the kitchen. They will mess it up every time.”
The matter-of-fact tone in Marlene’s voice lightened Christy’s mood. A laugh spurted from her mouth. “I don’t how we got that burned on flour off that stove.”
Marlene said, “Oh, it’s had worse on there.”
They came to a door at the end of the hallway. Marlene opened it and then moved down a set of stairs. Heather and Christy looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. The staircase was winding and very steep. The banister was very smooth, the wood worn from centuries of use. The light was dim but good enough for them to see that the staircase turned and turned and then turned again. Eventually, they came to a landing and then from the landing they stepped into what appeared to be the basement of the castle.
