Christy was in the room they had been given the next morning when Heather finally trooped in, her face still glowing from the late night and early-morning sex she had had with Max. Christy did not look like she had had nearly as good a night as Heather had however. In fact, she looked both worried and angry. As soon as Heather opened her mouth to speak, Christy cried out, “Oh my God! I honestly thought they had eaten you!”

An involuntary grin surfaced at the corners of Heather’s mouth. Christy peered into her face. “Oh. My God. No. You did it!”

Heather said, “What makes you think I did anything at all?”

Christy snorted. “Because I’ve known you since we were kids and I know just exactly how long it’s been since you got laid. Also, you took off with Max, and you didn’t come back to the room at all last night, and then you show up here this morning grinning like an idiot and with a hickey on your neck. That pretty much says everything there is to say.”

Heather’s fingers flew to her neck. “He didn’t give me a hickey!”

Christy crowed out, triumphantly, “Nope but it looks like he gave you everything else!”

Heather, torn between amusement and chagrin, gave Christy a level look. “I’m sorry I left you alone all night and didn’t let you know I was okay.”

Christy said, “Forget about it. I want details; spill, girl, spill.”

Heather went red. “No.”

Christy peered into her face. “Oh, it must have been good!”

It had been good. Mind blowing, in fact. It had been the singularly most exciting sex she had ever had in her entire life. But her emotions were still tangled up, and she was confused by the sudden welter of feeling that she had toward Max. She wasn’t used to hookups, and she had damn sure never had a hook up with the dragon before, and she really had no way to process what had just happened.

She also had no idea what would happen next between them. She headed for the small sofa set below the window and took a seat on it. Christy joined her there. To divert the subject away from herself, Heather asked, “What were you arguing about with Blake last night at the table?”

Christy’s eyes rolled heavenward. “That idiot offered me my full weight in gold, gold mind you, to bear his child. Are you kidding me? Wreck this figure by having some dragon baby? I don’t think so. Not even for gold. Besides, if I really wanted a bunch of gold, I would just try to smuggle some of the furniture out of here under my clothes when we finally do get to make it back to our world.”

Heather leaned back against the sofa’s cushion. “I think you would have a hard time doing that. You might pick out some of these big-ass diamonds though.”

Christy said, “Oh. Don’t tempt me. I’ve actually considered it already. But then I would have to explain to whoever I tried to sell them to how I actually came about getting them. The last thing on earth I want is to wind up on the FBI’s most wanted list.”

Heather hoped that Christy was joking about trying to steal some of the jewels decorating the lavish furnishings, but she had a sinking feeling that Christy might just be serious. She was an investment broker after all. She also was not completely against a slight bit of larceny, as witnessed the time she had gotten angry because several of the mean girls in her high school had dared to poke fun at the clothes that Christy had to wear due to the fact that her mother was not only single, but seriously underemployed. Christy had shoplifted an entire wardrobe from the best and most high-end stores in New York, and got away with it.

Heather said, “I take it you told him no.”

Christy’s fingers drummed on the arm of the sofa. “Several times. Then he decided to try to get all romantic with me, I guess in the hopes of proving that he is not a jackass and offered to have a picnic with me later today.”

Heather said, “Oh, that’s sweet!”

Christy snarled, “Sure it is. If you’re not a dragon trying to impregnate an unwilling woman.”

Christy had a point. Heather said, “Max told me that it’s not his fault.”

Christy asked, “That he’s a jackass?”

Heather said, absently, “Oh, I’m sure it’s his fault he is a jackass. I meant it’s not his fault that he’s not allowed to have children with the other clans here.”

Christy shot an elbow into her ribs. “It sounds like you did a lot of talking while you were at it.”

“I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but honestly, I think I just had the best date of my life. Don’t mention the sex; it’s not about that. Literally, it was probably the best date I’ve ever had.”

Christy looked unimpressed. “Well, I’d say he didn’t have too high of a bar to jump over. I know what kind of dates you’ve had.”

“I’ll give you that. That’s not it though. It was not just the sex either. It was him. He’s a genuinely nice person.”

Christy pointed out, “He’s hardly a person. He’s a dragon. I don’t think they are really people.”

“They used to be people. They got cursed by a wizard and turned into dragons. The wizard was in love with Max’s mother, who was a human princess, but she was in love with his dad, who was a human knight. The wizard betrayed them during a big battle and then turned all the knights into dragons.

“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.