Heather was miserable all throughout the meal. She didn’t know what happened to make Max behave in a way that was so rude and arrogant but it was clear that something had. It came to her that maybe he regretted what had happened between them and she found herself cursing herself for the impulse that had led her to first kiss him and then sleep with him.

When the meal was over, Max rapidly vanished, leaving her sitting there in a small bubble of silence. Christy had vanished earlier that day, off to the picnic with Blake probably. She had not returned before dinner, and it did not seem that she was back yet. Blake was not there either, so they must be together. Loneliness hit, squashing Heather’s spirits flat.

She made her way back to the room and slumped on the sofa; she felt confused and more than just a little bit afraid. Time was very strange there, and it seemed like the day had lasted forever. She wasn’t the least bit tired and yet she was exhausted. Outside the window, though, it was still daylight. The sun still sat high in the sky, and she had no idea what time it was back in her world, but her body seemed to think it was time to lay down.

Her sigh was heavy and heartfelt as she forced herself to her feet and walked to the broad windows that sat on one wall of the room. She opened the window gently and then stuck her head out, letting the wind ruffle her hair and stroke along her face.

Below her, several stories down, was a courtyard of sorts. She watched, fascinated, as several men marched toward each other and drew swords. Her brow crinkled. What was happening? She leaned further out the window, completely caught up in what she was seeing as she realized that one of the men was Max!

The men danced forward, and the swords flashed in the sun. Her breath caught as she realized that they were training, preparing themselves for some kind of battle. Max stopped where he was and lifted a hand, said something, and they reformed the lines that they were in.

A few of the others began to battle as Max called out words she could not make out. The wind tore at her again as she leaned out a little further, the sill digging into her abdomen as she watched the mock battle.

Max raised a hand in the air, and the ones fencing stopped. Max took his shirt off, and the sun rode across his rippling muscles and dark hair. Her heart fluttered, and her inner temperature spiked upward, causing a flash of heat to rise up and flush along her upper thighs.

Her body wriggled forward, and she watched, avidly, as Max and one of the other men began to fight with the swords. The sight, sweat running down Max’s strong and broad chest and the muscles of his arms, made her dizzy, and that heat just kept growing; kept flushing through her.

My God, he was so sexy: so hot. All she wanted to do was run down there to that courtyard and have him, right there in the dirt and with his sweat still coating his skin.

She leaned out just a little further so she could keep watching the action as the men took a few steps back and slightly out of her view.

Her hand scrabbled for support, and she felt herself falling, but it was too late; she could not stop herself—she had no chance at all!

The wind whistled around her head and ears. Her mouth opened in a scream as she hurtled downward, the gown flying up around her body and her hands beating at the air as she grabbed at the nothingness and found nothing but air. Nothing to hold onto. Nothing to save her.

She was going to die!

That scream, ripped from her mouth like someone had reached a hand into her throat and yanked it out of there, echoed through the air and she heard the wind pick up speed as her body plummeted faster and faster, and she knew it was all over. This was it. This was the end of her life.

Then he was there, his front talons grabbing at her, yanking her upward just inches from the ground. The scream reversed itself, shot out of existence then came back again, leaving her voice raw and hurting.

Max’s wing made eddies of dust swirl up, and then they were in the air and flying toward the roof. She lay there, her body curled up against his now, and tears flying down her face. Safety was not something she was used to feeling, but that was just what she felt at that moment. Safe. She felt safe.

Max stood her on the roof. He changed, and his eyes were narrowed. “You…what were you doing? You could have gotten really hurt! Did you just try to jump out of the window?”

She stared at him. Her head shook from side to side. She tottered toward him but then stopped. It was clear that he was angry and with each passing second, she felt more and more stupid for having been so caught up in watching him that she had let herself fall right out of a window. She got out, “No. I was watching you.” Her eyes itched with the need to cry. She swallowed hard. “I just leaned out too far. I wasn’t thinking, and I had never seen anything like that before either. I was interested.”

That was an understatement. The biggest one she had likely ever made.

Max looked at her and then away. His jaw worked, and a muscle jumped in there. His voice was harsh. “You could have died.”

“I know. I thought I was going to. I’m sorry if I scared you.” Her whole body felt raw and strange, like she had somehow gone too heavy or something. She didn’t know what else to say to him. “I know you’re busy and distracted and the last thing you have time to do is rescue a woman dumb enough to fall out of a window in your castle.”

His lips pursed. His eyes, shadowed and holding an expression she could not quite decipher, met hers squarely. “You saw Orcs yesterday when you arrived?”

She noticed he did not say after he had left her and the others. “Yeah. They’re really ugly. Why?”

His hands rested on his lean hips, drawing her attention there and to the bulge at the front of his trousers. She could see the firm and plump mound below the material and all her desire kicked into high gear. She looked away, fast.

He said, “Because they were not supposed to be there. They were infringing on our territory. Blake told me they were there, and I believe him…”

“Then why are you asking me?” She was honestly confused by that query of his, especially if he believed that Blake had been telling the truth.

“Because I may need you to tell those who don’t truly think Blake was being honest. Many don’t trust him, and I can’t say that they don’t have a reason not to.”

Heather wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing that it was his arms around her. “Okay.”

He looked over toward the edge of the roof. “I better get back down there. I hope you can find your own way down, presumably by stair instead of the more direct route?”

She took a hard breath at that and looked at him, sure he was insulting her. There was a grin on his face, and it was not an unkind one though, and she felt better. “Yes, and thank you for saving my life. Really.”

He turned away and then turned back. The heady aroma of his sweat and the soap he used hit her, making her nipples go taut and her core to clench. He said, “Of course I would never let you fall, not when I was near enough to catch you.”

That hit her right in the heart. No, he would never let her fall. He was not that kind of man. Of dragon. Of anything.

Sorrow hit. Why oh why did she have to meet the perfect man and have to lose him? It was obvious she would lose him. This was his world and no way would he leave it and she was not sure if she could stay there. Maybe there was a law about that too. From what she understood, the ones who came and were allowed to stay all had magical powers, and she definitely did not have anything close to that.

That she thought that he was perfect made her heart contract. She barely knew him, and she was playing a dangerous game. The truth was, Christy had been right. Hookups had never been her style, and she tended to place more of herself than she should into a man’s hands after she had slept with him. She got too emotionally invested way too fast.

It was no wonder she was getting caught up like she was. It had been too long since she had felt any kind of desire for a man or known intimacy—and what they had shared had not been just sex: it had been intimacy. At least for her. But she had no idea of what he thought about that or if that had just been some no strings attached sex with a human. For all she knew, dragons thought of sleeping with humans as sport.

He stared at her face and that thought, can he read my mind, hit again, forcing her to look away. Her arms fell away from her midsection and then went back up, that time over her chest. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to step forward and just let her mouth rest against his full and wide lips for a moment and see if he responded, but so what if he did?

He was virile, and he had a libido. He might want her in his bed but he was a dragon, and she was a human, and he had been so mean at dinner, even if he had apologized for it afterward. Not to mention that he really was a king and there was clearly something going on, something that demanded his total attention, and she was getting in the way: something he was bound to find highly unattractive.

Max lifted a hand. Those strong fingers of his tangled into her hair, fisted it, and her body immediately responded. She went toward him, her lips parting and her pupils dilating as his mouth came down on hers, fusing his lips to hers and then giving her a fast but incredibly passionate kiss that took her breath and stole all the thoughts right out of her head. Her limbs trembled. His fingernails grazed the flesh of her scalp, leaving tingling little trails there. His mouth tasted of food and mint and something else: something mysterious and delicious.

Then he broke that kiss off, leaving her blinking and dazed. He said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this with you, Heather. I can’t.”

Then he strolled to the roof’s edge and jumped off it. She heard his wings beat the air a few times, felt the updraft from those strong and leathery wings on her face, cooling her flushed skin.

She had to resist the urge to go to the edge, to peek down and watch him do that mock battle. She had to stop lusting after him. She was distracting him, and it was a pretty good bet that she was a distraction he could not afford just then.

He was definitely a distraction she could not afford. It would be way too easy to forget how soon she would have to leave and that there was no way they could be together and to open herself up to something that would definitely end in her getting more hurt than she had been in her entire lifetime.

“My life back home isn’t perfect or awesome, but it’s mine. I don’t know that I’d want to stay here once the novelty wore off. I mean, there’s not even electricity. There are lights, but I think it’s magic that keeps them on. Talk about a blackout waiting to happen!”

She was still thinking about those things when she opened the door to the room she shared with Christy to find Christy pacing the floor, her feet moving so fast it looked like she was about to break into a run at any minute.

Heather said, “Whoa! What’s up?”

Christy spun on her heel to face her. Her eyes held both hurt and anger. “He stood me up. No, scratch that. He showed up, said he had something of real importance to deal with, and then flew off and left me alone out there in a goddamn meadow!”

“Oh no!” Heather asked, “Did you just stay out there then? You were gone a long time.”

Christy flopped down into a chair. She waved a hand at the ceiling. “Yeah, I did. These humans were out there hunting truffles.”

“Huh?”

“Truffles, you know, mushrooms. You should see those things. They’re huge, and they’re amazing too. At first, I was wary, like what if they have some kind of tolerance to whatever poison the truffles might have in them because they have been eating them their whole lives, but I tried one anyway. You know I have always been a sucker for the finer things. Then, because I ate a bit, I got roped into helping to hunt for them. That’s how things work here. Everyone does something to help. Or so they told me as they handed me a bag and a stick and told me to get to digging. For all I know they just wanted free labor.”

Heather hid a grin. Christy had a flair for the dramatic, but at that moment she was using that flair to offset her very real disappointment. “It’s a good thing you don’t like him.”

“I know right? If I did, it might have hurt my feelings. Not that I really have any. One cannot be in my field and have feelings.”

“You do know it’s okay to say you like him?”

Christy’s upper lip curled backward off her teeth. “I’d die before I said that.”

That meant she did like Blake. Heather knew her well enough to know that Christy got out her toughest armor when confronted with emotions she did not know how to handle. Liking a man always brought out the tough in Christy.

Christy tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. She peered at Heather’s face. “You look upset yourself.”

Heather let her fingers smooth a small wrinkle in her dress. “I fell out of the window.”

Christy’s eyes went as big and round as saucers. “You did what? How? Are you okay?”

She sighed, “Yes. Max caught me and saved my life.”

Christy stood again. “Really?”

Heather’s hands cupped her elbows. “Yeah, it was pretty…well.” It was exciting, after she had realized she was not about to die after all. It had been incredibly sweet, and it had made her feel safe and protected too. Of course it had. To her. But to him, it had likely just been a minor annoyance that had interrupted something he found more important. She swallowed back a hard lump in her throat and offered, “It was crazy.”

Christy’s eyes went to the windows. Dusk had begun, and purple and blue shadows cloaked the open window casement. “Sounds like it. Listen, I’m pretty beat. Do you mind if I just turn in?”

“No, not at all. I was just thinking the same thing.” Heather eyeballed the wide and long bed. That she would much rather share it with Max was no shocker. That he was probably done with her hurt.

Dragons. How could she possibly know what any of them were really thinking?