“This day is fired,” Heather huffed as she kicked her shoes across the foyer that ran from Christy’s front door to the small open concept living room and kitchen. “And I mean fired. I hate my life right now. Apparently that dickhead ex-boss of mine is giving me the most horrible recommendations ever!”

Christy looked up from the massive plate of spaghetti she was eating. The smell of garlic and oregano hung over everything. “You too huh? Ugh, I don’t know if I’m ever going to get another job.”

Christy peered down at her plate. “Wow, you’re really stress eating. I haven’t seen you do that since that time you broke out right before prom.”

“I know.” Christy passed the plate over. “Save me from myself, will you?”

Heather sat down, took the plate, and dug in. “This is great.”

“I do make good pasta.” Christy leaned back, patted her slightly bulging belly and asked, “So I take it you had no luck today?”

“Nope.” Heather twirled strands of spaghetti around her fork. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What you should do is ask a few of your clients for a reference to counteract his poison.”

Heather slurped in noodles. “That’s a good idea. Hell, that is a great idea. I will. Thanks for that, and this. Did you put mushrooms in here?”

Christy nodded. “Yeah, of course. We both love mushrooms.”

Heather found herself remembering the mushrooms she had had in Dragon World. “I wish we’d brought some of the wild truffles back from there. I bet we could have sold them for a fortune.”

“You’re right, since they’re rare over here and so common there we could have started a truffle-smuggling business and never had to worry about money ever again.”

They gawked at each other and then burst into laughter. Things had been hard in the two months that had passed since they had come back, and things looked like they were going to get worse before they got better. To her relief, she had actually been able to use her credit and debit cards, but the balances were going up on the credit cards and dropping like a stone on the debit. She knew Christy wasn’t in much better shape despite them both pulling together to keep the bills paid there, and she also wondered just how long they were going to be able to manage to keep afloat.

Christy said, “You know, I’m beginning to get worried.”

“I was just thinking that,” she admitted.

“I was just thinking that maybe I should use that dating app. We might have to start getting free food and coffee.”

Heather’s eyebrows went up. “No. I mean, hello. With our luck, we’d end with a werewolf or a vampire who’s anemic or something. And we’d have just the blood type it needed to live.”

“You have a point, but I’m serious. Things are getting a little dire.”

Heather set the plate on the table. “I have two interviews tomorrow. Maybe something will shake out. I am going to call a couple of my old clients and get them to give me a reference; maybe that really will help.”

“I’ve got three tomorrow. I can’t believe the assholes I worked for downsized my job. I mean, if they’d fired me, I could have collected unemployment or something but, instead, they downsized me to the point I can’t collect anything. I guess that, at least, I didn’t have to do the walk of shame out like the rest of the folks in my department when they all got downsized without so much as a day’s notice. But boy did I ever have to backpedal when I called with that cover story I had concocted. They thought I was mental.”

“You are mental, and in the best way possible.” It was an old joke, and one they usually laughed at, but nothing would lift Christy’s lips or mood just then, and that tugged at Heather’s heart. She was just as much to blame for what had happened as Christy was. If she had just stopped being such an idiot over Todd’s heartache earlier and actually tried for dates with decent men—and known she was worth more than the pitiful dates she did have—Christy never would have set her up on that dating app, and none of this would have happened.

True, but she never would have known Max either. That was the thing she clung to when her heart hurt the most, and when she was the most discouraged too. Max was a rare and beautiful thing, a thing most thought mythical and make-believe. But he was real, and he was a dragon.

The dragon that she was in love with and had no idea how to shake loose from her heart.

The next day was as hellish as the one before. Her feet dragged as she headed back to the apartment. The world was dismal and gray, and not just mood-wise either. Rain had swept in, and the streets were filled with people dashing past under bright umbrellas and the pulled-up hoods of raincoats. Her feet splashed through a puddle and the water stained her shoes and the hem of her slacks. She didn’t care.

She was exhausted and sad, and she didn’t know what to do anymore. She had been offered a job, but the pay was lousy. That it was the only job on offer was the only thing about it that made it even the least bit appealing.

It was a start, she told herself as she trudged along. A start was better than nothing. Ahead of her, a couple stopped walking and then started kissing. Her mood went flatter than ever. Her heart began to ache as she skirted past them, trying not to look because the sight reminded her of everything she would never have with Max. The rain came down harder, and she ducked her head, cursing herself for having forgotten her umbrella. The light was shifting, changing, and turning to a strange transparent shade of chalky gray that made her look up again.

The sky had a spreading reddish-blue stain on its edges. Sunset. It was pretty, but not nearly as pretty as the sunsets in Dragon World. How she missed those sunsets and the sunrises, especially the ones she saw while nestled into Max’s arms or as she flew across the sky on his back.

Life seemed a little less beautiful now, and she knew that a large part of that was due to the fact that she had seen real beauty in that land, the one she had left behind.

Her feet stopped on the sidewalk. Her eyes widened, and her throat went dry. She croaked out something, what she wasn’t sure. All she could do was stare at him, her hands flying up to her face as she considered, really considered, that she had likely lost her mind.

She stepped forward, wobbling a bit on her shaking legs. She had to be losing it. No way was he there, and no way was he there in his hot human self, looking at her from under his rain-drenched eyebrows and hair.

She croaked out, “Max?”

He stepped forward, one hand going up to his forehead to push back a lock of wet hair. “Hi.”

Hi? That was what he wanted to say just then? She found herself unable to speak. She had no idea of what to say or where to begin. He licked his lips, a sexy little gesture that made her heart race and her pulse quicken. He said, “I…I opened the portal. I had to. I need to know…I can’t ask you to come back. I couldn’t ask you to stay because…because it’s against the law. My asking would rob you of your free will and choice.”

She gaped at him. “What? How?”

He stubbed his booted foot into the concrete. “It’s what they say,” he muttered. “That we can’t influence humans because our powers could be what charmed them and…”

She rushed forward. Max took her into his arms, and that touch felt so right, so real, and she let her body lean against his, her eyes searching his. Her lawyer training kicked in. “Let me get this right. You can’t ask me to stay or leave here. That’s why you didn’t? Because it’s a law?”

He nodded, and she saw misery etched onto his face. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

Okay then. She licked her lips. “Did you want me to stay?”

“I can’t influence your decision.”

This was worse than trying to cross-examine a hostile witness! He would never break that law he believed in so much, so she had to help him and herself if they were going to be together. But first, she had to know where he stood. “Do you want me?”

His eyes held everything he felt right then. “Of course I do. I do. But you have to exercise your free will. I can’t ask you…”

No, he could not ask her to stay with him, to go back to Dragon World. But she did not need him to ask her that. Her body pressed closer to his. “I want you too. I want to go back. I miss it, and I miss you. I miss us. Everything I ever wanted in my life is over there, and there’s nothing that I want more than to be there and with you.”

His eyes lit up. He spoke in a hoarse voice, “I love you. I wish I had been able to say it over there and before you left. I love you. If you had said to me that you loved and wanted me but not that world I would have stayed here, even if it meant giving up my wings.”

Her entire soul shivered at the import of those words. He would have given his wings for her, and the long life that went along with them. He would have given up his kingdom and his place in Dragon World, and all for her?

The enormity of that, the sheer overwhelming sacrifice that he would have made for her, caused her to lose her breath. “I would never ask that of you. Never. You are who you are, and I would never. I love you too. I love you so much.”

His lips captured hers in a soft but fiery kiss that left her inner temperature rocketing skyward and her knees shaking and weak. The feel of his mouth on hers, the sweet and yet firm yield of those lips of hers. Then the passion that rode through her as their tongues met made her forget everything else—even that she was standing on a street in full view of everyone and anyone who might happen by and madly, wildly kissing this incredible being who wanted and loved her as much as she wanted and loved him.

The sound of heels tapping on the sidewalk drew her attention, and she broke the kiss off to see Christy standing there, a goofy smile on her face. Heather’s heart sank a little. How could she leave her best friend behind when she had so much awfulness on her plate?

Christy said, “I guess we are both having a great day. Guess who just got a job at DigiCorp? This girl! And it looks, girl, like the man of your dreams just showed up too.”

Heather’s smile was real and radiant. Her hands caught at Max’s. “It does look like it.” Her eyes shone, and her heart went light and free. “Oh, Christy, I…”

Christy flapped a hand at her. “Do me a favor, will you?”

Heather swallowed hard. “Anything,” she said through the hard lump in her throat.

Christy said, “Go up on the roof to take off, okay? Like for real, I don’t need to explain a dragon in front of my building.”

Heather rushed forward to hug her friend. She whispered, “I’ll miss you. I…I feel bad about leaving you.”

Christy gave her a hard hug. “Don’t. Don’t feel one bit bad. Go, and go before he decides to go all silent and strong and pretend he never said he loved you.”

Heather drew back. “You heard that?”

“I didn’t have to. You’re my best friend. I know what could make you smile like that.”

Heather gave her another hug. “I will miss you so much.”

“Come visit some time. Bring me some truffles. I’ll sell them to the best chefs and make enough money to retire.” There were tears in Christy’s eyes but a smile on her face. “I got to tell you, I’m a little jealous. Now grab your things and go.”

Twenty minutes later, Heather stood on the roof with Max, watching the portal slice open a small part of the sky overhead. The rain came down harder, and a thick mist crept in, obscuring everything. She knew that was Max’s powers at work. He was making sure they wouldn’t be seen leaving.

He changed and then her powerful black dragon knelt on the roof, offering her his broad and strong back, lending her his wings. Heather took a deep breath and climbed up on him. Her thighs clutched at his body, and her hands found the smooth space between his neck and shoulders and she clung on there as he rose toward the sky, toward Dragon World and the beautiful future that lay there.

The black dragon and the woman on his back rose higher still, shooting across the gray skies to the pink and golden center pulsing above the horizon, and then they were in the portal—and gone from sight.