Heather didn’t know how long it took, and when she was done, she wasn’t so sure about the message.
Beware the use of this key. Do not breach the gateway to the world beyond unless you are prepared.
Chapter Two
Heather read the message out loud to Fade. He didn’t look happy.
“That is all?”
“Yes,” she said angrily. She would have read more if there had been more, she wasn’t an idiot.
“That knob there must have been a key to a gateway, a gateway to my world, Mearth. When you placed it on this door, it created a gateway between Mearth and . . . Earth was it? Now that it is broken . . . I might never return.”
“There are more,” Heather said, getting up from her desk to walk into another room where she had left the remaining knobs of various sizes in their box. She dutifully brought the box to Fade. He didn’t reach for the box, and he didn’t look any happier than before she had left. She would have thought more keys would have made him happier.
“This is unfortunate,” he said despairingly. “We don’t know that all of them lead to Mearth. We do not know for certain that any of these create a gateway at all. And, if we are taken somewhere else, we will not know how to get back to your Earth or my Mearth.” He thought about it for a minute as he visually examined the knobs. “But we cannot afford not to try.”
“Which one do you want to try on the door?” Heather asked, feeling like maybe if she resolved the conflict of the door that her daydream, at least she half-heartedly still hoped it was a dream, would resolve itself and she would wake up. If he was a dream, she would definitely have to try to dream him up again. He certainly was eye candy, even if he had been unreasonably angry at her since the moment she had laid eyes on him.
“Which knob is most similar to the one that was broken?” Fade asked in return.
Examining the knobs, she noted that they were all vastly different from one another. She took the box over to the door that he had come through and set it on the floor in front of it so that she didn’t have to hold the box while she made a decision, because it was becoming heavy fast. Looking back and forth between what was left, Heather decided on the next largest knob. Without asking Fade if he agreed with her selection, she grabbed her screwdriver and began to install it. He didn’t question her, and, without interruption, it didn’t take long. When she was done, she tested it, just as she had done the first time, to make sure it was secured firmly to the door. She then closed the door completely. Before she could open the door, though, Fade came up behind her.
“It is probably best if I open the door. We cannot know what may lie on the other side.”
That comment made Heather’s skin crawl. She didn’t balk at his statement. It made good sense to her. After all, if he was real, then he had really come through the last door/gateway that had been opened. And who was to say the next thing that came through the door would be as nice as he was? He wasn’t exactly her fairy godmother. For all she knew, the next thing could be a ferocious, fire-breathing dragon that would eat the both of them.
Fade grabbed the new knob/key and opened the door, but nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. The unsettling glower that seemed a fixture on his demeanor deepened noticeably.
“You will have to use an alternate knob.”
Before she went through all the trouble of installing another knob, not that it had taken that much effort but it was time-consuming and work just the same, Heather decided she would try the door for herself, since it seemed to her that she had been the one to open the door last time it had worked, as he had said that he hadn’t actually opened the door, that he had only fallen through it.
“What are you doing, hoonan?” Fade asked testily, his already sparse patience with the situation growing thin.
Heather gave him a scathing look at his question and the tone with which he posed it. “I guess men are the same everywhere. I am going to test the door myself before I put another knob on. It just makes sense. I guess you aren’t familiar with, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’”
Fade drew his sword up to his chest with both hands and spread his legs in a battle stance, making ready should she actually succeed in opening a gateway, and should anything unwanted come through.
Heather grabbed the knob and opened the door, stepping behind it to use it as a shield in case there was something lethal on the other side.
Fade lowered his blade marginally when nothing ran through the door at him. The door had opened into a building. He could not tell by looking at it whether the building was on Mearth or not. It was dark inside. He looked at Heather when she stuck just enough of her head around the edge of the door to see what was going on. Grabbing her by the wrist, he commanded, “Take one of those magical pieces with you and follow me. Should this world not be Mearth, I will need you to return.”
What could she say? It looked like ‘no’ would get her nowhere. She couldn’t blame him, though. She wouldn’t want to be stuck on an alien world herself. That thought sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach. If this was real, and she went with him, she could get stuck somewhere that wasn’t home herself. That provoked a great reluctance, but he still had her wrist manacled in his hand, and by the look on his face as he towered over her imperiously, there wasn’t anything she could say or do to make him change his mind. She bent down, still shackled by his unrelenting grasp, and grabbed a long thin handle from the box. As she turned back to the open door, the cool air coming in made her nipples pucker and cooled her bare legs. It would have been nice if he had let her get some clothes on before they did anything. She could only hope this would only take a minute, and then everything would return to normal. He could go in, see that it was wherever he was from, and she could step right back into her house and forget that any of this had ever happened.
They stepped in, Fade leading the way with his sword, and a sharp gust of wind seemed to suck the door shut behind her. Heather turned sharply in open-mouthed horror when she heard the resounding sound of the door slamming shut behind her, foreboding invading her whole body. Naturally, she freaked, her mind tumbling over the simple errors she had just made. Why hadn’t she thought to hold the door open? Why hadn’t she just stood in it to begin with? Why hadn’t she put something heavy in it to keep it open? Like a wild cat, she reached for the knob and clawed at it ineffectually for a moment before she was able to open the door. When she saw what was on the other side she screamed like a banshee.
Fade whirled around as the ear-splitting sound ripped through the still of the night, ready to do battle. When he saw that there was no opponent there, he quietly cursed, whispering a harsh reprimand to Heather, “You gave away our position, hoonan. Do not be so foolish again.”
Heather slowly turned to look at him, or at least the dark blob where the voice had come from positioned in front of her in the darkness, her mouth still agape in shock at finding her house no longer on the other side of the door. “Our . . . position,” she said slowly as her brain function tried to gain momentum. “You are worried about our position?” Her voice started to crack, taking on a hysterical note. “My house is gone!” she screamed the obvious like a woman in a white jacket in a padded room.
Fade quickly took the two steps to close the distance between them and clamped a hand over Heather’s mouth, his large hand covering half of her face.
“Do not be a fool!” he whispered tersely in her ear. “We do not know where we are or what danger could be laying in wait for us. We cannot afford anymore disadvantages in our situation. Be quiet or you will get us both killed.”
He leaned a little away from her then to gage her reaction. When he saw that she appeared to understand and wasn’t going to scream again, he cautiously pulled his hand away. Even in the darkness, he could see that her chin began to wobble slightly. Worried that she might give them away again, and feeling a little guilty for being so harsh on her since she was obviously scared witless, he pulled her tight to him, wrappi
ng his arms around her in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He had seen many fellow warriors embrace their women and children in such a manner before they rode out of the castle and into a battle they might not return from.
Heather sniffed quietly and laid her hands on Fade’s broad bare chest, the skin of her palms tingling with the contact. She laid her head between her hands on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart for a minute, the heart of a warrior, breathing deeply of the leathery masculine scent that was all his. She had been ready to break down a moment before, but his steely embrace had done much to quiet her nerves. Growing up in an orphanage, she had never really gotten much affection. The nuns that ran the establishment didn’t want to make the children attached to them, and the many foster parents and families she had lived with all seemed more concerned with receiving a check than a child. She pulled away a little and looked up at him, tears of fright still brimming her eyes.
Fade looked down at her as she moved away. He was not sure if his gesture had brought her solace or if she simply did not wish to be so close to him, as she had seemed as horrified to see him initially as she had been to see the gateway closed. He gazed into her eyes as she looked up at him. He had never seen eyes that shade of blue in his life. They were beautiful . . . like her . . . exotic, mysterious. He felt the pull of desire course through him as he gazed more deeply into her eyes, just as it had when he had first met her. She was vulnerable, and she needed him. It was a feeling he had never experienced before, and it intoxicated his blood. He grazed her lips with his, testing them to see if they were as soft as he remembered, using his hands that rested on her waist to mold her small frame closer to his body. He felt gooseflesh rise on her arms as he deepened the kiss. He did not know if it was him or the cool night air, but the possibility that he had this affect on her excited him. He broke the kiss and brushed her lips in a light teasing manner, breathing in her sweet fragrance.
The sudden sound of movement somewhere in the house brought his head up. He pulled away from her abruptly, quickly pushing her behind him protectively as he drew up his sword.
“Stay here,” he commanded quietly.
Heather felt that at any moment her knees were going to melt out from underneath her. Fade was the most mind-numbingly handsome and aggravating ‘man’ she had ever met in her life, not that she’d dated a lot of men, but she felt sure he was both. She was relieved he had distracted her from her nervous breakdown after she had discovered her house was no longer within reach. Now, she all she could do was hope beyond hope that this was just the most intricate dream she’d ever had. It was her only hope of holding on to her sanity, the possibility that she had just created within her mind an elaborate fantasy that she could awaken from at any moment.
She stayed put, as ordered, while he went through the dark house. Of course, she wasn’t the type to simply do as she was told, which was probably why she had never stayed with one foster family for very long, but she couldn’t see very well. In fact, she didn’t know how Fade could walk through without tripping over his own feet. How the hell was he going to discover what had made that noise or where it had gone too? That thought made her grip the handle she was holding on to so tight she thought she might break it. She was glad she had it. It would make a good weapon should something surprise her while he went searching around, especially if he inadvertently ushered it her way.
Fade walked as quietly as he possibly could through the house, discovering a large rodent in the next room that had created the noise they had heard. He did not allow himself to breathe a sigh of relief yet, though. He examined the rest of the building. Finding it was all clear, he made his way to the only other door the building boasted, the door to the exterior. He stepped outside with reluctance.
He was hesitant because if they were not on Mearth or her world, he did not know whether they could return to her realm. If they were on Mearth, there was no telling where on Mearth they were or what lay in store for him outside. He stepped cautiously out into the moonlight. His sword still at the ready, he looked up at the night sky.
She had done it. He would know the moon of Mearth anywhere. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. He knew he was on Mearth, but where on Mearth, he could not be certain. Now that they had arrived, he would have to honor his promise to the hoonan. He would have to return her to her world. He stepped back inside the building, his eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, and made his way through the small structure to where Heather stood. He could see that she was brandishing the handle she carried like a weapon. She waited until he was almost upon her, and then she let out a warrior yell and lashed out at him. He smiled at her reaction and grabbed her arm as it sailed through the air, twisting it behind her. It seemed she had some warrior in her after all.
“All is well, hoonan,” he whispered in a raspy voice in her ear as he used her momentum and her arm to bring her body fully against him again.
Heather gasped at the contact of his hot flesh against hers, but a flood of relief soon followed. She tried to tell herself that was why her heart was still beating so frantically. He might not like her very much, but he at least seemed ready to defend her. That was more than she could say for any of her ex-boyfriends. In fact, she had never met a man that she thought would defend her, and Fade was a complete stranger at that. Of course, it was probably the fact that he needed her to return to his Mearth. That was it. She was just reading more in to it than she should. But as they stood there with their bodies pressed tightly together, the temperature between them rising, she almost dared to hope that he wanted more from her.
“You have succeeded. We are on Mearth.”
“That’s great,” she said with a falsely cheerful note to her voice, “but did you forget that the door we came through closed and when I opened it my house wasn’t on the other side?”
“Try it again,” he said, his voice somehow a balm to her frazzled nerves.
Heather sighed heavily with resignation as he released her. He said it like it would simply be there if she checked for it.
She turned and tried the door again. The door only opened into another empty room in the building. Her house was not there. A crushing sense of foreboding overwhelmed her.
Fade contemplated the door and Heather’s forlorn expression as she turned back to him, propping his elbow on one arm and tapping his broken sword on his cheek.
“I believe you will have to stay here with me.”
Chapter Three
“Bring me ale!” Calder, the newly self-appointed king to the Dark Throne, yelled at a servant that looked more dead than alive, his pale frail body swaying either from sheer exhaustion or from the breeze from the castle window.
King Calder picked up the whip that he kept beside his throne before the hobbling servant could get away, cracking it across his bony back. The servant screamed in agony and fell to the floor on his knobby knees, angry red welts rising through the flayed skin on his back.
“And be quick about it, slave,” Calder threatened, a smirk on his face at the pain he had caused.
The slave managed to get out of the room before it occurred to the king to lash out at him again.
King Calder’s vicious smile widened at his retreating form. Before his requested ale could be brought to him, the orb, which he had had placed on a pillow topped column next to his throne because it had brought him so much good fortune, began to glow. He grabbed the orb from its soft resting place and held it before him as a new scene played out before his eyes. Seeing and hearing that Fade was back in their realm, he became very distraught. He couldn’t let anything happen to jeopardize his new position. He had hoped that in the months following his disappearance into that other realm that Fade would not be able to return. That would have been far easier. Now he would have to die.
The orb dimmed until it was once again clear. King Calder placed it back on the satin pillow by his throne. “Guards!” he bellowed angrily, his voice echoing in the hall of the king.
> Several guards that had been posted in the hallways behind his throne appeared momentarily.
“Gather your best men. Fade Roban has returned.”
* * * *
“You promised me that if I helped you, you would let me go home,” Heather said through gritted teeth. She felt certain that if she could see in the dark she would find him smiling. She hadn’t know him long, hours really, and in that time he had done nothing but display anger when he talked to her, but now, now that he was securely in his homeland, she had the dawning suspicion that he found their situation . . . her situation . . . humorous. Typical.
“I am not going back on my word. I will help you get home. We will have to create a new gateway it seems. Perhaps the gateway can only be used once.”
That statement was alarming. If that was true, she was in trouble. She had only brought one handle with her, sure that she would be able to just step right back into her house as easily as she could step in and out of her car. If the handle she had didn’t take her home, she would be lost forever. Of course, it could all still be just a horrible dream, but she didn’t know how long she could keep telling herself that.
“Do not look so sad. At least you are with me,” Fade said, his voice light and teasing.
Heather scowled at him in the darkness, wishing he could see her face and at least feel a little guilty.
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you are enjoying this.”
“Come, let’s get out of here and find a new door,” Fade proposed, effectively changing the subject.
Heather didn’t fail to miss his non-responsiveness to her conjecture, and she glared at what she assumed was the back of his head as he grabbed her wrist and guided her out of the darkness of the building.
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