Dragon Heat by Charlene Hartnady

Chapter 32

Three days later…

The doorto her chamber banged against the wall as it opened. “What…? What are you doing here?” Azure asked the human standing in her doorway. “Argh, Melina!” She put a pillow over her head. “Close the door on your way out.” Why hadn’t she locked her door in the first place? “Close it!” she growled. “The light is hurting my eyes.” She took her head back out from under the pillow, squinting.

“I’m sure it is, since you haven’t seen light for days.” Melina put her hands on her hips. She slammed the door.

Azure started to breathe out a sigh of relief. Then she noticed that the damnable human was still inside her home.

By all that was winged and scaled!“What do you want? I’m trying to watch this movie. The zombies are taking over.”

“Screw the zombies!” Melina yelled. She walked over, grabbing the remote off Azure’s chest, and turned the television off. Then she walked to the blinds and pushed the button that opened them. “Don’t you answer your phone anymore? Since when do you ignore people when they come to your door? I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

Azure groaned, putting her pillow back over her head and burrowing further under the covers. “Go away. I’m sick.”

“More like lovesick. What the hell happened with Ice? Rumor has it that he’s like a bear with a sore tooth. Either he’s ignoring everyone with this glower on his face, or he’s shouting. There’s no in-between.”

Azure crept out from under the pillow. “Oh, really?” Her voice came out sounding far too soft and needy for her liking. It was the first time she’d heard anything about Ice in days.

“Yes, really, and here you are, Missy. This place is a mess; you’re a hot mess.” Melina looked her over, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t need superhuman senses to smell that you haven’t showered in days. Enough is enough. What the hell is going on?”

“Nothing. I haven’t been well. I’m recuperating.”

“Back to the part about you lying through your teeth. I don’t buy it for a minute. Look at this mess.” Azure’s coffee table was littered with plates and glasses. There were also a couple of empty ice-cream containers and chocolate wrappers. “This reeks – quite literally – of a break-up.” Melina started picking up the plates.

“Leave them.”

“No, someone has to clean this mess up. Someone needs to clean you up. What is going on?” Melina yelled while she walked to the kitchen, depositing the dishes in the sink and the wrappers in the trash. “Speak to me, or so help me…”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“I had Ice over at my place the other night, looking for you after you told me that you were at his place. He looked worried. He looked like someone who really cared. Here you are acting like he broke your heart, and yet…that can’t be. What happened, Azure?”

Azure wanted to tell the female that it was none of her business, but she refrained. Melina had been there for her every step of the way. She owed the female some kind of explanation. “I broke up with Ice,” she mumbled.

“Why the heck would you do that? You’re clearly in love with the guy.”

“I have feelings for him, but I’ll be okay. It’s no biggie.” She waved a hand.

“No biggie, my ass,” Melina muttered to herself. “Back to my first question, why on earth would you break up with someone you have feelings for? Someone you pined after for months.”

“It wasn’t months,” she mumbled. Melina gave her this hard look. “Okay, fine…” Azure rolled her eyes, “months.” She sounded defeated because she felt defeated.

“Why did you break up with Ice? What possessed you? He’s a great guy. He’s your great guy. He’s in love with you.”

“No, he isn’t.” She shook her head. “He has feelings for me, but not like that. Not so soon.” It wasn’t too soon, but she held onto that belief, anyway.

Melina laughed. “You might not be my best student after all.”

“Still your only student.” Azure sat up, trying to get her hair behind her ear. It was knotted, so she gave up. “It would never have worked between us, so I saved us a whole lot of heartache further down the line and broke things off now.”

“That’s too cryptic. You are going to have to elaborate.”

She pushed out a breath. “Fine. We want totally different things. I’m talking about fundamental things. I may not know too much about relationships, but I do know that there are a couple of pivotal factors that need to be aligned. We diverge when it comes to a major life decision.”

“Major, huh?” Melina looked like she wasn’t buying it. “What pivotal life decision would this be?”

Why hadn’t she ever noticed how nosy Melina was? It was a terrible trait. “He lives for anal, and I like my asshole too much to have it abused in that way.”

Melina’s eyes pretty much bugged out of her skull for a few seconds. Then she cleared her throat and licked her lips, then cleared her throat again. “That isn’t a pivotal life decision.” She shook her head, her blond curls bouncing.

“It is.” Oh good, she was buying it. Azure hadn’t expected that. Maybe Melina would leave her alone now.

No such luck.“It totally isn’t. You never know; you might like it more than you think.” There was this look in Melina’s eyes. “You should at least give it a try before you shoot it down.” Her cheeks turned red. A bright blushing red.

“Holy dragon wings.” Azure choked out the start of a laugh, but her chest tightened, so she sucked it back. “You have anal with Freeze? I wasn’t being serious.” She realized too late what she was saying.

Crap!

“I knew you were bullshitting. I wasn’t born yesterday. Up!” Melina walked over to her.

“What?” Azure frowned.

“Get up, you disgusting creature. Get up and go and shower right now. You look and smell terrible. You’re showering, brushing your teeth, and then your hair. Once you are wearing something clean, you’re going to tell me what is going on. I want the truth this time. I want to hear all about this diverging path when it comes to this pivotal life decision. It had better be good.”

Actually, a shower did sound nice.

“I’ll clean up in here while you’re busy. I realize it might take a while to sort all of that out.” Her eyes tracked over Azure’s face and her hair…especially her hair. The human grimaced.

“Fine,” she groaned. Azure was going to tell Melina everything, but there was no way her friend was going to sway her from her decision. Who knew, perhaps she would agree with Azure. She wasn’t sure which she would prefer. It hurt to know that Ice was going through a rough time, but he would move on soon. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment or two until the pain inside her subsided to a half manageable level.