“You’re kidding,” I said, looking from his shoulders to the fiery inferno all around us. “I’ll crush you into the fire and then we’ll both burn to death. And I won’t be able to heal up. Not that, obviously, you can heal yourself from death. At least I don’t think you can. Can you?”
He laughed, and kissed me so swiftly I wasn’t able to respond before it was over. “I appreciate you thinking I can conquer death, but no, I’m certain that even wyverns can’t do that. We are both immortal now; according to Gabriel, you became so the second you accepted either your husband as your mate—assuming you had time enough to do that—or accepted me. And since I know you did the latter, you, my adorable half-naked nymph, are practically immortal.”
“But we can both still be killed, right?”
“Yes. It just takes a lot more to accomplish that.”
I gestured to the fire. “Seems to me that would do it.”
His smile faded. “It would if we didn’t have my fire. Ready?”
“Not even remotely,” I said, shaking my head and backing up the one step that was all the available landscape.
“I won’t let you get hurt,” he promised. I smiled a little to myself—that was most definitely the wyvern talking. The question was, did I trust his newfound wyvern abilities to handle this seemingly impossible position?
“All right, but if you drop me and I die horribly in the fire, I’m going to haunt you ’til the end of your days.”
“I should hope so. Up you go.”
It took a bit of time to get me hoisted up onto his shoulders, and then my balance was so wobbly I had to clutch his head.
“Sophea, I can’t see if you’re going to cover my eyes like that,” he pointed out.
“Oh. Sorry.” I adjusted my grip, my legs tucked back underneath his arms as if we were in a pool playing chicken fight.
“Here we go. Flame on!”
“Ha ha ha, very funny. I just hope—aiee!”
Rowan stepped down into the fire, his body up to his adorable belly covered in dragon fire. I curled my toes into his sides and clutched his hair as he walked toward the far shore, praying to any and all gods I could think of (including the First Dragon, should he be listening) that the lake got no deeper.
It didn’t.
“Well now,” Rowan said twenty-three minutes later when he deposited me on the bank at the other side of the lake. He leaped up to join me, the sweat beading on his brow the only sign that he was as nervous as I was. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I stared at him. “It’s as if you are a normal person, and yet you’re speaking utter and complete tripe. Not so bad, Rowan? Not so bad? We could have died out there! Immortally died!” I clutched the dried grasses of the bank and contemplated just what we’d been through. “I almost fell off you seven times.”
“Six. I wouldn’t count the time I stumbled as being your fault.”
I held up my foot, which was now sans one tennis shoe. “I’m lucky that it was only my shoe that got it when you almost fell and I slid around the front of you.”
He had the nerve to smile when he pulled me to my feet, wrapping an arm around my waist and turning me so the fire lake was to our backs. “Ah, but I greatly enjoyed you twisting around my body to get back into place. I would have liked it more if you’d done as I suggested and gone commando.”
I glared at him and limped forward. “It’s bad enough I’m just wearing your shirt, and don’t you think I’m not going to have a lot more to say to you about your fantasy about me going commando, but right now, I just want to get back to the ship, take a very cool shower, put on my Xena outfit—assuming the laundry people finally got to it—and make sure that hussy Mrs. P and her gaggle of sexy girls haven’t had some horrible accident while we were stranded. Following which I may lie down and refuse to deal with any more shenanigans of this type.”
Rowan took my hand, whistling softly to himself. Part of me was annoyed that he wasn’t as traumatized by our near miss as I had been, while the other part was filled with admiration. I hadn’t been sure when we started across the lake, but now I had every confidence that Rowan would make an admirable wyvern. If the man could handle walking through a fiery hell with a panicky woman clinging to his head and still make it out alive, then he could handle anything other dragons threw at him.
The bank rose in a gentle slope, and as we crested it, we could see the ship sitting placidly on the river some two hundred feet away.
Cheering broke out on board the ship as we approached, all the passengers lining the upper deck waving and calling congratulations at yet another challenge bested. I glared at them all, making a mental note to speak to them about someone else taking a turn, but realized as we entered the relative coolness of the lowest level of the ship that the final challenge was personal to each individual.
And as soon as it was over, Mrs. P would present the ring to her boyfriend.
As we stepped on board, the captain greeted us, saying, “You completed the challenge.”