I sink down and look out at the water while I question what I’m doing. It’s not the first time, and at the rate I’m going, it’s definitely not going to be the last time I question it. Why is it that now that I’ve finally found a reason to be happy, my life has twisted around to become such a mess? Torin makes me feel truly loved for the first time in my life. I don’t remember my parents, and there were so few fleeting moments of kindness and warmth from the strangers around me as I grew from a child to an adult.
I desired the attention I got working for the Magical Interference Unit. Every time I was praised, I felt like I was walking on air. How foolish is it that I wanted something… anything so much?
And now that it’s within reach, I don’t know how to clasp my hand around it.
Chapter Three
Riley
For about an hour, I sit and watch the waterfall, questioning what this realm would have been like before Death destroyed it… before the person who I once was… took it all away.
I hear Quill before I see him, recognizing the sound his hooves make as they flatten petrified plant life… all taken because of me. Kit’s napping on my lap, but the noise must wake her because she pokes her head up and looks around me at Quill. Torin slides off his back and walks over to me. He doesn’t say anything, he just sits down behind me and wraps me up in his arms, and all the loneliness I’d felt is immediately washed away. How can such a simple touch be all it takes to change my entire world?
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“You don’t need to be sorry. I know you were just teasing.” His voice is so gentle as I tuck myself into his arms.
“It wasn’t right of me to make light of something like that,” I say.
He squeezes me and sets his head on my shoulder while I close my eyes.
“I never had family. I never really had anyone… I had friends, of course, but I’ve never had anyone like you. But it’s like I can’t even let myself feel happy before I’m overcome with guilt,” I confess.
Torin kisses my neck, his lips gently running over it. “Nothing I say can help?”
“You say all the right things.”
His fingers slide through my hair, drawing it back as he kisses my neck again. “Let’s go through the Door together. We might not make it out, but I’m willing to take that risk for you.”
And that’s what worries me. “You risk so much for me.”
“You’re worth risking everything for,” he says as he reaches around me and takes my chin. He gently pulls it toward him and kisses the side of my lips. “Please do one thing for me, Riley, and stop letting this guilt eat at you. Just care about what I have to say, and I’m telling you that it wasn’t your fault. Please?”
I force myself to nod.
“Promise?”
“I already agreed.”
“Grudgingly.”
My lips quirk. “Maybe. But I promise.”
“Now, do you want to go skinny-dipping?”
“I don’t want to climb back up this cliff when we’re done.”
“Quill will climb it.”
“That’s even worse,” I say as I look at the mischievous mount.
“You’re going to have to prepare for your own pony. You’re going to be such a cute horseman.”
I grimace at the mere thought of having to interact with a horse.
“Come on,” Torin says as he dips his hand under my shirt and trails the pads of his fingers up, pulling my shirt with it. “Oh nooooo, your shirt doesn’t like touching your flesh. Whatever will we do?”
“Weird. My shirt was perfectly happy touching my skin mere seconds ago. I wonder what happened,” I sarcastically retort while my shirt inches up higher and higher.
