Altair stood up straight, but she didn’t notice, too caught up in venting her frustrations.
“If you could do your job, that would help me out. ‘Cause right now, I can’t afford to babysit you and everyone else. Step it up, Altair, or else it’s not going to work with you here.”
The dragon shifter stiffened.
“Of course. I was just on the library to start brushing up on my knowledge of creatures of the Abyss and how to defeat them. I’ll go now, so that you can focus on everything else. Since I seem to be such a distraction to you.”
She frowned, looking up sharply but he was already gone, back turned to her. What the hell had he meant by that last comment? He was the one distracted, the one always looking at her, watching her. Not the other way around. Right?
“What was that all about?” Jessie asked as she came over. “Lovers’ quarrel?”
Christine hit her with a glare. “We are not a thing.”
The other witch rolled her eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’ll play along. What were you two arguing about?”
“I told him to do his job. He said he was going to leave, so he would stop being a distraction to me. Can you believe that? The nerve of him!”
Jessie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t follow. Why are you upset at his comment?”
“Why?” she cried. “Why wouldn’t I be upset at a lie? He’s not a distraction to me, he’s a weak link in the team. All he was doing today was looking at me, staring at me, focusing on me, and not what was out there.”
Jessie’s head tilted to the side a little, but she gestured for Christine to go on.
“That’s it, really,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe he was going to assign me some of the blame for our team’s weak performance today.”
“Can I ask you something?” Jessie said carefully.
Christine frowned. “You agree with him, don’t you? You think I’m distracted?”
“I think you’re being a huge bitch to him, because you don’t want to admit to yourself that you’re just as much at fault for what happened today, Christi.”
“I’m being a bitch? I’m at fault?” She started to snap at her friend, but Jessie held up a hand.
“Tell me. How would you know he was always staring at you, unless you were looking at him? I was there with the snow elementals, Christi. You froze. He didn’t do anything. You froze. You were distracted. Stop denying it to yourself. And when you realize I’m right, apologize to him. He didn’t deserve that outburst. The dude is in way over his head, trying to play catchup to some of the best combat mages at Winterspell, on the fly. And even you, in your pissy mood, have to admit that as the day went on, he did better.”
Christine grumbled something that may have been an agreement.
“Now come on, let’s get back to our rooms. I need to shower.” Jessie sniffed the air. “And so do you.”
“Ew!” she exclaimed, but she laughed. Not for long, or hard, but she laughed, and her mood started to change.
With it came a wave of guilt. She didn’t like the way things had ended with Altair, the animosity between them. She much preferred things like they had been the night before in the library, the two of them working together. As a team.
Have I ruined things permanently because I refused to admit that I was at fault too?
Or could she salvage their friendship?
After all, it was just friendship between them. Nothing more.
Her mind went back to the fight with the snow elementals. Her eyes had met his, and time had frozen. She’d felt it, felt herself drawn into him.
It was just friendship though. Wasn’t it?
Chapter Ten
Altair
HE WALKED OUT OF THE arena, flushing with embarrassment over the chewing out he’d received from Christine.
Some of it had been earned, he knew, but what he couldn’t figure out was the basis for the rest of her anger toward him. It’s not like he’d been the only one to screw up today. There was no way she could pin it all on him, though it had sure felt like that was what she had tried to do.
It was why he’d thrown the last comment in her face. It didn’t make him feel good to be so petty, less so with Christine, but he couldn’t resist. She was just as at fault as he was. Something was going on between them.
Altair wasn’t sure just what, yet, but he knew he needed to figure it out, and figure out soon. He couldn’t have himself be distracted by feelings and thoughts about someone. His head needed to be clear, and free of anything that might prevent him from doing what needed to be done. Including feelings for anyone.
He was exhausted after the long day of training, and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but it was still early. He couldn’t risk that. Not yet.
Food, however, sounded perfect. The witches hadn’t been prepared for just how much energy a dragon needed to consume to keep up the kind of output he’d been doing today, and their food stocks had been nowhere near adequate to feed him. Consequently, Altair had dipped deep into his reserves, and was now running close to empty.
Sleep was not something he wanted to face without fresh energy.
“Altair.”
He jerked to a halt as he entered the dragon quarters. I knew I should have just gone straight for food. The lure of a warm shower had directed him upstairs first, to clean up before heading to the kitchens.
“Hi, Rokh,” he said, slowly turning to face the fire dragon, wondering just what he was going to hear about today.
“Where have you been all day?”
“Training, Rokh. You know this. Are we going to go at it
