Nadine Book 3

40. Challenges 3 and 4

Challenge 3.

We land right in the middle of a ballroom dance floor, on our feet. People are doing a dance all around us. It's not the one the prince showed me before we came in. Tre's a full king with a crown on. He is fully dressed as a king. All the ribbons and medals hooked to him. He's amazing. He stares at me too. I reach up and there is a crown on my head as well. The dress is white and full. It's exactly what a queen would wear. There are diamonds in my hair.

"My queen." He wraps an arm around me and starts dancing the dance everyone else is doing.

"My king. The test."

"It can wait 1 dance baby. I promised I would take you somewhere for formal dancing."

"I remember that." I give him a big hug. "I do love dancing with you."

We finish that dance and then do another one. The dance floor doesn't have many people left on it. "1 more dance Tre. I think it's shifting to the next phase."

He pulls me close as the music starts again. We sway back and forth. I give him a kiss. Then he gives me one.

We dance the whole song holding each other tight and kissing. "I love you, my king."

"I love you, my queen."

"I think it needs to be formal." I laugh a bit.

The next song starts, and we do the dance everyone else is doing. At the end of it, we are the only ones left on the dance floor.

"You are so beautiful baby."

"You are all I could ever ask for Tre."

He hugs me back and then gives me a kiss. "I don't think they are going to play us anymore music, baby."

I step away from him. A guard runs up with a yellow pouch and hands it to Tre.

"Thank you."

Every guard in the place, about 50 of them turn toward Tre. "You are welcome sir." At the exact same time.

Tre raises his eyebrows and I bust out laughing. "They really need to work out the word part. That is so creepy. Tye and I had 15 people tell us, just like that... it is time for a nap."

"Oh I can't imagine."

"Yea, they pointed at the same time too." We laugh for a minute.

I motion to the guard. "Good evening."

All 50 guards say, "Good evening ma'am. It's a good time for dinner." They all point at the table. Me and Tre laugh.

"Well baby, I just don't know what to do next." He takes me to our table and helps me sit, then he sits across from me.

He opens the yellow pouch and pulls out the paper. "Love is honesty."

He gets tears in his eyes.

"What Tre? I feel like you're about to break my heart."

He shakes his head no. "A lot of people think that Tye is going to be your mate."

"I am aware."

"How?"

"You have met our mothers, right?"

He laughs. "Dipak is refusing the testing. I'm on his side. Tye is to young. He would break your heart. He's not like me or Dipak. You really are our whole world. You're the only person either of us want. Tye is a prince that has girls throwing themselves at him. He won't make it. Not only that, but the testing is horrible for you. And with both of you being so young. I mean you're already single. Going to have 2 of you running around single. I do not want you to get hurt like that. You will never find me or Dipak with someone else. We both love you so much."

"I understand."

His eyebrows shoot up.

"I'm not his whole world. We barely know each other. He has lots of girls, probably. I think it is better to wait. Let him live his life. He'll find somewhere to be happy that isn't a complete mess like me."

There is a big slam in the middle of the dance floor and there stands the door. "Found the door sir." I force a smile and run to it.

He catches me right as I get to it. "Baby that's not what I..."

I open the door, and we are standing in the room with all of them again. Tre is in a trance.

"I am really glad that conversation is over."

I give Dipak a big kiss. He kisses me back right away. "What was that for sweetheart?"

"Trying to bring you out of the trance, my king."

"What?"

I gesture around to everyone and let him mess with them for a little bit. "Why does Tre have blood on him?"

"Tye punched him trying to wake him up. It didn't work."

"How did he try to wake me up?"

"He kissed me."

"WHAT?"

"Right in front of you sir. Then he was confused. He said, 'I really thought that would work'."

Dipak stares at me like he's trying to decide whether to be mad or not. Then he laughs. "Yea, I'm surprised that didn't work... And he's in a trance now?"

"Yea, it seems I do a challenge with someone, and we land back here. Then they go right back into the trance."

"Why didn't I go first?" He punches Tye in the nose. Blood pours out of his nose this time.

"I have no control over whose turn it is. It's whoever I can wake up, I guess."

He picks me up and throws me over his shoulder. "My turn." He spins in a circle. "Where are we going?" I point to the direction out. He carries me over and we fall right out. He tries to let me go, and I cling to him as we fall into the blackness.

Challenge 4.

He lands on his stomach and I land on his back.

I climb off him. "You know. The landings don't really get any easier at all."

He's in shorts with no shirt.

"I do like the clothing choice for this one." I pull him close by the waist band of his shorts and give him a kiss.

"Me too sexy."

I'm in something similar to the unicorn island outfit. Very small.

He picks me up and I put my legs on his waist. We stand there kissing. "Sweetheart, I want you."

"I want you."

"Well, I don't want to watch that."

"AAAAAHHHHHH!" I jump off Dipak.

Epoch is watching us. "Keep going with the challenge. You can make it, and then you can leave and have sex." He walks away shaking his head.

Dipak winks at me. "Let's do this. Then we can leave and have sex." He throws me over his shoulder, then looks around.

"I can help if you put me down sir. It might be faster."

"Fine." He puts me on my feet.

We seem to be at the bottom of a man-made mountain. I point at the top of the mountain. "Door is up there. One of us has to open it. That was easy to find."

"Let's race."

"You want to hurry, so you can have sex."

"Yes." He takes off for the mountain. I try to flip to a dragon, but it doesn't work. So I take off running too. Even vampire speed doesn't work here.

He runs up to a 7-foot wall. He grabs the top and pulls himself over. I get to the wall and can't even reach the top. I try jumping and that doesn't help. There's nothing I can stand on.

"Come here, sweetheart."

He's sitting on top of the wall.

I smile and run to him. He reaches down and takes my hand, then pulls me up on top of the wall. "Thank you. I don't think I could have got over that myself. Why are you all wet?"

"I jumped over the wall and directly into the alligator infested moat that surrounds the mountain. That made it very difficult to get back on the wall. But I wasn't going to leave you over here."

He points down the wall. "We need to jump down over there. That's where the bridge is. I don't want to swim with alligators anymore."

"Are we still racing sir?"

"Maybe we should work together for this one."

"You could probably get up there on your own."

"I don't want to leave you out completely baby. We can race when we get closer."

I give him a hug. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart."

We hop down by the bridge.

There are 2 cutouts in the mountain going up. These are the only way we can go up. "Can we race up these? They only go up that far."

"It's still pretty far, sweetie. It's about a quarter of the way up. We can try though." He kisses my head.

I stand at one, and he stands at the other.

He looks at me. "GO." Then he takes off.

I bust out laughing, then I run up my side. I get about halfway and a boulder comes flying down the cutout at me. I panic and freeze then I see a little groove on the side I can get in. I jump in it as the boulder bounces right by me.

I take off running up it as fast as I can. I get almost to the top before I have to dodge another boulder. Then I take off running again and get to the end. There are a few stairs and I climb out. Dipak is just coming out of his side. I jump up and down. "I WON. I WON. I WON."

He gives me a kiss. "Good job baby."

I jump on him and give him another kiss. Then I hug him. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart."

He puts me down, and we go to the next part.

"We're supposed to climb a cliff, sir?"

"It's not that bad. It's only about 15 feet. There is plenty of stuff to hold on to and climb on with your feet. It will be ok. We can do this. I'll show you. Watch me ok?" I watch how he uses his hands and feet and how he climbs.

I climb up on the wall. "I do think you'll win this one. But I'll try."

He goes up quickly and gets on top. I take it slow and easy. I don't know why it seems so high. But it does. I get almost to the top and I can't figure out where to put my hand next. I start to panic. I hang on so tight. "DIPAK I'M STUCK." I start to cry.

"Sweetheart, you are like a foot away from the top. Here. Put your hand here." He points to a spot. I try to grab it and I almost fall to my death. I lose where I had my hand before, and I really panic. He grabs my arm. "Here" He puts my hand in the spot. "Slow and easy. Move your feet up. Good. Now this hand to the top and climb up."

I jump on him again. "I DID IT. I DID IT. I DID IT. THANK YOU."

"You're welcome baby. You did good." He gives me a big hug. "I'm proud of you. I know that scared you."

I smile and hug him.

Then we come up to a red line on the ground.

"Race to the door sweetie. Boulders are going to drop from every direction. Get to that door and open it. Don't look back no matter what. Get to that door."

He smiles. "GO!" But he doesn't move. "NOW!" I take off, running for the door.

He wasn't wrong. So many boulders fall. I'm dodging them left and right. "GO!" I get all the way to the door. There is a boulder going right for him.

"DIPAK."

"GO."

I open the door right before it hits him.

We are both standing in the room with the scene's playing.

He hugs me. "Wow, that was close."

"You're not in a trance."

"Neither am I." Tye smiles. "But why am I all bloody?"

"Dipak punched you because you kissed me trying to wake him up." Tye nods and Tre blinks a couple of times and gives me a weird look.

Dipak crosses his arms. "I'm actually kind of surprised it didn't work."

Tye starts laughing. "I was really surprised it didn't work. I tried tackling you and everything. It was the last thing I tried, then we gave up. Figured if that won't wake you up, nothing will."

Tre nods and Dipak laughs. "Yea that's true."

"What happened?"

"They took 'you see nothing' to an entirely new level, Mary."

Omar chuckles. "We were in a trace weren't we?"

"Yep." Tre answers him. "Seem to all be out of it now. How many challenges have you done?"

"It's either 3 or 4. I'm not sure. I think me and Tye might have done 2. Well, the challenge ends when we open the door. But we didn't open the door. We fell through the first one. I think we fell into the 2nd challenge maybe? Or it reset the 1st one somehow. The next challenge will be either the 4th or 5th."

Dipak nods. "Probably the 5th. That's why we're all awake now."

Tre stretches. "Did you have to deal with any of the people who talk at the same time? That was hilarious." Dipak shakes his head.

Tye smiles. "She yelled at ours." They crack up laughing.

"Me and Dipak got a visit from Epoch.".

"We're not allowed to stop and have s*x in the challenges."

Everyone cracks up laughing.

Omar rubs his eyes. "Only you 2 would have to be yelled at for that."

Tre rubs his eyes. "Or napping."

"Yea, it could go either way."

I go to the side and everyone follows me. The boys push Mary and Omar in. Tre grabs me and we fall in. The other two jump in on their own.