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“Me, too.” I took his hand and started toward the path. Because if there was one thing I knew, it was to enjoy the quiet moments when they came.
Once Elowen got here, everything was going to change. I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t ignore anymore. A heaviness, and I knew it was about to get worse before it got better. I couldn’t see anything exactly. Not like Tessa. I didn’t have that kind of power. But I knew something bad was going to happen.
But for now, I’d watch the way the sun shone through Chris’ hair, making it glow. The way his lips moved as he talked. His soft Texas drawl cut with the rasp from the scars. His easy smile and laugh, because this man knew how to fight, but he also knew how to love and laugh. He knew how badly everything could go—just like I did—and still he managed to stay calm despite the storm I felt brewing inside me.
But if something happened to him, I was scared about what I would do.
I would chase him from this life to the next, but not before this world burned for destroying him.
Just as I thought it, I could almost smell the smoke. The fire. The blood. And it was like everything just hit me at once. The last three weeks. Trading all my bargains. Skipping meals. The assassins. The poison. The constant worry and fitful sleeping. The feeling that I was on the verge of the end and I was wrung dry of everything I had left.
I started to stumble over my feet, and Chris caught me.
“Are you okay?”
I grinned at him, because if I didn’t, I would start crying. “I hope I will be.” Because I couldn’t lie. I hoped I would be okay eventually, but probably not any time soon.
His smile faded. “What is it? What do you know that I—”
I jumped up on him, wrapping my legs around his waist. “I love you.” I stopped him with my words and with my body because I couldn’t stomach finding a way around the truth. I couldn’t lie. And telling him my fears and why they were scaring me would kill his hope.
I couldn’t do that. Not when he’d just found it. I had to let his hope be enough for both of us.
“I love you, too.”
His words made me feel like my heart was soaring even as the rest of me was on the edge of plummeting into the deep unknown.
He kept walking down the path as he rubbed a lazy hand up and down my back. “Everything will be okay. You’ll see.”
I squeezed him tighter, tucking my hands inside his toasty-warm jacket. “It has to be. You have to be okay. You have to promise me.”
“I can’t promise anything, but I know I’m going to be fine. You’ll see.”
Keeping my legs wrapped around him, I leaned back enough to grab his face in my hands. “How?”
“How what?”
“How do you know it’ll be okay?” If he had some sort of feeling or knowledge bigger than the terror that was rising inside me, I needed to know.
I looked into his blue eyes and I felt his love and confidence, but it made me desperate. I would do anything to protect him.
“Because I have faith that everything that has happened—that we’ve fought against—has led us here. To each other. And I won’t give up the faith that one day, hopefully soon, we’ll get to enjoy a life. That we weren’t put here just to suffer. I know that you’ve suffered a long time before me, but I’m here now. No one is going to take me away from you or you from me. I don’t give a shit what I have t
o do to make that happen.”
Oh, God. I wanted that to be true. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.” He pulled my hand back against his shoulder. “Rest for a second. I’ll carry you.”
“I’m not too heavy?”
“I’m a werewolf.” He shook with laughter at that. “No. You’re not too heavy.”
“I don’t think anyone’s really every carried me, but you seem to do it a lot these days.”
“I like carrying you. Relax. It’s a bit of a hike. I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“Okay.” I’d been on edge for a while. Never letting my guard down. Never letting go. But with Chris, I knew I could do both.
