Page 92 of These Immortal Truths
“Say it.” A breathy command between kisses, her hips canting to meet his, nerves fraying and sending sparks across her skin. “Please, Khiran.”
“Anna—”
“Say it.”
Glazed eyes stare up at her as if she is both a dream and nightmare. His hand travels beneath the hem of her dress, over the curve of her waist. “Fear is for mortals.”
After, when the shadows start slipping away and the night meltsinto morning, Anna feels his words whisper over her hair. A whispered breath she wasn’t meant to hear.
“If only fearlessness were enough.”
He had warned her that the jump from one continent to another would be difficult, but she still wasn’t prepared for how much worse.
It’s more than losing the contents of her stomach, more than a dizziness that makes the world spin. She is being torn apart, pulled in a million different directions. Black clouds her vision, an agony pushing against the walls of her skull. It’s only the distant feeling of Khiran’s hands drifting from her back to cup her face, the slow realization that she’s kneeling and the violent churning of her stomach, that makes her realize they’ve arrived. Her bodyhurtsin ways she hasn’t experienced.
Khiran’s hands hold her hair back as she retches into the grass—her chest heaving when there’s nothing left to lose. Her throat is raw, her mouth sour in ways that make her gut recoil in sympathy. It takes her a good twenty minutes before she gathers enough strength and will to lift her head.
Miles of coastline stretches out in front of her. At her back, ancient sequoias reach up to the heavens, and—between it all—hundreds of acres of flowers. Orange and purple sways on the breeze like the ebb and flow of the tide. Khiran’s hands help her up, steady her with an arm around her waist. Anna’s still trying to find her bearings. “Where are we?”
“California,” he murmurs, eyeing her carefully. “Are you able to walk?”
Her legs are weak, trembling like a newborn fawn they ache so terribly. “How far?”
“There’s a cottage just over the hill.”
She pales, gripping his arm. “Up or down?”
He chuckles, the sound strained and soft. “Down.”
“You couldn’t have just brought us to the door?”
“It’s not a precise magic,” he says, adjusting his hold so his arm wraps behind her back. The other takes her hand, squeezing it softly. “The farther I travel, the less accuracy I have to work with.”
Following his lead, she takes a shaky step forward. Her stomach complains, nausea rising in her throat. She swallows it down. Focuses on his words. “So if you tried for the doorstep—”
“We would have been more likely to go through the roof.”
Anna breathes a laugh. “In that case, I think it’s a lovely walk.”
There’s no response, no quipped remark or fond smile. Anna feels her spirits fall. He crossed them to the other side of the world; surely such a feat would cause strain when he’s still recovering. “Khiran?”
He must hear the concern lining the sound of his name. “I’m fine.”
Perhaps anyone else would have believed him, but Anna doesn’t. There’s a strain in the words, a tension in the arms that hold her. It’s so subtle, she would have missed it were she not looking. The traveling has taken more than he cares to admit. She’s sure of it.
They move slowly through the field of flowers. Anna tries to withhold a sympathetic wince whenever she accidentally crushes one beneath her shuffling feet. Another fifteen minutes, and she sees the cottage.
It’s lovely.
A gabled roof and pale yellow shingles with white trim and a covered porch that makes her think of her cabin back in Louisiana. Peeking over the roofline, she spots a stone cap of a chimney. It’s sweet and unassuming, charming without the frills. It’s not entirely unlike the cottage they left behind. The architecture is different, and this one seems substantially bigger, but the feeling is the same. Both are quietly tucked away into nature’s embrace. Of course, privacy seems to have been a priority in nearly all his getaways.
“It doesn’t snow here,” he explains as they approach the front steps. “There is some frost, but you can grow year round.”
Anna glances up at him, frowning curiously. It’s an odd bit of information for him to share. “Are we staying that long?”
His hold adjusts, supporting her by the elbow as he helps her conquer the first step. “Go slow.”
The words are wasted—Anna doesn’t feel like she has any other speed. It takes an agonizing amount of effort, even with the handrail and his help. She understands, more than ever, why he hesitated to travel so far for so long. All the other times, the distance had been so short in comparison. Enough for her to feel sick, but never like this. She feels like she’s been struck by a vehicle and peeled up from the road.
