“Bastion,” Seraphina said softly. “Avalon will always know what’s going on. We won’t go far. If they need us to come back for them, we will.”
Seraphina’s words seemed to frustrate Sebastian more than anything and he let out an angry growl. But after a few moments he settled down and turned to Jericho. With a sarcastic but trusting tone to his voice, he asked, “And what do you think, General?”
Jericho looked at me and then Ophelia, his eyes lingered on Sylvia, and then Angelica before finally landing on Talbott and Lilly. When he looked back to Sebastian, his shoulders sagged and I could feel the defeat rolling through his Magic.
“We have to go, Sebastian.” His voice was a harsh rasp that dipped so low it vibrated through my chest. “We’re too vulnerable. We have to get these people to safety.” He paused and rubbed his hands over his face. When his hand fell to a side, I snatched it quickly, squeezing it to give him strength. He looked down at our joined fingers and he took a deep reassuring breath. “Seraphina’s right. We’ll stay close until we know for sure that they’re safe. There’s nothing else we can do at this point.”
Sebastian shook his head, but his shoulders sagged, resigned. “Fine,” he snarled. “Fine, we’ll go.”
And then we went.
We continued down into the depths of the castle. Eventually the lights dimmed and then disappeared and we used our Magic to light the way.
At one point there was discussion to whether we had to suppress our Magic all together, which I didn’t totally understand. It was decided, via Avalon and his conversation with Eden, that Terletov’s men weren’t actively looking for us since they had Eden and Kiran and so we continued on in the same way.
The passageway eventually narrowed out until we had to squeeze by single file. I never once let go of Jericho’s hand, letting him pull me along, holding my absolute trust. My sister was behind me and I held her hand too, until we came to the ladder.
Sebastian and Avalon opened a panel in the floor. I couldn’t see past the heads in front of me, but basically it looked like a black hole.
It terrified the hell out of me.
But one by one, our group descended down into it. When it was my turn, I realized there was a ladder connected to the floor that I was supposed to take down.
“Use your Magic,” Jericho whispered. “There’s only dirt at the bottom. You’ll be safe and I’m right behind you.”
I swallowed but obeyed. My fingers grasped cold, flaking metal and I carefully put one foot on the thin, rounded rungs, before stepping down with my other foot.
Knowing I could live forever and survive anything was different than actually believing it. I couldn’t trust that I was fine. I couldn’t mentally comprehend that death wouldn’t be at the bottom of this endless ladder if I fell backwards.
I was too conditioned to be human.
Maybe one day I would adapt some kind of reckless mindset that would allow me to be hopelessly fearless, but until then I would grip my safety with all of my strength.
Finally, my foot swept out and hit only air. There wasn’t another rung beneath me. Looking down I could see that I was about five feet from hard dirt and so I let myself drop down. My feet hit the hard ground shooting tingles up my legs, but I made it.
I waited quietly with the others near the edge of another drop off. The rest of our party joined us, Talbott with Lilly over his shoulder, Ophelia, Sylvia and then Jericho. He closed the opening and seemed to put some kind of lock on it.
Once everyone was on the ground, we dropped down from another ledge and began a hike through a dark tunnel.
“This used to be a river,” Jericho whispered to me after we’d walked at least a mile.
“Really?” I looked around and decided that made sense. The stone walls were perfectly smooth underneath an obvious waterline. “What happened?”
“Eden and Kiran happened,” he said cryptically, but he was smiling.
“Terletov doesn’t know about this exit?”
Jericho shook his head and a few others laughed softly.
Avalon turned around and with a hint of a smile said, “This is for Resistance members only.”
I only vaguely knew what the Resistance was and his answer didn’t make sense to me. He made even less sense to me when he touched his finger to the soft place behind his ear and his skin lit up in the form of a small tattoo.
Everyone else seemed to really like this though and they all- well, except for Sylvia, Ophelia and Lilly who was still unconscious- lit up similar tattoos in the same place. Even Angelica beamed when she showed of the small circular snake that lit up under her ear.
“Jericho,” Seraphina taunted. “You’re going to have to get your girl a tattoo. She doesn’t fit in.”
Jericho smiled back, “And here I thought those days were over.”
Avalon turned around and walked backwards so that his focus was behind us, back at the Castle that we were fleeing. “I thought they were behind us, too.” The mood shifted dramatically again and we were back to the quiet melancholy that was more appropriate. “They’re still fine,” Avalon announced while he pulled Amelia into his body and wrapped an arm around her. “Eden and Kiran are still all right.”
“We’ll get them out,” Jericho promised his King.
“I know,” was Avalon’s short reply.
After another hour of walking, the cavern brightened with natural light. It took me a moment to realize it was the early dawn seeping in through cracks in the rocks ahead of us that enhanced the space and our vision.
O and I silently followed Jericho through a crevice just wide enough to squeeze through. On the other side of the broken boulders, snowy mountains lay before us in every direction. The faint sun peeked through the barren trees and reflected off the crisp, white snow.
The cold hit me in the face with an abrasive strength I wasn’t prepared for and I sent my Magic zinging through my blood in an effort to warm up. Jericho turned toward me while we stood above on the little peak of rocks that we’d come out on. He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, adding his delicious warmth to my skin. His piercing gaze caught mine and he looked into me with such an intensity that I knew beyond a doubt he saw inside me; he saw everything.
“Are you alright?” he murmured in that deep voice that sent shivers down my spine and made my toes curl.
“I’m fine,” I promised. “O’s good and we’re safe.”
“Good.” He tugged me to him and wrapped his arms around me. I gladly laid my cheek on his chest and drank in the soothing sound of his constant heartbeat.
“What about Ry, is he alright?”
“Your family’s still safe. I checked in with the Guard in Chicago right before we landed here. I haven’t heard differently and I think Terletov brought most of his forces here.”
“What about your family?” I asked after I allowed myself to take in a breath of relief.
He hesitated for such a long time that I knew things weren’t okay with them, but he didn’t tense and I didn’t feel anything disturbing in his Magic.
After several minutes of just holding each other, I had given up him answering but then he let out a short breath and said, “They’re taken care of.” I opened my mouth to ask what that meant but he quickly said, “We’ll talk about that later though. It’s a big, long complicated story and I don’t have the energy for it right now.”
The rest of our party had moved off the rocks by now and were discussing which way to go. Apparently there were a few neighboring small towns nearby and depending on which one we traveled to, determined the rest of our journey. It was important to get Sylvia and Ophelia inside though. Neither of them could warm their bodies in the frigid temperatures.
But we were safe.
I wasn’t afraid anymore.
Actually, I didn’t know if I was ever afraid.
I didn’t just trust Jericho. Somehow along the way, I’d learned to trust his friends, too. These weren’t my people, these weren’t even
technically my friends, but they cared about me and they cared about Jericho. They took care of my sister and I knew they would continue to include us in their plans to get to safety.
I had been a loner most of my life. But I’d never really been okay with it. I just lived like that because it was familiar to me… because it came naturally to me.
And somehow in the last four months, I decided to explore Peru with my baby sister, got abducted, tortured, nearly killed, molecularly altered, and now identified with a completely different species… yet somehow that had been the best thing that ever happened to me.
I wasn’t exactly ready to thank Terletov yet for his role in changing my life.
But I no longer had an encyclopedia of regrets and I no longer feared the future or what would become of my life.
And I had Jericho.
“Do you trust O to go with them for a minute?” Jericho asked gently, pulling back so he could see my reaction.
“Yes,” I told him honestly. “Yes, I do.”
“Avalon,” he called out. “We’ll catch up in a minute.”
Avalon, along with everyone else, looked back at us and let out low whistles and raunchy cat calls. The guys suggested things that were not even possible… at least I didn’t think so… and the girls awed and oohed at what was clearly going to be the final moment of our friendship.
“Be quick,” Avalon instructed when everyone had gotten their piece out.
“Well, not too quick,” Sebastian laughed.
Avalon grinned at him and then turned back to Jericho. “I’m impressed, brother.”
“What? That I’m settling down?” Jericho smiled.
“No,” Avalon smirked, reminding me of his brother-in-law. “That she’s going to say yes. She’s the best you could possibly do. You picked well.”
Jericho chuckled and we watched the group crest a hill. Irrational tears pricked at my eyes with Avalon’s approval. I hardly knew him.
Yet, he approved of me for his best friend.
That meant something significant.
When we were alone, or as alone as we could be, Jericho turned back to me and smiled. It wasn’t teasing, it wasn’t flirty; it was so genuinely honest and affectionate that it stole my breath.
“I didn’t know what I was going to find when I arrived,” he confessed. “I imagined the worst from the moment I left you until I could get here again.”
“Did you know the whole time?”
“No, not until I got to Rio. I got here as fast as I could.” His smile faded and a clouded darkness haunted his expression. “The thought of you… I just couldn’t handle something happening to you…”
“Nothing can happen to me,” I promised him quickly. “Believe me, this theory was definitely tested. I’m fine. I’ll always be fine.”
His hand reached up and cupped my jaw tenderly. “Are you sure? I hate that he touched you… I hate that he put his hands on you.”
I could feel just how much he hated it in the ripple and tremble of his Magic. The ferocity shocked me. I knew he’d be mad, but honestly I didn’t know it was possible to get that mad without spontaneously combusting.
I turned my head and kissed the inside of his palm. “I’m fine, Jericho. I’m more than fine.”
“I love you, Olivia.” His words were a reverent prayer spoken on the early morning breeze. They floated all around me, tickling my skin, sinking into my bloody, wrapping so wholly around me that I felt irrevocably changed from the depth and devotion in them. “I’ve loved you for a while.”
I turned back to face him and let the intensity in his eyes hit me with their full force. I would have stumbled backwards from it if he hadn’t grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into him. A single tear escaped from the corner of my eye and my throat dried up completely.
I knew that I loved him too. I knew how I felt and even before now, I knew how he felt. But nothing could have prepared me for hearing those beautiful words out loud. Nothing could have readied me to feel the truth of his emotion and the consecration of his soul as it clung to mine.
But then he continued talking and I just continued to fall more in love with him. “Until you, I thought I would be alone forever. I didn’t see how I could find someone to match me. I’d been hurt in the past, sure, but it was more than that. I just felt… I felt like I was waiting for something that would never arrive. But then, you came. From the moment I saw you on the mountain, curled into yourself and afraid of everything that moved, I felt this consuming need to protect you. Protection turned into a friendship that is more important to me than any other. And when I realized that, when I realized I would rather have your friendship than any of my other ones- friendships that have been vital not only to my survival but my happiness- I knew that I would never be able to live without you. I know my world is strange, I know it’s different and I know it’s not what you want. But I want you to live in it with me, Liv. I want you to stay with me. I want you to be my girlfriend, and then my fiancée and eventually my wife. I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go. You can finish school, we can live near your family, you can do whatever you want to do, but I need you with me. I need you to accept my world and see if you can fit inside even just a small part of it, just the part that I happen to be in. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life. And that feeling won’t fade; it will only grow stronger and more demanding with time. I love you Olivia Taylor. I’ve never loved anything or anyone like I love you. And that is a promise you can keep for as long as you live.”
His words hit me with their full force and my stomach bottomed out into a pit of butterflies. I felt blinded for a moment by the sheer intensity of his emotion. I couldn’t even put coherent thoughts together, let alone think through everything he asked me, everything he promised me. I was still getting used to the idea of being this thing for real… this Immortal human.
Yet, even if I didn’t know how to think, I knew how I felt and that wouldn’t change no matter what conclusion I came to. Jericho was it for me. I’d admitted this to myself, but it was time to let Jericho in on the secret too.
“Liv?” he whispered after my prolonged silence, letting just a touch of insecurity sneak out.
“I love you, too,” I finally admitted. “I didn’t want to, but I do. I can’t help myself.” His eyebrows creased downward as if he didn’t know how to take that. I tried to make sense of my tumbling thoughts one more time, “I can’t stop myself. And believe me, I tried.” My hands slid up his chest and rested over his heart. “I tried so hard to keep myself separated from this, from you, from this world you live in. I just wanted to go home; I just wanted to be myself again. But… but then, this started to feel more like me than any other moment I’d been human. And I stopped wanting to go home, because… this, you became home. I don’t belong anywhere but here, with you. I love you, Jericho. And I think I always will, no matter how long we live.”
“I know you will,” he whispered as he dropped his head to just an inch away from mine. “I know you’ll always love me. And I will always love you. You will take me into eternity with you, Liv, and I will gladly go. I cannot wait to spend the fullness of this life with you. You were made for me. And I know you didn’t come here through pleasant circumstances, but I am too selfish to regret that you are here. How can I, when you mean everything to me?”
He didn’t let me answer and that was probably a good thing since I didn’t have an answer for him anyway.
He kissed me instead, long, drugging kisses that left me senseless and desperate for more. His kisses were insistent but so much more at the same time. He wasn’t convincing me to kiss him back this time; he was claiming what was already his.
His Magic hugged mine, embracing it in such a way that made me feel both secure and utterly and absolutely loved. His mouth moved against mine so softly, so sensually, that I wanted to drown in him, to let go and let him pull me completely under.
God, this man.
He was my presen
t. My future.
He was my everything.
And I had not one regret with him.
“Alright, we all feel it!” Sebastian called from the top of the hill. “Congratulations on your happy union now get your arses over here before they come for us.”
“Oh, my gosh,” I whispered against Jericho’s lips. “They can feel this?”
He smiled with his mouth still pressed to mine and squeezed my hips. “It’s a good thing,” he promised. “That means all the other bastards out there will keep their hands off you.”
“It’s so embarrassing,” I groaned, ignoring his possessiveness even though I found it adorable.
“Just wait till I really get you alone,” he murmured against my neck. “They won’t be able to look you in the eye for months.”
I swatted his chest. “You are so full of yourself.”
He pulled back and grinned at me. “But you love me anyway.”
I relented with a smile of my own. “I do love you anyway.”
We stared at each other adoringly for a few more seconds before he said, “Good, now let me save you one last time.”
And then he took my hand and pulled me down from the rocks and up over the hill. He seemed pensive as we went, but so very content.
I could relate.
His Magic filled in every empty place outside of me and his love erased all the vacant, hollow, hidden places inside of me. I couldn’t imagine wanting or needing anything else in life besides this, besides him.
And I didn’t need to imagine it.
I had him.
I had him forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jericho
“Let me taste, Woman,” I demanded.
Liv stood at her parent’s stove, stirring a béchamel that I was dying to get my hands on. She glanced over her shoulder at me and shook her head. She was so nervous about her clear talent that it was hard for me to take her seriously.