Page 84 of Anchor

He said it like that was his salvation, his biggest revelation.

“I-I did.” I didn’t tell him the truth—I could have, should have.

“No, you didn’t, baby. You saved me,” he insisted, eyes squeezed shut, his hands on my face, and now I was crying again.

“I should have told you,” I said through gritted teeth, afraid that if I didn’t hold myself back I would start sobbing. “I should have…before the Feast of Hope, months before and in the very beginning. When we…when we first met on that rooftop, I should have told you.” And it killed me now that I didn’t. It would kill me for the rest of my life.

Goddess, if only I could turn back time. If I only I could undo this whole thing, justunhurt him in any way I could.

I wished it with all my being, except life doesn’t work that way and nothing can bring back the past, not even magic, and now I was sobbing.Great.

Taland was laughing, kissing my tears as they left my eyes, as if he couldn’t tell how the guilt ate me. He didn’t care that we’d ended up here just because I hadn’t told him the truth, and I both envied him and wanted to be like him, and I wanted to smack him in the head until he feltthatpart of me, too. The guilt, that raw guilt.

Except he didn’t need to because he had his own. “And I should have told you why I was in that school, and I shouldn’t have snuck around when you were asleep, and I shouldn’t have risked you like I did—I shouldn’t have.” He kissed me again, on the cheeks and the tip of my nose. “If I’d told you first, baby, you’d have told me, too. But we were kids, teenagers, and we didn’t know any better.” He stopped, leaned back, eyes wide andhappy—goddess, he looked so happy. “We donow, don’t we? How about we focus onthat.” It wasn’t a question. “Because I want to care but I simply can’t. I want to care about all of that, but I simply don’t.”Kiss, kiss.“You didn’t betray me, and I don’twant to change a single thing about our story. Youdidn’t betrayme, and that is all.”

This time when he kissed me, I felt it all the way to the tips of my toes. I kissed him back, held onto his wrist and hung my life on that kiss, hung my soul to let it air out—Goddess, it was such a shriveled mess.

“I don’t understandanything.”Yet I was smiling. I said it before and I would probably say it a couple dozen more times, but I was smiling.

“We can figure it out if we want to. I don’t really care. But I think we need to get going now, sweetness. I know a place if you’ll come with me.”

I had never—neverbefore seen Taland like this. I’d witnessed many of his moods and his faces, but never this. So…lightweight.Like he was flying. Like he wasn’t touching the ground at all.

I touched his lips with my fingertips. “I’m never leaving your side again.”

His eyes closed. He breathed deeply.

When he looked at me again, he was sad.

“Then follow me, baby.”

I did.

We got in the car again, and I sat in the passenger seat, and he drove us away.

It occurred to me that this, too—this simple, ordinary thing—was one of the fantasies I’d craved the most while we’d been apart. When I snuck out of the mansion and drove my bike for hours in the night and wondered what it would be like to be withhiminstead. Not alone, but with Taland, and now here I was. My hand in his. The radio on. The road clear and Taland driving with a smile on his face.

And I thought,dreams do come true.

And despite everything, that was the best ride of my life.

Chapter 16

Rosabel La Rouge

When he stopped the car, Taland urged me to stay put, and ran all around it so he could open the door for me, offer me his hand to climb out.

All the while, I giggled.

What a silly man. What a silly,perfectman.

“It’s a safe house,” he said.

“A safe house,” I repeated, looking around at the trees that seemed to lean toward each other from the sides of the narrow road, like lovers pulled apart, reaching out their hands for one another, connecting them over our heads.

“Yes. The actual house is down this road,” said Taland with that gorgeous grin as he stepped away from me, walking backward. “Are you brave enough to keep following me, sweetness?”

“Through hell and back,” I said without hesitation. “Why didn’t I even see this road from out there?” I wondered, pointing my thumb back where we came from. We were in a town somewhere outside of Baltimore, Taland said, and it had takenus over two hours to get here. The sky was still dark and the town was quiet, and at the edge of it were only trees on either side of the road. I hadn’t seen this one at all, though, so when Taland drove right, I screamed, thinking he was going to crash into a tree.

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