Page 66 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
Meera stared at me, color draining from her face. Her mouth opened then closed. I’d stunned her. In a quiet voice she asked, “How’d you know it was that steep?”
“I scented the water too, but just looking at it was enough to know it was too high. It was an abyss. Then I flew down after you counting every second, but I was too slow. I know how fast I can fly, and I wasn’t going to make it. If not for Damon, you both would have died. If you were lucky, it would have been on impact and not because your body was broken and you slipped beneath the water and drowned.”
“That’s why you’re mad,” she said eventually. “Because we could have died.Icould have died.”
I nodded. “I almost lost you. Again. You didn’t listen when I told you not to jump, and this was right after we had the conversation about me being able to fly.”
Meera’s voice was small, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not looking for an apology.”
“Then what are you looking for?” she said, frustrated now.
“I just want you to listen. To understand. Do you think I wanted us to get attacked? Eaten? Of course not. Why would I tell you to stop if it puts you in more danger? What would be the point of that?”
She sighed. “Fair enough.”
“We’re partners, Meera. At least, I think we are. And partners listen to each other.”
She seemed to accept what I’d said, but then she crossed her arms, and her body language said otherwise. “Do partners also walk away? Because you did.”
“I had to.” She raised her brows in annoyance, urging me to continue. “I’ve seen what happens when people don’t.” My voice dropped, weighted and heavy with the memories that flooded me. “Maeve and Drayden. Their fights were legendary. Explosive. No boundaries, no brakes. And the last thing they ever said to each other before she died—” I shook my head, not wanting to repeat it. “Those words couldn’t be taken back. No apologies. No atonement. No forgiveness. Just unending grief. It tore a hole in Drayden’s heart in which he has never recovered from, and never will.”
Her body went still beside me, the tension she held in her shoulders loosening. In a barely audible whisper, she breathed, “Oh ...”
“When I walked away,” I continued, “it wasn’t because I didn’t care. It was because I care deeply. And I was angry. Too angry to say anything worth hearing.”
Meera leaned her head back against the wall. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Neither do I.” Gods, that was the fucking truth. “But I’m trying. I don’t always know what I should do, but I have seen firsthand what not to do.”
“I’m trying too, Vareck.”
I turned to face her. “Are you?”
She hesitated, then nodded once. “It may not seem like it, but I am.”
In our moment of silence, Sadie’s voice drifted through the cave mouth. “If anything crawls in here, I call dibs.”
Damon groaned. “On what?”
“On its teeth,” she said cheerfully.
Meera smiled softly, and I let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh.
It wasn’t peace.
But it was something.
We sat there in the dark, the broken moon and its twin casting pale light into the mouth of the cave. The jagged shadows made her look ethereal. I held my hand out, palm up, and placed it on her thigh. Placing her hand in mine, our fingers laced together, and I brought our joined hands to my lips, placing a kiss gently on her skin.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I said, so quietly I wasn’t sure I meant to say it out loud.
She squeezed my hand and turned slightly to meet my eyes.
“You won’t.”
Chapter 18
