Page 23 of Which Witch is Willing?
Immortal?
What the hell was he talking about?
Tierra sat upright in bed, surprised and horrified when she only felt a twinge of soreness. She patted her chest and found…nothing but some dried blood. Next, she smoothed a hand over her belly, relieved at the answering kick that followed. Her child was safe and she was somehow alive.
“Lie back. Your body needs to rest.” Killian pushed her down to the mattress.
“What she needs is a fucking explanation,” Aerin demanded. She and Moira flanked the other side of the bed. “We all do.”
Aerin hit that square on the nose.
Tierra’s mind raced, her heart beating hard enough to escape her newly healed chest.
“She needs to eat first,” Killian said. “The healing process depleted her energy stores.”
Claire entered the room with a tray of assorted cookies, a bag of pork rinds, and a soft drink to help wash it all down.
Tierra’s appetite bared its teeth and she fell on the tray like a rabid dog locked in a cage and starved for weeks. She plowed through the bag of pork rinds first, not caring about the mess of crumbs falling on her bed and getting stuck in her hair. Guzzling the soft drink, to help swallow the barely chewed fried pork skin, she filled her cheeks with cookies like a chipmunk preparing for the coming ice age.
“Holy shit,” Claire said. “Keep your arms and hands back from her, or we’re going to lose some limbs.”
Once every morsel had been consumed, Tierra dragged in a deep breath and felt her heart rate return back to normal and the shaking in her cells settle. A feeling of calm blanketed her. She leaned back and looked at her horrified sisters. “What?”
“Well, you know those salivating zombies after brains?” Aerin asked, continuing when Tierra nodded. “That display of feeding beat the hell out theirs.”
She wiped a hand over her mouth, collected some leftover food particles and licked them off her fingers. “I wasstarved. I’ve never felt hunger like that before.” She regarded Killian with suspicion. Had he somehow turned her into an animal? “What have you done to me?”
“Yeah, past time to explain yourself, buddy,” Moira said. “What’s this immortal shit you’ve been spoutin’?”
“First of all, I hadn’t counted on this, but secretly hoped it would happen.” Killian smoothed back Tierra’s wild hair from her face, gazing down at her with his heart in his eyes. It made her uncomfortable to see his adoration that he didn’t bother to hide from her sisters.
“Well, shit,” Aerin said. “Hereallyis in love with you.”
Moira nudged her to keep quiet, while Tierra’s eyes widened with panic, feeling like a net had closed in around her.
“Leave us,” Killian ordered.
“No!” Tierra and her sisters hollered together.
Tierra continued, “You explain yourself right now in front of my sisters. This concerns them, too.” She thought she heard Killian mutter,in-laws, under his breath.
“It has been said that when an immortal bonds with a human, and the immortal’s love for the human is pure, the human will be transformed into an immortal, too.” He gave her a satisfied smile. “Welcome to the rest of your life, my gazelle.”
Tierra sat there stunned, staring up at Killian. Immortal? She was immortal. “You’re saying that I can’t die? That I won’t age?”
“Correct.” He smiled as though he’d bestowed the most treasured of gifts upon her.
“Will she have to drink blood and sleep in the ground during the day?” Moira regarded Tierra with wariness.
“Nothing like that,” Killian reassured them. “Other than the ability to regenerate, she remains unchanged.
“Except I can’t grow old and die.” She’d be forced to live forever…with Killian. A marriage lasting fifty years was a remarkable achievement, but eternity? How did one love someone for an eternity? Wouldn’t he get tired of her? She of him? What about her child? Would she have to watch him or her grow old and perish? Her hand covered her belly and a sob gathered in her throat. Not to mention, she’d have to suffer her sisters passing too, as well as everyone else that she loved.
Killian placed his hand over hers. “There is a high probability that our child will also be immortal. So, don’t fret.”
“Don’t fret?”she shrieked. “I don’t want to liveforever. I want to growold. I want to experience every season of my life. Be a grandmother, one of those old biddies who everyone is always afraid of what they are going to do or say.”
“You can still do all that, you’ll just look the age you are now,” Killian said as though her objections were pesky flies to be swatted away.
