Chapter 21
KENNA
S he was very fucking sure they were flying—as sure as she was that her name wasn’t Lois Lane.
And after she was done howling in disbelief and terror, hating being trapped by whatever-the-fuck bands of steel Tarian had used to wrap her—it was magical.
“Oh my God,” she whispered to herself as the wind burst all over her, anywhere her skin was exposed.
She felt weightless, like she was at the top of a rollercoaster. Then they soared down and she shrieked it again, as the words were torn from her mouth by the wind.
“Oh my God!” she shouted, howling with laughter—at the same time she was pretty sure she heard the little dog’s frenetic barks.
She had no idea how long they flew. But suddenly, they slowed. The wind eased, the light behind her eyelids dimmed, and then she was tilting, carefully set down.
The dog was free too; she could hear its barks echoing, as she heard another telltale zipper-zip, and then Tarian’s voice.
“You may look again,” he commanded, and she could finally open her eyes.
She found herself alone with him and the dog inside a cave. She was disoriented for a moment, but then caught her bearings quickly, such as they were.
“I’ve got it,” she announced, as his eyes narrowed. It was dim, but he was still close enough for her to tell the scars she knew he had were hidden. “You’re a centaur.”
He blinked, and looked affronted.
“Hmm. Maybe a squid thing?” she guessed again, waving her arms like tentacles, before bringing her fingers to dangle beneath her chin. “Cthulhu?”
“You—are teasing me?” he asked her, utterly uncertain.
“Yeah. I am. I’m also freezing,” she said, trying not to chatter her teeth, her heart still racing from the flight.
That, he seemed able to latch hold of. “I—I will be right back,” Tarian said, and disappeared, outside, the dog running after him.
They were near the ocean, she could hear the waves strumming up and down, so they’d just traveled down the coast.
How far? Were they to San Simeon? Could they make a stop at Hearst Castle?
And if they did . . . would Tarian fit right in?
Because the only thing she could think of that could fly while carrying her and the dog and probably stay sentient was a dragon.
Which would’ve seemed abso-fucking-lutely impossible, if she didn’t already know the man’s blood was green.
And him lugging back half a downed tree into the cave without breaking a sweat pretty much confirmed it.
Plus the part where he tore it into pieces with his hands for firewood, because he did not have an axe.
She stood off to one side, behind him, a hand clasped over her mouth, so she wouldn’t say anything inane.
“There,” he said, after he’d made quite a pile. He made a show of turning his back to her, before lighting it, same as he had the fireplace in the rustic lobby, and it flared up at once. “We should be safe here for a time. Long enough for me to feed you and the dog. And I spotted a spring nearby.”
Kenna took two steps nearer the fire’s heat, holding out her hands. “You know, it’s clear you know some kind of magic. You can stop pretending.”
He glanced over at her, his eyes glittering in the firelight. “Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe in your Realm, they hunt centaurs for sport.” And then he yanked off another piece of the tree, and gave it to her, so that she could sit down.
She arranged her skirt carefully so she wouldn’t get splinters in any bad places, while he watched her, seemingly waiting for something.
“What are you, really?” she asked, because even if she was 99.99 percent sure he was a dragon, she still wanted to hear him say it first.
He took a seat across from her, on the ground—which made their heights just about even—and he stared into the fire for a long moment before asking back, “What do you see?” half cast in shadows by the firelight.
“Someone . . . who stole me from the life I thought I had.”
“For your own—” he started to defend himself. She raised her hand, and it silenced him immediately.
“Even if you had good reasons—it still hurts.”
He gave her a solemn nod. “Given a choice, I would never choose to hurt you. I am sorry, Kenna.”
“Thanks. Some,” she said, before staring into the fire herself. After getting injured, she’d always been afraid of open flames. She never once let Sarah light a candle in their apartment, didn’t go camping because she didn’t want any pressure to roast weenies or melt s’mores.
But with fire, around him, she felt safe.
Even though he didn’t feel that way with her.
“I also see someone who’s hiding his own skin,” she said, and Tarian looked up at once. “I told you—I know you do magic. Or something. I’m not stupid.”
It was his turn to raise a hand, and so she stopped. “I never implied you were.”
“Then—stop pretending. Please.”
His gaze searched anywhere but hers for a long moment, and then he sighed, releasing whatever control it was he had on the appearance of his body—and his chest and arms and even his face, went from smooth perfection to being covered with scars at once.
“Oh,” she said softly. It’d been one thing to see bits of him, greased with green, by the lobby firelight, and another to see him here, clean, and alive.
“Things have not been easy on me since I saw you last,” he said, hanging his head, and Kenna felt trapped. He was hurting; it radiated from him just as strongly as the heat from the fire, but she didn’t want him to misinterpret any kindness from her now.
All she could really do was try to meet him halfway.
“Yeah? Me too,” she said, tilting her hip and showing him a dangerous amount of leg—so that he could see the lighter scars she had where they’d taken skin from her to put it other places, and the hash-marked grid of where they’d done just that, spreading her harvested skin over her to cover her injuries up.
There were parts of her that looked like lost continents on a map no one else had ever seen.
And when she looked over and found him trying to read it—he crawled over to her, hands and knees. She should’ve been frightened and skittered back, but there was no time before he wrapped his arms around her knees and sobbed into her lap.
She stared down at him, her hands hovering, unsure if she should touch him when he was already clinging to her. His chest heaved and his breath came through the thin fabric of her dress, hot against her legs, as she held her hands over his head and shoulders, completely unsure what she should do.
“Tarian? Why are you crying?”
She felt him regathering himself slowly, before looking up at her with dark eyes. “That I was not there to save you.”
Then he waited.
For her.
Whatever this was between them now, things were...too real. Too raw. And whoever it was he wanted from her, she still wasn’t that person inside.
“Thank you for showing me your true self,” she said, moving to push him away, even as she felt guilty for doing so—but he took the hint before she could touch him, gliding backwards on his own.
“Yes.” His voice was rough, like he was still regaining control, as he wiped his face with the back of one hand. “I need to hunt. I will be back,” he said, and left her.
Kenna sat inside the cave watching the firelight, holding her knees against her chest.
The dog came back, stinking like the old seaweed it’d probably rolled around in, and basked by the fire, turning itself repeatedly until all of it was warm and it was snoozing.
Whereas Kenna wasn’t particularly sure she’d ever sleep again.
In her prior life, she thought she’d be a three-espressos-by-noon girl for all time, but now she could swear right off, because she was full of adrenaline and energy, an electric buzz beneath her skin that refused to fade.
Everything she thought she knew had changed in a matter of hours—her life had been ripped away and replaced with something impossible .
Not that that hadn’t happened to her before, right?
But this time felt different.
Maybe not good.
But maybe not bad, yet, either.
Even if it still scared her
She exhaled slowly, pressing her forehead against her knees. Breathe. Just breathe.
Her fingers traced over the fabric of the coat she was still wearing— his coat. The warmth of the fire couldn’t erase the memory of his body shaking against her, the weight of his grief pressing into her lap.
It was as real as he was. And as much as she knew she shouldn’t care, she did. Just a little.
And somehow, that scared her more than anything else.