These Godly Lies (Peaches & Honey #2)

Chapter One

Once, he kept his memories close—shielded them with a fierceness that betrayed their value. Now, he wraps each one like a gift and watches her face as he peels back the layers of who he is. Only she could make feeling exposed feel like relief.

CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES

He tells her stories.

The kind woven with truth and fibers spun from memories so old they’ve faded.

For her, he knits together his past and delivers every dream, every fear, one story at a time—tells her everything she’s always wished to know, even when it’s the answer to a question she never knew to ask.

Anna holds each one close, the patchwork of his life growing stitch by stitch until it becomes something she can wrap around herself.

At night they curl up together, sometimes in the bed, sometimes on the couch. Occasionally in the meadow, where the native wildflowers tickle her skin, closed petals kissing her cheeks, as she stares up at a blanket of stars and traces the ones that carry his names.

Tonight, they’re in the living room sprawled beneath a quilt of Anna’s making and nothing else.

The fire crackles in the hearth, flooding the room in warmth and light while the wind whistles through the trees, autumn rain pelting her windows as if the storm were trying to force its way in.

She’s curled up against his chest, her breath whispering over his heart as his fingertips trace the curve of her shoulder blade lazily, each pass slower than the one previous.

“I used to love sitting in front of the fire as a child,” he murmurs, the words teasing her hair before he shifts, placing a kiss to her crown. “I used to lie in front of the hearth and watch the flames dance until the warmth of it lulled me into sleep.”

“It’s hard to imagine you as a child.” The confession is as soft and languid as the fingers now playing with the ends of her hair.

“Most days it’s hard to remember,” he admits. “I suppose that happens when you become too busy to reflect on things. The memory of it fades until the only thing left is the bones.”

Anna thinks of all the things she’s lived through; all the connections she’s made.

The only ones she fully remembers are the ones she’s held on to.

Her early years in England, the hardships she faced in France, the only parts of it she remembers clearly are the moments that involve him and Piers.

All the hurt, the things that ate at her, have rotted away until all she recalls is that, at one point, it was there.

Time changes everything. Sometimes, it erases things too.

“My earliest memory was of being taken—the smoke and the fear. I don’t remember so much as know it, now.” She tilts her chin, meeting his gaze. “It’s strange to realize such a crucial event in my life stopped being important enough to carry.”

Khiran’s hand leaves the small of her back to coax an errant curl from her face.

His touch lingers, tracing her brow. “We have mirrored beginnings. Your story starts with being stolen and mine with being abandoned.” He leans in, their noses brushing.

If she wanted to, Anna could count every one of his eyelashes.

“I came into Eira’s care because I was unwanted.

I never knew why—I was too young to understand.

I’m not sure Eira did, either. I just know I was alone and then I wasn’t. ”

Anna’s brow creases, her mind replaying the words as she lifts her head, leaning on her elbow and hovering over him. “You were a child when you met Eira?”

He’s never talked about his life from before.

She had never even thought to ask. In the beginning, she looked to him the way mortals look up to the sky and find their gods in the stars.

He was ancient and powerful, the idea that he was ever anything other than that seemed impossible.

Later, after she had experienced dozens of lifetimes, her own beginnings had become so distant that she never thought to wonder about his.

“Did you not know?”

“How would I? You never told me.”

He shrugs a shoulder. “I expected Eira to take great pleasure in sharing embarrassing stories of my youth, if I’m honest.” His nose wrinkles in irritation. “She certainly enjoyed making me suffer through them.”

Anna scoffs, her hair spilling over the rug as she lays back down beside him and folds her arm beneath her head as a pillow. “She avoided talking about you. I think she was afraid she’d slip and say something you wouldn’t want me to know.”

“Like embarrassing stories of my youth?”

She kicks his shin, but there’s no strength behind it. More a scolding than a punishment. “Maybe if you hadn’t kept so many secrets, I would have had the pleasure of hearing some of those.”

Khiran’s smile wanes, sobering. “Does it still bother you?”

“Yes.” There are a dozen things she wished he would have done differently, but none of it changes the end result.

He will always believe he was acting in her best interest the same way she will always believe he was wrong.

What matters is that it’s done—that he trusts her to bear the burdens with him going forward.

“Does it scare you? Not having secrets with me?”

“No,” he murmurs, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You were right to demand it. It feels… freeing. Not having to measure my words with you.”

She bites her lip, a poor attempt at smothering her smile. “That’s a good answer. Almost perfect.”

“Only almost? Perhaps I should have rehearsed it more. Added in some poetic musings on your superior judgment and divine beauty?” He grins crookedly.

“Mm,” she hums. “It couldn’t have hurt.”

“I will make a note for next time,” he promises.

Anna looks at him, committing to memory every fleck of green in his irises.

It’s a habit she’s developed recently. Her heart’s way of coping with having lost him for over a decade.

There is still a nervous itch under her skin every time he leaves.

It hums in her ears, settles over her heart.

Sometimes she lays her hand over her chest and the ache is so great she can imagine the vibrations against her palm as clearly as if she placed it on one of her hives.

She thinks that, maybe, he feels it too.

There’s a shadow at the edges of his farewell smiles, cast by the looming presence of his past mistakes.

It doesn’t matter that she’s forgiven him—doesn’t matter that she believes him when he promises never again.

Part of her still fears that he will leave and not come back.

She suspects it might take decades before it fades completely.

Silas was right when he told her that trust takes more time once it’s broken.

Anna frowns, the thought pulling at her. It’s not any of her business, not really, but the question nags her. “Silas mentioned something to me, back when he was helping us rehouse children during the famines.”

Another kiss, this one to the corner of her mouth. “The Shepherd?” he murmurs. He seems more concerned with tracing the line of her jaw with his lips than their conversation.

“He prefers Silas,” she huffs. “I don’t know why you and Eira are so stubborn about using his name.”

“He has yet to earn the privilege.”

“Keeping our secret isn’t enough to earn your respect?”

“He has my respect as well as my gratitude,” he corrects, a sigh in his voice. He pulls away just enough to meet her eyes. “My trust is not so easily given. I don’t offer my friendship as easily as you do, Anna.”

“Perhaps that’s why you have so few.”

“Better a lonely fool than a dead one.”

“You can’t die.” A reminder, for both of them.

His lips twist, a resigned sort of half smile. “There are different kinds of death,” he murmurs, his palm cradling her jaw. His thumb traces the line of her cheek, his eyes dark with nightmares that carry her name. “Ask your question, Anna.”

Swallowing down the impulse to chase away the shadows in his gaze, Anna wets her lips. “What happened to Eira? All Silas would say is that she was right to be distrustful of him—that she had been betrayed.” She frowns, trying to recall the memory. “It felt like he was implying that you both were.”

Khiran releases a long sigh, pulling away from her and laying flat on his back. “I was expecting a different line of questioning.”

“But you’ll answer it?”

“Yes. I just don’t know how well I can.” He stares up at the ceiling, brow creasing in thought. “I was there when it happened, but I was still young. I didn’t understand it all.” He shakes his head. “Or maybe I did, once, but it wasn’t a memory I held on to.”

Young. The word rings in Anna’s ears. Somehow, she knows even before she asks. “It was when you were still mortal.”

He looks at her, the crease in his brow deepening. “He really didn’t tell you anything else, did he?”

“He said it wasn’t his to tell.” She shrugs a bare shoulder, pulling the quilt closer to her chest. “I suppose it isn’t yours, either. It’s Eira’s.”

“You’re wrong.” Behind him, the log on the fire shifts, sparks erupting from the bed of embers. “It’s mine more than anyone’s. It was the betrayal of Eira’s trust that put immortality in my hands.”

The story goes like this:

Once, when the world was young, so was Eira.

They called her by many names—Eir, Hygieia, Panacea—but they all called her merciful.

She healed their sick and aided their mothers.

She was beautiful, and her soul was vibrant and full of hope.

Most of all, she was happy. She cared for the people and the people cared for her.

Until they didn’t.