“Where are we?”
“Everywhere and nowhere,” Kai said. “In theory, anyway. We’re on the outer edge of where Seraphina intersects with this realm.”
I couldn’t really conceptualize it. “In earth terms, please.”
“Let’s say we’re on the borders of Yosemite.”
“As in the National Park? The one in the States?”
He nodded.
“Okay, next question. What are we doing here?”
“You said if you showed me something of yours, I had to show you something of mine.” He looked up into the canopy of redwoods. “We used to come here all the time for my birthday. I haven’t been back here since.”
I swallowed. This was classic me not really thinking stuff through. Now that we were here, I didn’t know what to say to him to make it better. Maybe there would never be anything that would make things better for him.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said. I slotted my hand into his and held it tight.
He stood there for a beat, his expression completely unreadable. Then I felt his fingers tighten around mine. “Yeah, we do. It’s time.” He turned to me. “Can those little feet of yours walk or do you want to fly?”
“Where are we walking?”
He led me up the path a little farther up. As we hiked, the trees fell away until we hit the base of a steady incline. I couldn’t see the top. “Too much?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me or whether this was some kind of test.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “For someone like me, running is sometimes the best option. I could do this in my sleep.”
Halfway up the hill, I was starting to get a stitch. It was beyond annoying that he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. He was taking his damn time so I could keep up with him. I gritted my teeth and kept going. If I died on this hill, it would be worth it just to prove the point that I could keep up.
“You okay there?” Kai asked. I shot him a glare to cover up the fact that I couldn’t really speak at the moment. When we finally reached the top, I leaned against a pine tree. I pretended to admire its bark while I concentrated on not having a heart attack.
Kai threw his head back and laughed. He reached out with a flare of his angelfire and brushed the back of his fingers over my cheek. The magic eased the vise from around my chest.
“You know you didn’t have to run up here,” he said.
“I wasn’t running. It was a brisk walk.”
He held his hands up. “Fine. Call it that if you want. Try not to die while I set this up.”
I threw him a withering glare but that only amused him further. Now that the danger of asphyxiation was gone, I looked out over the edge of the hill. What little breath I had left caught in my lungs.
We were at the very top of a small mountain range. Spreading out in front of us was a vast landscape of treetops. The setting sun bathed the area in gold-mottled green. Standing up there, I was suddenly struck by the notion that I could fly. That if I stepped foot over the edge, the trees would catch me.
That was the exact reason why I took a step back. Illusions were often just that. “We can’t get away from here without flying or teleporting, can we?”
Kai grinned at me from where he was setting up dinner. “You noticed that, huh?”
“So I’m trapped.”
His smile turned fierce. “You’ve been trapped for a long time, Blue. You just never realised it.” Somehow, I knew he didn’t mean physically. “Come away from the edge. That look on your face is worrying me.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re going to jump to annoy me.”
It had only been a fleeting thought. I sat down only because my stomach was growling. After that bit of gruelling exercise, I could eat a horse. Kai handed me a plate. I started to stuff my face. He went to reach for my plate at one point and instinct took over. I snatched it away from him before he could touch it. Even though there was still plenty of other food, my arm curled protectively around it. I could be really quick when I needed to be too. His face stilled for the briefest second before he laughed his ass off.
I had assumed that one day I would learn to eat like someone wasn’t going to take it away from me at any second. It never even occurred to me that there was something very unladylike about shovelling food into my mouth until I caught him watching me.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
If it was one of the boys, right now they’d make a comment about my ability to put away food like it was air. They said stuff like that to me all the time. I always shrugged it off because, well, boys are dumb. But Kai wasn’t just a boy. The way he was looking at me made the sandwich clog in my throat.
I set my plate down.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his brows suddenly arched. I considered brushing it off but going from eating-competition speed to not eating at all was bound to raise some alarm bell. “I bet Chanelle hardly eats, huh?”
He didn’t answer and then, “I love you.”
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I loved him too. So much it terrified me sometimes.
“Blue?”
How long had my brain seized for? “Pardon?”
“You heard me.” There was a distinct sharpness to his tone. His expression was tight.
“Why are you angry?” Please don’t take it back.
He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, they were hard. “I’m not angry,” he said. I didn’t want to have an argument right now.
Suddenly, there was a dinner roll in my left hand. And then there was a dinner roll sailing through the air at him. We were both stunned when it
