“Obviously,” Jericho echoed, his eyes narrowing.

“I’m sure she would be more than happy to explain it to you,” Kiran rose to the challenge. He stared down Jericho, daring Jericho to accuse him again.

“Let’s just go,” I encouraged soothingly.

I laid a familiar hand on Jericho’s chest and gently nudged him in the direction of the door. My hand lingered against his muscular torso, promising him if he left there would be more touching to come. When he stood stubbornly still for just a moment too long, I slid my hand over his stomach and around his waist, pressing my body against his arm. Kiran’s magic flared angrily in the air, stopping my heart in fear of what he would do. But Kiran’s intensified aggression only seemed to calm Jericho and he moved us out of the room with a protective arm around my shoulder.

We stayed silent walking through the upstairs of the house and to the back where several bedrooms lined a hallway. Jericho led me to the very back room and opened the door to reveal a simple room with a hardwood floor, a double bed pushed against one wall, a writing desk and dresser against another and a small futon against the wall with the door. I smiled at the simplicity of Jericho’s room and the clean uniformity to it. This was where he lived, his base to fight against the forces of evil, where he plotted to free me from my imprisonment.

He shut the door behind us and leaned against it shyly. I inspected the room and then turned back to him. He watched me from across the room; no, he studied me. I could see his wheels turning, his brain fighting hard to come to tough decisions and hard opinions. The adoring love he had stared at me since the first time I met him was gone, and tonight it was replaced with something that made goose bumps pop out on my arms and my knees feel weak and faint.

Still, the way he leaned back on the door, the way his hair fell across his forehead…. He reminded me of Peru, of the hotel room in the old monastery after we escaped the Titans. He reminded me of hope and freedom. I should have asked him what was wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself from taking the space between us in a few fast strides and wrapping my arms around his neck just like I had done in Peru. Only this time, instead of bursting into tears, I leaned forward on my tiptoes and lifted my lips to his. I pressed my mouth against his hungrily, reminding him of my love, reminding him that even though I couldn’t be with him daily, or even conventionally, he still held my heart.

He stayed reluctant at first, slow to return my passion. But I continued persistently; I couldn’t give up on Jericho. I couldn’t even acknowledge that something might be wrong, I needed him now. I needed him like I always needed him; I needed him to love me unconditionally without demanding forgiveness, without breaking my heart and without asking anything from me except to love him in return.

He sighed at my determination and gave in. His mouth opened against mine and I felt the surge of his magic as his tongue found mine and his tender lips caressed mine with delicate sweetness. One hand pressed against my lower back, the other tangled itself into my long, black curls. Reveling in my success, I kissed him for a long time, and reminded us both how I felt about him.

When he finally pulled away and I gasped for breath, my lips swollen and tired, I realized that his magic had stayed carefully reserved and that his eyes still were not the hazel that I remembered. He took my hand and pulled me to the bed where we sat down next to each other, my legs immediately swinging over his and my hand refusing to leave his hold.

“Don’t you think we should talk?” Jericho asked, not meeting my eyes.

“Yes, I do,” I agreed, but then relented immediately. “Tomorrow. We will talk tomorrow. Right now, I’m exhausted, and I’ve missed you so much that I can hardly stand it!”

He smiled at me, finally lifting his eyes to meet mine and I watched the hardness melt away, the determination to get something off his chest disappear. “You’re right, you’ve had a hard couple of days,” he agreed. “And it’s late.”

I looked at the clock next to his bed and yawned in response to the late hour it reflected. Jericho unlocked his hand from mine and patted the bed behind him, jerking his chin playfully in the direction of the pillow. I nodded, letting my eyes dance with anticipation and crawled from his lap to the nook of his arm when he leaned back on the bed and kicked off his shoes. I snuggled closer to him, laying my arm across his stomach.

“Tomorrow we need to talk though, Eden,” he warned me, and I made a noise in response to let him know I heard him. “But for now, sleep.”

“I love you, Jericho,” I whispered, my eyes already closed.

He hesitated for a long time before answering, “I love you too, Eden.” Then he kissed me on the forehead and I fell asleep to the rhythm of his chest rising and falling, confident that no matter what he had to talk to me about tomorrow, he still loved me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The sun shone through the windows, warming my skin and gently waking me early in the morning. I stretched, arching my back and then snuggled closer to Jericho. He lay next to me, warm and shielding. I used magic on my morning breath, a neat trick I picked up while on the run last spring, and opened my eyes to face the day.

Jericho was already awake, holding me next to him. I could feel him preparing this talk that we were supposed to have in his head and instantly a nervous energy flooded my veins. However, I smiled confidently…. lovingly into his eyes and hoped for the best.

“Good morning,” I tried, my voice still husky and gruff from underuse through the night.

“Good morning,” he whispered. We stared at each other for a minute, before he added, “God, you’re beautiful in the morning.”

I blushed at the sincerity behind his compliment and instantly ran my fingers through my tangled hair. “I’m sure my hair is a mess!” I muttered.

“Maybe,” he smiled, “but I can’t take my eyes off you.”

I lifted my face to his and he kissed me gently just once. He apparently had no intentions of forgetting about our talk. Awesome.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, trying to deflect.

“No, thank you though,” he kissed the top of my head and then sat up, letting go of me. “Are you?”

“Starving….” I lied obviously.

“Eden Matthews, are you afraid of having an actual conversation with me?” Jericho turned around laughing.

“No, I’m not afraid of having a conversation with you,” I retorted with my chin tipped defiantly in the air, struggling to sit up next to him.

“Then what are you afraid of?” Jericho pressed.

“I’m afraid of having a ‘talk’ with you. Those are two totally different things!” I groaned, pulling one leg underneath me and using my fingers to demonstrate fake quotation marks.

“How so?” He stood up and stretched. When he faced me his smile was playful, but his eyes turned intense.

“Well,” I explained authoritatively, “a conversation is something that anybody can have and can be absolutely meaningless if the circumstances call for it. However, a ‘talk’ involves two people, usually in a relationship, and often ends badly!” I acted out the quotation marks again over-dramatically.

“Do you think this one is going to end badly?” He put his hands behind his head and stuck out his elbows. He was too adorable to be intimidating.

“Jericho! Stop torturing me and just get on with it!” I scolded, too anxious to go through anymore of this.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he admitted and dropped his arms.

“Start with sitting down, you’re making me nervous,” I sighed. He obeyed, but chose the futon instead of next to me on the bed.

“Eden, first of all, I don’t want you to think that I’m mad at you or anything. This isn’t a conversation about what happens at the castle, or jealousy or…. Kiran. This is just a conversation about you and me; I want you to understand that,” Jericho explained gently.

“Ok….” I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. If this wasn’t about Kiran what was there to talk about?

“Don’t look at me like that!” Jericho laughed at me. “Is it so hard to believe that I trust you? I know Kiran is…. I know what his game is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. I do. Believe me, I do. It might take you a while to commit to your causes, but once you’ve committed it’s with stone cold loyalty.” He winked at me, and I had to wonder if he considered himself one of my causes. “Which is why I want to talk…. I need to know what your plan is here, I mean with us.” When I opened my mouth to shout my feelings at him, he continued before any sound could make it out of me. “Eden, please, hear me out, Ok? Do you know when I realized I loved you? The exact moment?” I shook my head no and he continued, “At the Winter Solstice dance, after you came back from India. You changed in India, you became something more than when you left. Maybe it was the addition of the healing wind to your magic, but you were different. You were always a mystery…. You are still a mystery…. But, I held you in my arms, dancing with you in the Kingsley gym and I fell for you, completely. I pictured our entire future that night, marriage, kids…. forever with you. You are the most exquisite creature God has ever created, you’re gorgeous and insecure at the same time, you’re defiant and loyal, good and rebellious, all with a smile that will break a man, and hair that has its own life. You defy every expectation and in my arms that night I imagined our life together, you at my side, fighting against the forces of evil…. But I put those dreams aside, especially when the night ended in a fistfight with Kiran because I knew that he pictured that same life with you and at that time, you pictured it with him. So, there I was, in love with a girl I could never have. And we both know what happened next, how the world crumbled into an alternate reality and nothing made sense. It started, believe it or not with Amory giving Kiran permission to marry you.”

“What do you mean?” I interrupted, demanding to know more before he continued.

“Well, up until Amory gave Kiran permission, I thought he was on my side!” Jericho pretended to be hurt, but it turned into a smile at the memory of my grandfather. “Amory always encouraged me to pursue you, and then something happened with Kiran. Even Avalon can’t figure out what, but after he gave Kiran permission, Amory started saying goodbye…. Not outright and obviously, but in little ways he started saying goodbye to all of us, getting his affairs in order. It was like he knew he was going to die, but more than that…. like he wanted to die.”

I wanted to argue with Jericho, but it was the same argument I had been having with myself for months. The night Amory took Avalon and I to work on the wind in that abandoned parking lot felt very much like he was saying goodbye. And the way he gave me his magic on the farm, the way he just handed it over, after thousands of years of not dying. In the end, it hadn’t taken Lucan much to kill him at all. And I learned later that Lucan had tried before to kill him and failed….