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He would rest when we were both whole, he would tell me.
As we made our way through the city, that feeling of being home that I had expected wasn’t as present as I hoped. Honestly… I didn’t feel it at all.
And that was both sad and slightly terrifying.
I had been relying on that thought—the thought that I’d feel like I belonged when we reached the elemental fae lands. Because the Night Court had never felt like home, I had both hoped and expected to feel that way about the elemental lands.
And yet, I felt nothing.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”I murmured to the man after some time had passed and I decided I could no longer linger in my thoughts.
“Not as beautiful as the woman who came from it, but it has its charm.”Laith’s gaze dipped to me, his lips curving upward a bit as I finally peeled my eyes off of the trees.“We made it.”
“Of course we did. I never doubted you,”I teased him.
He snorted.“Sure.”
He jogged a while longer before he asked me,“Does it feel like home? The way you expected it to?”
I considered how to answer his question.
On the ship, I had definitely expected it to feel like home. I had told him such, too. And now, I was staring at the trees, feeling a sort of forlorn sadness over the childhood I’d had before leaving the land.
“I’m not sure,”I admitted.“It wasn’t an immediate welcome feeling.”A minute passed as I debated my answer further.“And… my memories aren’t all good. I didn’t realize that the land would bring them back.”
He pulled me a bit tighter to his chest.“Would it offend you if I admitted that I’m glad to hear that?”
My lips curved upward.“No. You only have all of your magic half of the time here.”When the sun was up, his dark magic was nearly impossible to access.“It feels good to be back here, but not as good as I hoped. I guess I probably remembered it more fondly than I should’ve.”
“When you were suffering, you held on tightly to the memory of the place that had been your home. That was a survival instinct, not something to be upset over.”Laith’s eyes lifted back to the trail.“Perhaps it will feel more like home as we get closer to the center of the land.”
“Maybe,”I agreed, though I wasn’t feeling convinced. I was feeling…
Uncertain. About many things.
But I forced the emotion back.
My health wasn’t good. If we didn’t make it there in the next handful of days, I was probably going to die. That was a simple, if significant fact. The stress of mating and traveling had been hell on my already-wrecked body, so there was no point in embracing the uncertainty I was feeling.
If I survived the journey, I would allow myself to consider the future.
Until then, I was just going to focus on the present.
Laith jogged through the day, and then pressed onward through the night. He had been faster before he gave up the throne’s magic, but there was no way for it to travel with us, so that was pointless to consider.
He finally slowed down and rested for a few hours at the beginning of the next day, and I ran my fingers through his hair as I watched the sun rise through the trees.
It was absolutely breathtaking…
But it wasn’t home.
A sad acceptance of that fact settled deep in my chest, and ached.
Laith woke himself up when he’d rested enough to keep going, and he hauled me up off the ground without a second thought. When I told him I could walk, he didn’t even bother growling at me. Just pressed a kiss to my forehead and continued onward.
Halfway through the day, I heard strange female voices, and whispered for Laith to stop.
He didn’t want to, but slowed down and made his way through the forest until we were in a position where we could get a better look at the women, hidden behind some bushes so they couldn’t see us. They weren’t near the road, and didn’t seem to be heading in the same direction that we were—and when they stepped directly into our line of sight, my eyes widened.
