Page 36 of Cheating Fate

“Gavin!” I shouted before launching myself at him.

He caught me effortlessly even though I crashed into him with enough force that most people would have stumbled backward or even fallen. But he remained firm, his muscular arms closing around me. Pain from my injuries radiated through my body, but I ignored it as I buried my face in his neck, still unable to believe this was real… HE was real. And yet, the incommensurable sense of peace that settled over me couldn’t be denied.

“My Zhara…” he said, his arms tightening around my back.

A shiver coursed through me at the deep sound of his voice washing over me like a tender caress, soothing away every ache and pain. I wanted to melt against him and savor his embrace forever. My entire life, I waited for this moment. It shouldn’t have been like this. Our first reunion should have been a celebration filled with joy in a safe environment.

And then the memory of my very first vision of him flashed before my mind’s eye. Yes, this was the rescue I had seen. This was the hug that had sealed the moment. But my visions weren’t linear like my mother’s. The very rare times I got them, I only saw random flashes, mostly still images so disconnected that making sense of them was extremely difficult.

Sadly, my dark reality—compounded with him also trapped by my side now—forced me to pull away from him.

Despite his obvious reluctance, Gavin released me and placed his huge hands on my shoulders to examine me from head to toe.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Just banged up. Nothing a good healing won’t fix.”

Obviously, it was a bit of a fib. But the nanobots had done a decent enough job to keep me functional, so long as I didn’t get another massive blow.

“Good, we must get you out,” Gavin said, while examining the glowing rock wall.

“You shouldn’t have come down! There’s no way up!” I said in a worried voice.

“I will climb with you on my back,” he said in a self-evident manner.

My jaw dropped. “It’s way too hot! You would burn alive. My own celesium suit couldn’t protect me if I tried!” I exclaimed.

“You will heal me,” he said with a shrug.

“I can’t! Psychic disruptors are blocking all of our powers!”

“Then you will heal me after,” he said with the same calm and confident voice.

I couldn’t decide if he was insane, naïve, or overly arrogant. Surely he could see there was no way anyone could survive the climb, especially not someone without a celesium suit. While his had been made with high grade materials, it couldn’t rival the Veredian technology.

“But—”

“Hush, my love,” Gavin said gently while cupping my face with both hands. “I know this will be horribly painful. Venya warned me that there would be pain. I can handle it. Remember that your Grappa Eryon saw me in his vision of the Great War. I will survive this. Now let me make sure that you do as well.”

That gave me pause. He was right. Grappa had indeed seen him, Lenora, and the Dervhen twins. But he had not seen my siblings and I—which was standard for Seers. They couldn’t see their own future or that of the members of their bloodlines.

“How do you want to go about it?” I asked, conceding with much worry and reservations.

“I will use my grappling hook to get us part of the way up,” he said in a factual manner while ogling the rock face.

“It will melt!” I exclaimed.

He nodded and gave me an indulgent smile. “Yes. And then I’ll switch to my daggers and use them as climbing picks.”

“They will also melt before we reach the top,” I countered, my tone making it clear it should be obvious.

“Yep. So be ready to hand me yours once they do,” he responded calmly.

It was pure insanity. I couldn’t see in what world this might work. I looked back at him ready to state as much, but the look in his eyes stopped me. They were mesmerizing. A golden amber color that I had never seen before. He’d inherited them from his mother. Even with her, no one understood where she had gotten such an unusual shade from. However, it wasn’t their beauty that stopped me, but the glimmer within. Beyond the fact that my mate needed me to trust him, he clearly believed that he would get us to safety.

The strangest sense of peace settled over me. My mind still didn’t see how he could possibly succeed without both of us plummeting to our deaths. But my heart had total and complete faith in him. We had waited too long to be reunited for it to end before it even started.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s do it.”