Page 44 of Bonded Ever After

Ah, that’s sweet.

“I was lonely too,” I confess.

“Well, you never will be again,” he declares, and it sounds like a promise.

We start climbing the bottom of a hill. “Can I say something?” I say.

Callum nods.

“I’m kind of surprised that in the end my stepmom was the one to betray us, and your mom was the one who tried to save us.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I was surprised too. I was honestly never sure if my mom actually loved me, but I guess she loved me in her own way. She was just a woman who cared about power nearly as much as her own child, but chose her child in the end.”

“What do you think she’s doing now?”

He runs his hand through his blond hair. “She’ll want to continue having power any way she can. She’ll be left with a choice: make Paradise Falls into something that can work without goldarium, or abandon it all, taking whatever power and wealth she can with her as she does so.”

“What do you think will happen to the people?”

“It depends on whether or not she wants to use them as a tool to create her new Paradise Falls, or if she’s going to discard them like broken toys.”

The truth is, I have no idea what she’ll do. I just hope our people are alright.

He takes my hand again. “We can’t waste our energy thinking about them. We need to focus on ourselves and our new life. We need to be smart about every single thing that we do.” His gaze slides to my stomach, and I know he’s thinking about our Little Bean again.

When we get to the top of the hill, we both stiffen. There’s a child floating near the path up ahead, a little girl who seems transparent, glowing with a pale blue light. She has long blonde ringlets, big eyes, and a little dress.

She starts flying toward us. “Please, I’m lost. Can you help me?”

Callum releases my hand and starts toward her, but I grab his backpack and haul him backward. He turns to me with a frown, and I know he’s bewildered by how little I care about the girl.

“They said not to trust anything that flies.”

“But it’s a child,” he says, as if I’m crazy.

“Callum, we don’t know anything about this world. How do you know that’s an actual child? Our dads said anything that flies is dangerous. Shouldn’t we trust them over some strange creature?”

He seems to calm. “You’re right. I was just thinking about our child, and then this appears, and I wasn’t thinking, but you’re right.”

I turn back to the child. “I’m sorry. We can’t help.”

Her eyes seem to get bigger as she floats toward us, but she never crosses the path.If she was really some innocent little girl, wouldn’t she be able to cross the path? Her inability to must mean she means us harm, right?

She stops when she’s just feet from us. “Please, help me. Help me find my daddy.”

Callum’s jaw clenches, and he folds his arms in front of his chest. I know he wants to help. I know some instinct was born inside of him the moment he found out I was pregnant, and now he wants to help this “child.” But every instinct inside of me is screaming that this isn’t a little girl, and that this creature means us harm.

“No,” I say. “Go away.”

“Please,” she begs, tears rolling down her chubby cheeks.

Callum looks away and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Not a chance,” I say.

“But I’m little and all alone.” Her voice is just above a whisper.

“You also can’t cross onto the path because you mean us harm,” I say.

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