Page 51 of Bonded Ever After

“Yeah, all we can hope for is that the Cloud Realm is better than the Ash Realm.”

He’s right.

Then he glances at me. “Do you feel the pulling they were talking about? A need to keep going?”

After a second, I nod. “It’s like there’s something inside of me telling me that we’ll find our home at the end of the Phoenix Trail. That everything we’re looking for is there.”

He sighs. “I wish I had that feeling. The only thing I feel–” he hesitates, then continues, “is a need to keep you and our baby safe.”

I smile and kiss him. “Your dad instincts are just dominating everything.”

He returns my smile. “It’s weird that someone’s going to call me dad one day. Weird, and good.”

I kiss him again, then look back at the journal. “Do you think they knew about the Council’s plans for us?”

Callum takes a long minute to answer. “No, I don’t think so. I think they ran to protect themselves from something, but I don’t think they ever thought we were in that kind of danger. I think they just didn’t want us to be mindless tools for the Council. And I think they knew that our only way out of Paradise Falls was Neverwood.”

I feel strangely relieved. Some small part of me has been wondering what our fathers knew since the day we learned about the labs. I mean, if my father knew they were going to imprison and torture me, and he left me behind, he’d be a pretty shitty dad.

Sighing, I close my eyes and cuddle into my pillow, suddenly very tired.

Callum kisses my forehead. “I'll wake you when the stew is ready.”

“Uh huh,” I murmur, and then everything goes dark.

TWENTY

Callum

We hold hands as we stare at the barrier into the Cloud Realm. Horrible images flash through my mind of what we might find there, but I grit my teeth and offer Elora a smile, since I can feel her nervousness. Taking her hand, I bring it to my mouth and kiss it, which makes her smile and shake her head.

Gods, I’d do anything to see her smile.

We hold hands, give each other a nod, and then step through. The pulling and bending feeling only lasts a minute, and then we come into the new world. Immediately, the temperature changes to one that’s not only bearable, but perfect. Like, easily the most perfect temperature I’ve ever felt in my life, and we lived in Paradise Falls.

The world around me is also… beautiful, unexpectedly so. There are clouds that peek out from the foliage all around us, but also lots of trees, plants, and rivers. I even see little animals running around the woods, looking happy and content.

Above us, the sky is a brilliant blue color the likes of which I’ve never seen before. A rainbow is the only thing that interrupts the sea of blue, and the colors, red, green, blue,yellow, and orange, stand out so boldly it’s as if some child drew the rainbow with their crayon.

“Wow,” I say.

“Wow is right,” Elora says beside me. “But a world this perfect has to be secretly dangerous, right?”

“Yeah, definitely. I bet the rivers are filled with poison, and these little critters are all thirsting for blood.” I’m half teasing, and half not. Everything in Neverwood is dangerous, no matter how safe it seems.

We make sure we stay on the tiny path and slowly continue into the Cloud Realm. I can tell Elora is equally as blown away as I am by how lovely everything is. She just keeps staring and staring, as if she’s not sure she can believe her eyes.

After a while of walking, I spot some fruit trees just off the path. They have triangle-shaped yellow fruits that look especially good after the disgusting stuff we ate throughout the Ash Realm. And there are plenty of birds in the trees eating the fruits, so I imagine they’re safe.

“Why don’t I get us some of those?” I suggest, pointing.

“We can both go,” she says.

I give her a look. If I tell her I don’t want her to go because she’s pregnant and the most precious thing in my world, she’ll want to come anyway. “We don’t know anything about this world. You stay here where you can give me help if I need it.”

“Okay,” she says reluctantly.

I creep off the path. Something that looks like a cross between a squirrel and a bunny stops to watch me as I carefully walk to the trees. Putting my hand on my sword, I try to look big and threatening as I stare down at it, but it just looks up at me with big eyes.

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