Chapter twelve
It’s Micah who retrieves my long-forgotten blanket and wraps it around me, covering my exposed bra and skin.
“Thank you,” I say, aware of the intimacy between us that stretches well beyond our short acquaintance, but it’s somehow comfortable and familiar in some inexplicable way. And familiar feels good right now. “And thank you,” I add, “for saving me instead of killing me.”
He stares down at me for several heavy beats before he says, “I used you for bait, Ember. You should know that when you’re thanking me.
As a bonus, if you were someone concealing your allegiance to Jeremy in some way, I was certain you’d break cover in the heat of our attack.
In which case, I would have killed you.”
I run my hand through my wet hair. “Okay, that was a lot to take in. Why did you tell me that?”
“It hasn’t hit you yet, but you’re going to have to cope with the realization that you’ve lived a life filled with deception. I don’t want to be a part of that.”
I’m stunned by this directness. “That’s honorable.”
“That’s survival. You’ll understand that sooner than later.
” The truck begins to bump about on uneven terrain, and he catches my elbow and walks me to the side where we’d settled in earlier.
We end up sitting side-by-side with only the small heater between us, but it’s impossible to get comfortable while we’re jostled about.
“Where is this garrison we’re going to?” I ask, shifting from the spot on my backside that seems to have a screw or something digging into me.
“Denver,” he says. “Close.”
I give up on the screw, accepting that nothing is ever going to be comfortable again, and the truth is, that might be how I like it. “And it’s okay for me to be there?”
“If I say it’s okay, it’s okay.”
My brow furrows. If he says it’s okay, it’s okay? That sounds great, until they all try to end me. “Who are all of these people at the garrison?”
“A mix of Seers and Eagles. Eagles are humans who have long been in service to aid in the protection of humanity. It was an Eagle who brushed paths with you at the courthouse and identified you as a Seer. He alerted me of your existence. I actually found you first, and you led me to Jeremy.”
“Then everyone at the garrison thinks I was with Jeremy.” It’s not a question.
“No. My followers have been told otherwise. And my word is trusted and respected.”
“There’s no way they will trust me right now.”
“If I trust you, they will trust you.”
“That’s illogical. Jeremy has to die before they’ll trust me. You have to see that. Can you take me somewhere private? A hotel maybe? Anywhere but among those who have reason to hate me.”
“There are safeguards at the garrison that keep Jeremy out, or any demon for that matter.”
“Your men died saving me. Do your followers at the garrison know that?”
“Not your fault, Ember, and put that in your mind on repeat. I don’t blame you. They won’t blame you. You clearly do not have control over your assets and it’s obvious Jeremy was planning on stealing them the minute you turned twenty-seven.”
I rotate to lean on the wall, hugging myself against the ridiculousness of all of this but still find myself asking, “How would Jeremy take my assets?”
“It doesn’t matter how,” he says. “He’s never getting the chance.”
I decide that means the answer is by way of Jeremy possessing me or killing me, and he doesn’t want to say it. “Are we sure he won’t get the chance?”
“Once you awaken your assets, the game is over. He can’t take what you don’t give him.”
“If I awaken my assets.”
“When,” he amends, “but if you’ve been suppressed since childhood, which appears likely, it will take some effort. We’ll need to help you open up your assets for use.”
“My parents.” Just bringing them up is lead in my belly, but I can’t cope by way of denial, nor can I survive by shutting down. Knowledge. Actions. That is how I get through this. “Are you sure they’re Corrupted?” I glance over to find him watching me.
“I’m sorry, Ember.”
In other words, yes. I’m not surprised. At all. I wait for some pained reaction that doesn’t come. “There was a disconnect there,” I explain, all too aware of the interest in his stare. He expected a meltdown I didn’t give him. “Now I know why,” I add. “Who are my real parents?”
“I waited until I knew you were actually with us to start that search, but we’ll find them.”
He planned to kill me, I think. Finding my parents would have been awkward. I move on. “What about my grandfather? Was he Corrupted?”
“Service to either the Corrupt or the Eagles flows through generations, but in this case, it was on the other side of the family. Your grandfather was as oblivious to what was going on as you were.”
Relief rushes over me, and I can actually breathe again for the first time in about an hour.
“I cannot tell you how much I needed to hear that. He was pretty much all I had.” I rotate to face him and pull my knees to my chest again, covering my gaping shirt and ignoring the blanket, that falls away.
“What about you, Micah? Are your parents involved in all of this?”
“They’re long gone, but they served bravely, and they died with honor.”
The truck slows and abruptly cuts right. “And…we’re here,” he announces, pushing to his feet and offering me his hand.
I yank the blanket around me again and allow him to help me to my feet, aware of his body close to mine on every possible level. The truck rocks and halts. “Are you sure about me being here?”
“This is my domain, Ember. Stay close to me, and you’ll be fine.”
“As in, stay close, or they’ll come at me?”
“At some point, you’ll be challenged. That is the way of almost every race and being in existence, and that includes humans. You are destined to be a leader. Others will think your time as a human makes you unworthy. You’ll want to awaken your assets before you prove otherwise.”
“You’re not making me feel better.”
“Honesty first, remember? The Seers are inherently warriors. And warriors are territorial. You’d be good to remember that.”
My mind flashes back to law school and how brutally competitive I’d been, enough so that I was checked on numerous occasions. I can’t help but wonder now if that was some inner Seer in me—battle suppression.
“Stay where you are a minute,” Micah orders, and I rotate to watch as he crosses the truck bed and opens another cabinet, seeming to search for something, and then returning with a shirt in his hand.
“Sometimes one of the men leaves behind a treasure. In this case, it happens to be me who left it behind, and this one’s for you. ”
“Thank you, because I don’t think my bra is a good statement piece on a first meeting.”
“It probably worked better with me than it will the others.” His eyes twinkle, and there is enough heat in them to scorch all of Texas. “And yes,” he says, “we’re still being honest. I’ll turn around.”
He turns, leaving me with a smile playing on my lips with his flirty comments. He didn’t have to turn around, but I drop the blanket and pull on the shirt. “Ready,” I say, and he rotates to inspect me as I tie the skirt-length shirt at my waist.
“I think I like it better on you than me,” he approves, but I am certain I would strongly disagree should I have the chance to see it on him.
“Thank you for this. I feel better with it on.”
“Good,” he says, and shifts to the immediate action before us, motioning toward our path out of here.
We walk to the exit, and Micah hits a buzzer. Almost immediately, there’s a crashing sound, the ramp outside being attached to the truck, but I don’t jump.
Something is changing, evolving inside me. I feel it. I embrace the calm it delivers. The doors open, and even before I can see what awaits me, I hear a female voice declare, “She isn’t welcome here, Micah.”
A moment later, I find myself staring at a crowd of people, a good dozen framing each side of the ramp, and another dozen lined up at a reasonable distance beyond our direct path forward.
The woman who’d declared me “not welcome” speaks again.
“Do you hear me, Micah?” She claims the spot at the end of the ramp, a stunning athletic brunette in leather pants and a T-shirt.
“You forget your place, Celine,” he replies. “She’s welcome wherever I say she’s welcome.” His voice is steel authority.
“She’s the enemy,” Celine declares vehemently, hatred in her voice, and she doesn’t even know me. Doesn’t even look at me.
“She is not the enemy,” he says, and then speaks to me. “Walk down by my side,” he instructs in a low voice, for my ears only. “Do not look at any of them. Do not invite confrontation.”
“Just get me off this damn truck,” I say, not sure why he would think I, of all people, after today’s events, would seek a confrontation, especially not with a crowd ready to jump on me.
Micah saunters forward, and I fall into step with him, water sloshing from my sneakers with every heavy step we travel down the steel path.
Celine doesn’t move, standing her ground.
“She was with Jeremy,” she hisses, her gaze meeting mine, a spark of fire, not ice, between us, but I notice her eyes.
They’re green, not blue. You will be challenged, Micah had warned.
Crystal Seers are leaders, he’s also said.
She is not a Crystal Seer. I am. This is going to get dicey.
“Your eyes,” she murmurs, her chin jerking toward Micah. “She really is a Crystal Seer.”
He doesn’t so much as blink at her. “And under my charge and protection.”
“I run this facility,” she declares defiantly.
“Because I let you, and that might change any second now.” His voice is still low, but it cuts like a lethal blade, a sudden sharp charge in the air with his words that I know instinctively is magical, beyond this world.
It’s coming from him. It’s because of him.
“Stand down,” he warns, “or I’ll make you stand down.
” There’s a crackle of energy in the air, radiating from Micah.
She shuts her eyes, her expression pained.
“You bastard,” she whispers, and while I have no real idea what just happened, I know that he’s attacked her in some way.
“I can’t believe you just did that to me,” she adds, her lashes lifting, a raw vulnerability in her face that speaks volumes of who she is to Micah. They’re lovers. No—ex-lovers.
“Are we still doing this?” Micah asks, his tone lower and softer now, and without question, there’s a hint of the personal between them.
“No,” she says tightly. “We are not still doing this.” She breathes out and then abruptly turns and walks toward the line of people in front of us, creating a separation as she disappears beyond her followers.
His followers. The line to our right parts expectantly, and Micah motions me in that direction.
We pass through the opening left for us and travel through a warehouse while I consider the important lesson I’ve learned in my career.
Those who love you are most likely to kill you or kill for you.
Maybe that’s the attorney in me thinking, or maybe it’s this Seer side of me that I have yet to understand that senses the truth: Celine loves power.
She also loves Micah. She’d kill for both.
The challenge has already come for me.
If I cross Celine, she’d most definitely kill me.
Or at least try.