23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
There’s something about me that Jeremy knows that we do not.
Or I do not.
Micah knows more than he’s telling me.
And with that absolutely fabulous and wildly uncomfortable thought, the food arrives.
I’d love to reject it and insist on having a conversation that gets to the bottom of the mystery of me, but my stomach growls and I’m just plain hungry.
I also don’t know if I’m going to like where this conversation is going.
I’m not an avoidant person, not at all, but for now, I dig into my omelet and savor what feels like it could be my last meal.
I wonder if every meal in my future will feel like my last meal.
“Where are we going after this?” I ask again after we’ve both inhaled a portion of our meal, hoping he’s feeling more giving with details on a full stomach.
“I told you, I’m not telling you that.”
“How far away is it?”
“Far.”
I study him, a question niggling at me. “Why can’t you just use magic to take us there?”
“Traveling by way of magic is called rifting and I could. I just won’t.”
I set my fork down and straighten. “Why? Because I have to learn to do it myself?”
“You do have to learn, but no. That’s not why.” He flags the waitress and holds up his credit card, setting it on the edge of the table.
“Why?”
“Because when I travel with you, you could easily slide under my guard.”
“You invited me to slide under your guard.”
“But not your serpent.”
This answer is brutally honest and bitterly spiteful, even if that’s not his intent.
I’m reminded that the reason he claims we left the garrison is the danger I represent to those whom he protects, including himself.
“Understood,” I say, scooting around the booth.
“I need the ladies’ room.” I don’t wait for his approval, darting away and toward the bathroom sign I’d noticed when we’d arrived.
I step into the cutout and turn left to the ladies’ room, pushing open the door to the double-stalled facility.
Awareness flares inside me, and I whirl around to find Micah following me inside, and what blows my mind is not his boldness but the rush of what I know to be magic that radiates off of him and lifts the hair on the back of my neck.
I don’t know how I know it’s magic. I simply know.
It’s not a taste. It’s not a smell. It’s a feeling—a rush of awareness. Heat. Fire.
“You can’t be in here. And damn it, can I get just one moment to myself?”
“I sealed the door. It can’t be opened. You have a moment.”
“Alone,” I emphasize. “Can I get a moment alone?”
He inhales a hearty breath, his chest expanding before he huffs it out. “I’m trying to be honest with you.”
“Are you? There’s a Benjamin Franklin quote: ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.’ You know more about me than you’re telling me.”
“If I knew the truth of what you are, Ember, we wouldn’t have left the garrison.”
“Just to be clear, talking around a subject doesn’t work with me.
My fighting skills were in a courtroom before they were tested against you.
You didn’t say you don’t know more than you’re telling me, and I won’t kid myself into thinking anything I say will change that.
Are you taking me to some kind of prison? ”
“I don’t take prisoners to eat at IHOP.”
I raise my hands in utter frustration. “Stop with the jokes. This is my life, Micah, and I no longer recognize it, or myself for that matter.”
“I’m taking you to a place where your magic will flourish. Where you can learn, but I can still protect you and others at the same time.”
“Someplace where I can’t hurt anyone,” I say, and it’s not a question. I don’t even know why I seek confirmation at all. We’ve talked about this. I know why we left the garrison.
“Someplace where you’re as safe as everyone else.”
“Why do you care?” I challenge, still not clear on what he has to gain by protecting me.
“We’re the same, Ember. We protect our own. I protect my own.”
“Spoken like a mighty Overseer,” I say. “But I’m not one of your people, Micah.”
“You are one of my people, Ember, and everything I do is to protect you.”
“Tell that to Celine, who would have killed me if you gave her the chance, and probably convinced half the garrison to do the same.”
“You aren’t the same as Celine. You are the same as me. You were created to be like me and with me.”
I’m with him. A statement that has everything to do with the eye color he so easily glamours away with humans. “Why can I feel your magic now and I haven’t before?”
“It means you’re waking up and finding that part of yourself. That’s a good thing. I was afraid your magic was bound beyond your ability to break free.”
“I want it out of me. Not the magic—I mean, maybe, but it—that thing. Him.”
“Then become more powerful than it, than him, and I believe you can.”
“Why?”
“I told you. I can feel it. I can feel you’re different, too.”
“Why can’t I feel you then?”
“You can. You know you can.” He captures my waist, his touch a flame licking at my skin, at my body, and he walks me to him, pressing his forehead to mine the way he had when we battled—when he battled—Jeremy. “Shut your eyes.”
My hands settle on his arms, and the familiar feeling that haunts me with Micah purrs like a cat inside me. “We’ve tried this.”
“Try again,” he urges softly. “Shut your eyes, Ember.” There is warmth in the way he says my name—so much warmth that I could curl up inside it and go to sleep.
And just that easily, light splays over the uncertainty inside me, and I understand what he’s showing me.
I know then that I don’t have to shut my eyes.
This feeling I’m experiencing right now with him is exactly what he’s talking about.
And it’s more than a little freaky. “You’re familiar,” I say, stepping out of his reach and breaking away his hands from my body. “Why are you familiar?”
His eyes, still as crystal blue as the rarest of jewels, watch me closely as he challenges, “You tell me, Ember.”
“Do you know?” I counter.
“I know what I speculate.”
I tilt my head incredulously over his word puzzle and his avoidance. “Which is what?”
“Nothing I’m ready to voice.”
“I’m certain you know how infuriating that answer is to me.”
“You’d be surprised how equally infuriating it is to me.”
The past few days and weeks rush over me like a windstorm rocking me to my core. I’d taken pride in being in control of my life only to discover control had been a facade. None of this seems real. “I don’t want that thing inside me,” I repeat. “And I don’t want to be your enemy.”
“Then don’t be my enemy, Ember.”
“Is it that simple?”
“I didn’t say simple.”
“I want answers,” I say, and my voice is demanding, bottled up and ready to explode.
“As do I, and the sooner we get where we’re going, the sooner we’ll both find the answers we seek.”
Magic fills the air again, and I blink, and we’re sitting at the booth again.
He transported me. He transported us both, and when I offer him an incredulous look, his eyes dance with amusement.
The man is amused way too much to live life killing demons.
“Rifting,” he says again. “And just showing you what you’re missing by not—”
I point at him. “Don’t say learning,” I warn. “I thought you weren’t willing to do that with me,” I add, referencing him declaring himself unwilling to transport me by way of magic.
He slides his coat back into place. “A few feet is not a world.”
“A world? What does that mean? Where are we going?”
“I told you. Someplace safe.” He slides out of the booth and stands, and when I don’t follow, he rotates on his heels and starts walking.
Damn him and his walking off.
I grab my jacket and rush after him. I’m really going to enjoy the next time we fight.