30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
The way he says those words, “You don’t have the luxury of allowing that ‘if’ to exist, Ember,” sears me with dread and foreboding and kills our sweet dessert mood with a big fat spear.
I yank my hands from his and shove aside my cake, which disappears, and I don’t even think about the magical moment, for the clawing defensiveness ravishing me.
“Or what? What aren’t you telling me, Micah? ”
“Read the book.”
“Give me the highlights from your point of view.”
“I told you—if that happens, you can never read the text without my thoughts intruding on your own.”
I push to my feet. He doesn’t do the same. “I don’t like the secrets you’re keeping,” I grind out.
“There are no secrets. I’ve handed you the truth in that book. Come on now, Ember. Ease up and sit down and eat carrot cake with me.”
“It’s gone,” I say. “The cake is gone.”
“Bring it back.”
“No. What time is it?”
He points at my wrist, and a watch appears. “It’ll read the accurate time.”
I don’t ask how that’s possible, and I’m done gaping at acts of magic.
I glance at my wrist and find the nine p.m. hour, comforted by the idea that time is different here, which translates to no one looking for me.
I’m not sure anyone but Oliver would care anyway.
Certainly not the people who I believed to be my parents, and I’m not sure it would be for the right reasons if they did.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Micah says, and it’s only then that I realize that he’s standing in front of me.
Close. So very close. And for reasons I can’t explain, it feels different this time—a warm, sunny day splaying across the ocean of possibilities.
One corner of his far from angelic mouth quirks.
“Or, in this case, a fresh piece of carrot cake?” There’s a gentle tease in the suggestion, pillowy silk in his words.
I swallow hard, the scent of him is earthy and wholly male, and I really like it. I really like him, too, and that’s pretty twisted considering he may have to kill me. “I don’t want the cake,” I say bitterly. “I don’t want a lot of things right now.”
“Fair enough,” he says. “I’m more interested in what you want. What do you want, Ember?” His voice lifts slightly, as if he’s invested in the question and my answer.
Him, I think, and part of me believes that’s what he wants me to say. Another believes it’s a shallow answer to offer a man who’s fighting to save the world—perhaps from me. “Everything I could say to that question feels wrong right now.”
“We might be Nephilim, Ember, but we have a human side and human wants and needs. Using that part of us actually makes us stronger, more connected to those we protect, closer to each other.”
“More exposed to our enemies,” I counter.
“I’m not your enemy,” he assures me.
“Yet,” I amend. “We don’t know who or what I am—angel or demon—and if I’m the latter, we both know you’ll kill me.”
“Don’t do that,” he warns, his voice a deep reprimand, his hands capturing my elbows.
“Do what?” I demand, my voice lifting. “Speak the truth? I don’t like having things in the air and unspoken.
” I don’t know how I even get there, but I step closer to him, and I poke his chest. “Don’t keep secrets from me about me or pretend you won’t kill me.
And, damn it, if I’m like him, please kill me. ”
His hands close around my wrists, firm with demand. “Stop,” he commands. “You will not fight Jeremy and win if you’ve already decided he’s the victor. And for the record, I have a lot to say on that topic that needs to come after you read the book.”
Utter frustration over him forcing me to read what he can simply tell me himself has me jerking at my wrists with no give on his part at all. “Then let me go so I can read the damn book.”
“There’s a lot of things I want to do with you, Ember, and killing you isn’t one of them.”
There’s a rough quality to his voice that vibrates through me, and I swear the hum of magic quivers through us—his, mine, the house’s?
The idea freaks me out, but it doesn’t explain what feels like the very real human burn of desire expanding in my belly.
Or thinking about how secluded we are, how alone, one man and one woman on what amounts to a deserted island.
The vulnerability this idea stirs in me doesn’t sit well, and I reject it, hard and fast. I am too easily leaning into him when I don’t fully know him or his intent, and yet, I can’t seem to make myself pull away from him again.
I tilt my chin up and meet his stare. “The last thing I want right now, Micah, is to feel human,” I say, and I know he’ll understand what I’m saying. That’s what he’s making me feel. Human. Too damn human.
“The last thing you need to do right now, sweetheart, is to lose your humanity. Those twenty-seven years make you stronger, not weaker. Jeremy is a demon. You are not.”
“But I’m not just Nephilim, am I?”
Something flickers in his eyes, and there’s a spike of magic between us again, and this time, I know it’s his. “Those years living among humans were training in ways you have yet to understand.”
The ways I don’t yet understand are what get to me, I think.
He knows things about me that I don’t know, but that doesn’t scare me as much as my desire to get lost in him when I don’t even know who I am anymore.
Or what I am. It feels dangerous. I think I’m dangerous.
“You’re still holding on to me, Micah, and I don’t think that’s a good idea right now, do you? ”
He stares down at me, long, heavily laden seconds passing before he grits his teeth and releases me, turning away and offering me his back.
And much to my distress, the action, the way he’s retreated under my warning, tells me more than a million words in a book can.
He’s playing with fire, and I’m that fire. And he knows it all too well.
We both know it.
Micah rotates to face me, and whatever might have been in his expression, he’s schooled his features into hard lines and an emotionless mask. “I’ll take you to your room, where you can read in peace.” And just that easily, he’s shut me out and down.
My reply is a short bob of my chin. He scoops up my books from both tables, proving once again that he’s a demon killer and a gentleman—offering me pancakes, magic travel, and Olive Garden, all while fighting off nasty demons on my behalf.
One might think this was a budding romance, not a trial to decide if I live or die.
I have a lot to say on that point—more than he wants to hear, I’m sure—and as if he’s in tune with the spike of my mood, he’s already walking toward the door, forcing me to bite back words and follow.
Once we reach the top of the steps, he disappears, and my heart lurches.
Damn it, he did that rift thing he does, and I’m not going to be the weak human left behind.
“House, help me, please,” I whisper and will myself to the lower level.
To my shock and awe, that’s exactly what happens.
A tiny surge of magic tingles along my neckline, and with nothing more than a blink, I’m standing inside the living room with him in front of me.
His arms are crossed in front of his impressively broad chest, the books somewhere magically tucked away, I suspect, and there is a stoic look on his ridiculously handsome face.
His jawline is sharp, and while he says nothing, something I can only call satisfaction burns in his eyes.
“This way,” he says softly, and he’s on the move again with the expectation that I will follow.
In this moment, he’s the Overseer who expects submission, though I’m not sure that’s his intent, rather than escaping me.
There’s tension between us born of the obvious awkward kiss/kill plight we’re in, but there’s also something deeper in the air that I’m not sure either of us fully understands.
Whatever the case, I’m eager to see the rest of the house.
With a double step—or two, actually—I easily catch up to him as we reach the opening of a hallway that blows my mind.
This is not the hallway of a farmhouse, but rather that of a castle, with towering stone walls lit by elegant heavy metal sconces.
“Without the limitations of Earth,” I murmur softly, and when I glance up at Micah, he’s watching me, his expression unreadable, his face all hard lines and shadows.
“Just as you don’t have the limitations of being human.”
The limitations of being human, I repeat in my mind, and I realize this statement doesn’t feel as strange as it should, but deep down, it would have just twenty-four hours ago.
I’m moving past mourning my prior life and acceptance of the new, if for no other reason than survival.
Or maybe it’s blossomed more from an understanding that I was never one of them.
I never belonged. Except with my grandfather, and that’s curious to me.
I file that thought away for later retrieval, and we begin walking, side by side, the path long and winding, and I glance up at Micah.
“What’s with you and long, narrow paths? Are we headed underground?”
“No. That’s not necessary in Elysium. The house is playing games with us for your benefit.”
“For my benefit?”
“It wants you to learn to use your assets.”
“In other words, the walk to the kitchen to make coffee in the morning may well be ridiculously long.”
“You can spellcast your own cup of coffee or rift to the kitchen. That’s the point. It wants you to use your magic.”
“It, or you?”
“Both,” he says easily.
“Well, ‘the house’ is acting like an overbearing parent.”
“I suppose ‘the house’ sees itself just that way, but I am far from parental where you’re concerned.”
I halt and turn toward him, and he’s already facing me, the words already on the tip of my tongue and impossible to pull back. “If not parental, Micah, then what? How do you see yourself with me?”
“How do you see me, Ember?”
“Overbearingly arrogant and stubborn.” It’s as honest an answer as I’m willing to give him right now, and even admit to myself.
“I’m protective, but for the record, confidence is not arrogance, and it’s something you need to learn.”
“I was confident as a human. I’m a baby Nephilim. And you’re protective because you think I’m the Aza, and there’s a reason some of your own kind want to kill me.”
“Our own kind,” he replies, his voice a low rasp. “You’re like me, Ember.”
“Am I, though? I don’t think you believe that any more than I do.”
“That’s not true. You can feel that connection,” he says, and I suck in a breath as he adds, “our connection.”
I have no idea why, but my heart is racing, and I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff about to fall, and he’s all that holds me in place. “What does that mean, Micah? Tell me what all of this means.”
He cuts his eyes, and I have this sense of him battling within himself, and I don’t believe he’s a man who hesitates or questions himself much. But he’s struggling over me, and I can’t conclude that’s a good thing. “Micah—”
“This is your room,” he says, facing forward, and I blanch as I realize the walkway has ended and we haven’t moved. We’re standing in front of two side-by-side heavy arched wooden doors.
He reaches for the shiny gold handle, and with a moan, the wood slides open, and Micah is motioning me inside. My pulse leaps at the idea of being alone with him in my bedroom, but as I step under the archway, when I’m parallel to him, he says, “Sleep well, Ember.”
I whip around to face him, but he’s gone, only the remnants of magic and the earthy scent of him lingering in the air, but I can still feel him. He is everywhere in this place, except right here with me, and I don’t even know how to reach him if I need him.