32. Chapter 32 #2
“A white wolf. I don’t know how I know it’s white, since I didn’t see it, but…
oh my God, Micah, I felt a wolf.” I laugh with joy—happiness and relief bubbling from deep inside me, a cavern of fear burning away.
“I felt a wolf. I was right. The serpent was binding my familiar. I think…I think it was killing it. It’s weak. I’m weak right now.”
“Thank fuck,” he breathes out, the words vibrating from his lips, almost an eruption of relief as his body relaxes against mine.
In that moment, I know the truth of this day, of this moment.
He’d bet I wouldn’t leave this island alive, that he couldn’t let me leave alive, but now, the tide has turned, and the future that was darkness is now alight with possibilities.
I don’t like that he would have killed me, but I feel the genuine relief in him that tells me how much my death would have been his duty to mankind and Nephilim, not his choice.
It means he’s a good man, and I hope the wolf means I’m at least a little closer to good than bad.
He brushes my hair from my face, his touch tender, and I’m suddenly acutely aware of him on top of me, of his hard body intimately aligned with mine. He leans in closer, his breath a warm fan against my cheek. “A white wolf represents courage, strength, and wisdom. It fits you.”
“I don’t feel wise right now.”
“Wiser than you know, sweetheart,” he says, his voice rough as sandpaper, and yet I’m soft all over, warm all over, suddenly intensely aware of my attraction to this man, of his body next to mine and pressing into me.
“Why do you feel familiar, Micah? Way more than the wolf? What aren’t you telling me? ”
He grits his teeth and cuts his gaze, torment in the act that tells me this feeling is not my imagination, nor is it nothing, not even close to nothing.
He’s not telling me everything, and my nerves are frazzled and worn, anger and desperation, both worthless and ineffective emotions, simmering beneath my surface. “Micah, please—”
He yanks the blade from the ground and pushes off me, and I gasp with the shock of him pulling away, only to have him capture my hand and pull me up with him.
Once we’re firmly on our feet, he presents me with the blade, flattening it onto his palm.
A crystal blue stone glistens from the center of the hilt, a magical quality to the stone I feel in the air and taste on my tongue.
“This is the enchanted blade of Elysium,” he says, “magical and powerful, and one of a kind. It’s yours.
It’ll protect you, and it will guide you and teach you.
It’ll make you a deadly warrior long before your training would allow such skills, and you, in turn, will make it shine as the magnificent weapon it is and has always been.
We’ll go to the forest and test your skills after lunch.
” He slides it into a sheath that is now strapped to my leg.
“My gift to you,” he says softly, his voice unreadable, but his eyes are warm, and I have this strong impression this gift means more to him than I can possibly understand.
“Why would you give me such a precious blade?”
“Because I believe you and your wolf are special, Ember.” There’s that rough quality to his voice again, but I can’t read him, not really, and in this moment, the secrets he keeps from me are driving me wild.
“For the wrong reasons,” I say, reaching for the blade. “Take it back.”
His hand comes down over mine, and he steps into me, his body hard, heat radiating off of him into me, and I can’t help but remember what it felt like to lie beneath him. “It’s yours,” he insists. “If you would have read further into the book, you’d know this. The day you find your wolf—”
I blanch. “Wait, what?”
“You asked me why I’m familiar. I don’t fully know that answer, Ember, but I know that we share a bond with this place. It knows you the way it knew me the minute I stepped onto this land. We’re connected to it.”
My fingers curl on his chest, and I can feel my body lean into his. “What does that even mean? How am I connected?”
“The book references a place where the Aza is free of the darkness, where you can find your true self. A place called Vales. Elysium was once called Vales, named after the first Seer to claim this land, that is, until he changed its name. When I became king of this land and inherited the library, I also inherited a private collection of books with secrets inside them meant for my eyes only. Which is why I’ve always known that the day would come when the Aza would stand in my path.
And I knew when I met you that you were the Aza. ”
All of this is too much, it cuts me until I bleed, it burns me until I scream inside, and there is no escape. “I don’t want to be the Aza, Micah,” I say, my voice lifting with my urgency. “I don’t want any of this.”
His hand slides under my hair, long fingers curving around my neck as he tilts my gaze to his. “You’re special, sweetheart. Deep down, you know this.”
“Special enough to make a demon hunt me, stalk me, and try to possess me?”
“Exactly. As the saying goes, if the devil is after you, you’re doing something right.
If he’s not after you, you’re already one of his.
You aren’t going to let him have you. And neither am I.
” His mouth inches closer to mine, and I crave the touch of his lips.
I so want to know what this man tastes like, but I’m just as desperate to protect him, and my fingers splay on his chest, my elbow straightening a degree.
“No,” I whisper, pressing against him. “I’m dangerous to you, Micah. I know you know this.”
“I’m dangerous to you, too, Ember, but in a wicked twist of the universe, we’re stronger together.” His mouth closes over mine, and the first lick of his tongue is surely the bittersweet death of us both.