34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
His eyes are blue, not yellow, and that’s the only reason my blade isn’t in his chest right now.
The man is tall and broad, dressed in jeans and a snug, long-sleeved T-shirt, his blond hair to his shoulders, his widow’s peak accenting a strong forehead complemented by a strong jawline.
“You must be Ember,” he says, amusement dancing in his eyes as he flicks a look at my hand where it wraps the base of my blade.
“Is killing me really the best way to greet me? A handshake works pretty well for the humans, and I hear you’ve been living as one of them.
And as a plus, when you touch me, my eyes won’t turn yellow.
” He grins and offers me his hand. “Promise.”
I don’t even think about touching him. “Who are you?” I demand, comforted by the magic radiating off the hilt of the blade of Elysium. “Why are you here?”
Micah captures my hand where it grips the blade, his touch firm, his voice an odd mix of command and amusement. “That won’t be necessary. He’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t want him dead. Ember, meet Silas. One of my most trusted warriors.”
Silas wiggles his brows at me. “That’s me.”
“Why are you here?” I demand, not about to take my eyes off him, despite Micah’s hand on my hand.
“To help save you and the world, of course,” he says rather dryly. “That’s why we’re all here. And for food. I’m fucking starving.”
“How do I know you aren’t here to kill me?”
“I could say the same of you,” he rebuts, and while there’s still a curve to his lips, there’s a heaviness to the words.
“And I’m the one holding a weapon in her hand.”
“We’ll meet you inside,” Micah says, dismissing Silas.
Silas offers him an incline of his chin and then disappears. “Why is he here?” I demand, whirling on Micah. “What is this?”
“I sent several of my men to information-hunt. He’s the first to report back.”
“What kind of information?”
“We need to know how to protect you and us when we leave Elysium. When Jeremy can get to you again.”
My heart leaps and my voice lifts. “I can’t just magic Jeremy away?”
“I wish it were that easy,” he says grimly, “especially since you’re catching on to spellcasting easier than expected.”
“But I’m different, right? Maybe I can.”
“Are you willing to gamble on that?” he asks, his tone as hard as it is dark. “Because I am not.”
He doesn’t believe I can fight off Jeremy, and it hits me then that if I don’t convince him otherwise, I’m dead. I will never leave Elysium—that is, unless he can find another way to rid me of the serpent. “What did Silas find out?”
“Why don’t we go ask him together?”
“Where is he?”
“Inside the lighthouse. This is where my men stay when they’re here. And you can bet he’s in the kitchen. He’s a garbage disposal.”
He’s reaching for a lighter mood, but the theme of save me or kill me is hard to get by. “Does he believe I’m the Aza?”
“Do you?” he counters.
“I don’t know,” I say, but it feels like a lie. He believes I’m the Aza, and the argument to that fact would sway a jury toward his version of truth. “And it doesn’t matter what I think anyway,” I add quickly. “It matters what he thinks and how that might translate to him trying to kill me.”
“He won’t do that. Not when you’re under my protection.”
“Can you say the same of Celine?”
“Yes, I can. Celine is many things, but foolish isn’t one of them.”
“I disagree, not on her foolishness, but on her willingness to come at me. I’m good at reading people, Micah. She wants you. She hates me. No, she sees me as an existential threat to her place in your world.”
“She’s Nephilim. You don’t know our kind. Not yet.”
“I don’t need to have lived as a Nephilim to know her kind,” I assure him, thinking of the many people I’ve dealt with through my legal career. “She’d cut me if she got the chance, and she’s not a good selling point for Silas.”
“Silas can make his own case. He’s good at that.” He tugs me closer, and I hate how easily the touch rages like a wild river through me. “Just don’t kill him before he gets the chance,” he orders softly.
He issues commands too easily, I think. I’m not one of his followers, and something inside me warns me to never allow myself to be submissive. “What makes you think I can kill someone like Silas?”
“Your hand sure went to that blade quickly.”
This takes me aback, and rather than punching with a rebuttal, my brows dip. “It did, didn’t it?” My mind replays the moment I reached for the weapon, and understanding washes over me. “The blade. It feels—”
“Protective of you? A part of you? Because it’s a part of this land, made from its elements. And the land is connected to you.”
Are you? I want to push again, but it feels like it’s been asked and answered and yet somehow left without closure, at least in my mind.
And he doesn’t allow me the chance anyway.
As if he senses where I’m going, as if he already knows just how to silence me, he steps into me, his hand pressing to my waist, fingers splaying on my midsection, his touch muting everything else.
His lips brush mine, the delicate slide of his tongue shivers through me, and I decide he tastes as forbidden as the question.
He curses softly—I seem to have this effect on him—and then his hand presses to the back of my head and his mouth slants over mine. I moan with the passion on his tongue bleeding onto mine, leaning into him, my arms wrapping around his neck.
He presses me against the wall, presses against me, into me, hard all over, and I’m melting as if the sun were scorching and he’s my sweet tea, but the thirst is never-ending. The heat is combustible. He drags his mouth from mine and murmurs, “Fuck, fuck. If we don’t stop, I won’t stop.”
“Seducing me by a lighthouse?” I laugh, a tug on the corners of my mouth.
“And yet, I let you sleep in my bed alone.”
That statement is all it takes to jolt me back to reality, my hand flattening firmly on his chest. “Because of the serpent. Right?”
His jaw sets to stone, his eyes burning into mine, but he doesn’t deny the truth—he doesn’t say a word.
He takes a wide step, offering me space I do not want, but in contrast, he offers me the same hand that was just in my hair and on my body.
I don’t touch him for fear I’ll lose all logic again and do something stupid. “Let’s go talk to Silas.”
“I’ll rift,” I say, holding up my hand. “I need to practice, right?”
His eyes narrow on me, something sharp and hungry in their depths as he steps into me and kisses me with such intensity that I’m panting when he pulls back and says, “Don’t do that. Don’t make me a bastard for making sure I know you before I let down my guard.”
“Is that what this is? You letting down your guard?”
“More than you know, Ember,” he says, and there’s a bitterness to his tone that says we are not okay and all the kisses in the world cannot change that, but it’s too late to question the whys and why nots.
He rifts with me in tow. It’s fast, and I’m coming to know that the distance matters with a rift, the short ones feel as simple as a blink, and the long ones are something far more colorful and exciting.
Almost instantly, we reappear inside a half-circle-shaped dining room, with Silas sitting at the head of a long table and a McDonald’s hamburger in front of him—which I know from the double arches on the open box—the view of the ocean beyond the floor-to-ceiling window behind him positively breathtaking.
Micah isn’t standing beside me but rather across from me, the table between us, and I’m uncomfortably aware of this divide.
Silas finishes off a bite of his burger and reaches for a fry while I eye Micah, only to find his attention fixed on Silas while Silas flicks a look at me instead of his Overseer and, dare I say, friend. “Did you come to kill me, Ember, or eat McDonald’s with me?” he asks, amusement in his tone.
If he fears me, if he intends to kill me, he’s a damn good actor, but his eyes on me and not Micah tell me he’s not all that comfortable with me.
But for reasons I cannot explain, I think I might actually like the man.
Or Nephilim. I’m not sure of the proper term.
I’m not sure of a lot of things, but I know that my path to understanding Micah is through those who are closest to him.
But I didn’t exactly get off to a stellar start with Silas.
I pull out a chair and sit down, acutely aware of the rustic farmhouse kitchen to my left, with a wooden island and floors scuffed with history. This place has been well occupied, and I find it almost more interesting than I do the main house.
“It’s breakfast, you know,” I say, motioning to Silas’ burger.
“It’s dinner somewhere,” he replies.
Well, he’s not wrong. For all I know, it’s dinner time in Texas right now, and my parents, or whatever they are to me, are sitting down to a meal, if they are even back home, if that is even home at all to them.
And since I need to practice using my magic anyway, I decide to put it, and me, to the test. I wish for an order of hot fries and spicy mustard sauce, as well as a Diet Coke, which appears in front of me.
“I see you learned how to use your magic,” Silas replies, finishing off a fry of his own.
“I think this place is helping me.”
“It can only help you use what is already yours,” Silas replies, repeating what Micah has already mentioned to me.
Micah’s hands come down on the back of a high-back leather and wood chair, and he doesn’t appear in the mood for small talk or a tasty fry, for that matter. “What did you find out?” he asks, still rocket-focused on Silas.
The grimace on Silas’ face tells me this is going nowhere good, and he wasn’t paying me extra attention out of fear for me but rather answering Micah’s query.
I open my mustard, deciding I need a hot fry before my appetite is ruined.
Silas abandons his food and shifts his body toward Micah. “You know the answer.”
Micah remains unmoving, steel that will not bend, for what must be a full minute before he pushes off the chair and stalks toward a winding stairwell where he disappears. “What just happened?” I ask.
Silas picks up his burger. “I’ll let Micah explain.”
I don’t like this response, but I respect it and him.
Micah trusts Silas for a reason, and his zipped lips speak of loyalty and honesty, two things I value greatly.
Two things I think I’ve known less of in my life than I ever imagined, and the reality of that truth is a wrecking ball to my heart.
I don’t even know if I can really trust Oliver, and I envy Micah the trust he shares with Silas, and deservingly so, it seems.
At least at first impression.
I push away from the table and hurry toward the stairs in pursuit of Micah. “All the way down,” Silas calls after me. “Are you going to eat your fries?”
I ignore him and focus on pursuing Micah, but I hear him mumble, “She can spellcast more if she wants them.”
I’d laugh if this were another place and time, but right now, finding Micah and understanding what Silas’ answer means for him and me, for all of us, and for the world, for that matter, is all that matters.
It’s not long before I surmise that “down” means way, way down, as the winding set of dimly lit steps seems to go on forever.
I’d rift to the bottom, but I’m the curious cat who wants to know what’s between here and there, wherever there might be.
The first level I pass appears to be rooms and doors, and I think, or rather assume, they lead to bedrooms. The second level is an office and den with a rustic wood and steel desk and wooden chairs.
The third, a small library with cozy chairs and interesting paintings of people I’d really like to examine later.
For now, though, I push past the floor and disappear further and further into the lower half of the staircase that must extend well below sea level.
After what feels like an eternity, I’m at the bottom, walking through a hallway with candlelit sconces guiding my path toward a massive, heavy-looking door.
It opens upon my approach, as if it knows me, as if it intends to invite me inside the room beyond.
I don’t question the generosity of the house, assuming, of course, that it’s aiding my mission, leading me toward Micah.
I step under the archway and bring a giant octagon lit by fire-breathing sconces with silver and gold artillery glinting from the walls where it hangs into view.
But it’s Micah that holds my attention. It’s Micah who’s standing in the center of the ring, a blade in his hand and a look in his eyes that is pure murder.
A smart person would turn and run away.
I step past the archway, and the door shuts behind me.