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The Sacred Book of Nephilim
Magic sparkles in brilliant colors, alluringly beautiful, enticingly powerful, but in the light, there is darkness. And in darkness there is—death.
Chapter twenty
Micah’s grip on my wrist is a vise, and his eyes are crystal blue blades cutting through me. He thinks I’m with Jeremy. He thinks I’m one of them, here to betray him and hurt his people, and it’s killing me. “Whatever you think I planned, I swear to you, I did not. Read my mind,” I demand again. “Do it now. Do it and stop doubting me.”
His chest lifts with a breath, his jaw a tight band about to burst, but he does nothing, says nothing. “Micah,” I plead.
Abruptly, he releases me and turns away, pressing his hands onto the counter, his fingertips splayed just beyond the blood splattered there, the knife I’d used to cut myself in his direct line of sight. “Damn it, Ember,” he curses, rotating to face me. “Do not fuck around with magic you don’t understand.”
I bristle at his bullish tone. “You told me to embrace what I am, but I can’t do that when there’s a serpent showing up in my head. I need it to be gone. And what if it’s Jeremy and he’s killing my true familiar? What if too much time has passed and it’s too late—too late for it and me?”
“You wait on me. You wait until you learn. You have twenty-seven years of learning to do. Wait on me,” he repeats. “The end. You wait, and you do it right.”
“You don’t trust me,” I snap back, “or you wouldn’t have come in here and all but ripped my arm off.”
“Holy fuck, Ember, I want you to run with anything you’ve mastered, but this, this is magic those who’ve trained for generations have not mastered. You have not mastered. If you’d finished that spellcast, Jeremy might be here right now, ripping pain and death through my entire garrison, Ember. You listen to me. You do this my way, the right way.”
“My God, you’re arrogant. How did I not get that until now? Oh wait. I did. You’ve been an arrogant ass from the moment I met you. I guess everyone bows to the great and grand Overseer and Crystal Seer. Well, guess what? I am not everyone else.”
“I’m quite clear on that point.”
“A familiar is not a reptile. It’s in all the books. And my familiar could be dying right now, suffocated by Jeremy.” My hands are shaking, my voice lifting with emotion, with my fear of where my story ends. “And then what? Do I die? Does he take me over? Do I become like him? I don’t want to be one of them. I won’t be one of them.”
“Your familiar cannot die,” he says, his statement absolute. “It’s a part of you, woven into your soul. It’s been with you from the day you were born, and at some point, I know you’ve felt it there, felt it with you, helping you. If that had been a serpent, I believe you would have turned out a much different person.”
“Then my familiar could be in danger.”
“No.” He swipes a hand through the air. “I told you, no.”
“Jeremy was strong enough to bind your powers. How do you know those months I was close to him weren’t part of some spellcast that made it possible?” I point to my temple. “Go inside my head. I need you to go inside my head and make sure you can’t find him there.”
“I’ve been inside your head.”
“You said you didn’t read my thoughts. Maybe that changes what you can see or feel. I need you to do this.”
“Ember—”
“And you need to trust me. I need you to trust me. You have to do this for both of us.” I step closer to him, wiping out the space that separates us as if my nearness allows him to better read me. “Please, Micah.”
I’m met with an eternal deadpan stare, his expression unreadable, before he reaches for me. He captures my shoulders, and that calming sensation he creates stirs in me instantly—a warm river washing away the blood and fear of moments before. The intimacy, or whatever this feeling is that he stirs in me, is thick in the air. It’s between us. It radiates from his palm and hums through me.
And I think maybe that’s the point—that’s what he wants me to feel. Some sort of Crystal Seer bond that I’m not sure he was fully prepared for any more than I was. “I can feel what you are,” he says. “I don’t need to go into your head.”
“I think we both know you do.”
“No,” he says, and offers nothing more.
“No? Just no?”
“Just no.”
“You’re too arrogant for your own good, Micah. What if he can hide so deep inside me that not even you can feel him?”
“No,” he repeats, releasing me to step back and wide. “We both need to sleep before we travel.” He saunters toward the couch with that damnable hotness and grace of his, sits down, and picks up my bag of chocolate, holding it up. “I take it you like candy?”
Frustration ticks through me, and I want to push, but it’s clear he’s not going to allow this topic to continue. I ignore the question, joining him in the living room, where he’s unwrapping a piece of chocolate. I step in front of him, on the opposite side of the coffee table. “Where are we going?”
