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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.
