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They won’t judge you.

I just…need a minute, I explain. I’ll be back.

I’m walking you.

Oh my God, you’re stubborn.

He snorts. Have you looked in a mirror?

I sigh, and he’s already catching my hand and leading me around the couch, and I don’t even try to fight him. Once we’re in the kitchen, about to enter the hallway leading to the bathroom, I tug on his arm, drawing his attention. “Wait here, please,” I say. “I do not want them to think you have your tongue down my throat in the bathroom.”

His eyes light with amusement. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Micah,” I warn.

“All right. All right. I’ll be right here.” He leans against the wall.

With an unsteadiness I hate, I round the corner and enter the small bathroom to lean on the door and try to shake off the fog in my mind. I hate this. I do not like wine. I push off the door, go to the bathroom, and wash up. Somehow, this creates a bit of steadiness in me, and I open the door, about to round the corner when I hear Gabriella talking to Micah.

“The Knowledge Keeper gave me a message she made me swear I’d give you alone.”

“I’m listening,” he says, and I flatten on the wall, guilt stabbing at me for eavesdropping, but this is about me. And him. And us.

“She said you are linked to the one true Mordechai Angel, Samyaza, the Aza as we know it in our prophecies. Her life is your life. Her death is your death, and when you reach for the wolf and find only the serpent, death is in the air and blood is in the water. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t seem good.”

“What else?” is all Micah asks.

“That’s all. I like Ember, Micah. And I can see your connection. It’s real. And despite what the Keeper told me, I like you with her. I just don’t want her to be the end of you.”

“She’s not the death of any of us.” His voice is pulled tight, a band about to break.

I’m about to break, I think, my knees weak with the implications of what was spoken. They go silent, and I think Gabriella must have walked off. I try to rift away, and apparently a foggy mind means no magic. Damn it. I’m stuck here to face the room, to face Micah. And that’s when he steps in front of me.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

It was through the sins of our ancestors that we were cast upon Earth for humanity’s protection, to prove that the good in our kind would overcome the evil, and in the process, influence humanity to do the same.

But it is our destiny, and rightfully so, to see the good in us tested in ways man would never survive. But we must, or they will not.

Chapter forty

His eyes pin me in place, pure amber fire in their depths. “You heard.”

“Her death is your death, and when you reach for the wolf and find only the serpent,” I repeat, “death is in the air and blood is in the water. That’s why you wouldn’t tell me how we’re connected. It’s not just in life. It’s in death. The death I can bring upon you.”

He reaches for me, his hands settling on my waist, and the heat that spills through my body with that connection has my fingers curling on his chest where my hands have landed—his really amazing chest, broad and well-muscled, like every part of him. I curse the place my mind has gone and settle my resolve in place. “No. No, I need to go to my room, and I can’t rift. I think—it must be the wine.”

“If you really wanted to rift, the house would help you.” His thigh shifts and presses against mine, and between the intimacy of our bodies and the rich musky scent of him, I can barely think. I need space. I need out of here.

“No, Micah. Stop. I need to think. I need out of here.” I call out to the house. “House, help me! I need to go to my room.”

I blink, and I’m inside my bedroom, but so is Micah, his eyes alight with mischief. “I guess you wanted me to come with you.”

“This crazy house thinks it knows better than me,” I say, and already, his hands are back on my waist, and mine are on his arms. “It doesn’t know better, Micah, and apparently you don’t, either. Why are you here instead of distancing yourself? Why are you not more freaked out by what Gabriella told you?”

“The same reason I wanted you to read the books, not listen to my opinions. There are too many ways to interpret what the Knowledge Keeper said to freak out, most of which contradict at least one passage in a book I have here.”

“Her death is your death, meaning mine. There’s only one way to take that.”