Ember

by Oates, Carol

  When Gabe had called to say Candra was missing, it didn’t take long to figure out where she had gone. Sebastian had overheard Ivy telling Candra about the party, and Lofi had already reported any and all student gossip she’d heard during the day—that included word about a party at a guy named Philip’s house, Philip being the guy Candra had seemed close to for a while after Sebastian finally managed to track Ambriel down.

  Lofi wasn’t far behind, but he wasn’t about to just stand there and wait again. Candra had no idea how far Ananchel would go to get something she wanted or what she considered entertainment. It wasn’t a conscious decision: one moment he was watching them from the doorway, and in the next instant he was standing in front of Candra, blocking her from Ananchel. His hands reached behind him and anchored on her hips to push her back another step from Ananchel.

  “Sebastian, I always knew you couldn’t be trusted, but this…” Ananchel ranted, raving a hand in Candra’s direction. “This is beyond you.”

  The palms of Candra’s hands were pressed flat against Sebastian’s back as she tried to look past him to Ananchel. His chest heaved, and adrenaline raced through all his extremities. Gauging from Candra’s previous reactions to him showing up out of nowhere, he wagered that she wouldn’t be happy about his uninvited appearance at the party. Her heart pumped out an uneven rhythm so strongly he could feel it vibrate against his back, and at first he thought he imagined it when her fingers grazed timidly over the place where the bone thickened to support his wings. Then he felt the touch of her damp palm grow more insistent through the black cotton of his button down shirt and wondered if she was comparing his back to the roughness of Brie’s, where her wings had been snapped away. He couldn’t think about it now, so instead he glared defiantly at Ananchel who was ranting something preposterous about him being the one who hid Candra.

  “She is ours.” It was all he could think of to say. Still, he had to beat down the thrill it gave him to claim her out loud. He knew Candra wouldn’t appreciate being claimed.

  Well, she would just have to get used to it, he thought, and as if in confirmation, Candra’s hands twitched against his skin.

  Ananchel cocked an eyebrow, and Sebastian suddenly felt irrationally vulnerable against her—although it wasn’t that irrational. Ananchel could bring stronger men than him to their knees if she felt inclined to do so.

  “She is not a toy,” she hissed like a cat arching its back and instinctively unfurled her jet black wings tipped with scarlet, resembling an oil slick creeping outward in a pool of blood.

  Sebastian felt Candra’s weight against him increase when she leaned forward to look over his shoulder. There was no longer merely a shadow of Ananchel’s wings. Candra’s warm breath made the hairs on his neck rise when she gasped at the sight of Ananchel’s magnificent, dark, silken plumage brushing against the unsuspecting dancers around her.

  Sebastian knew Ananchel’s words were for Candra’s benefit. If it was to her advantage, Ananchel would be just as willing to claim Candra as he was.

  “This isn’t the time or the place for this discussion,” Sebastian told her pointedly.

  “Excuse me,” Candra screeched from behind him, once again pushing to get past.

  He heard her utter a small gasp and felt her breath against the back of his neck when all the air left her lungs. Just like everything he seemed to do lately, uncurling his wings wasn’t intentional. His only thought was to keep Ananchel away from Candra. As soon as his mind thought the word barrier, there they were. He was sure Ananchel could see his weakness; his desire to protect Candra at any cost to himself was perfectly apparent. He turned his head to catch a glimpse of the girl behind him, and her shocked eyes stared back at him. Her mouth was hidden behind her two hands.

  “Go!” Sebastian bellowed fiercely to Ananchel without fully turning from Candra, his nails digging into the palms of his clenched fists.

  “You go,” Ananchel laughed in return, apparently amused by Candra’s reaction.

  When his eyes met Ananchel’s again, he confirmed by the way her smile faded infinitesimally that he had exposed himself. She had forced him to prove to Candra once again that he wasn’t human, not even in the smallest measure. He should have known she wouldn’t stop there. They had played this game a long time.

  The trembling began in his stomach, shooting downward like tiny electrical pulses, and his already tense muscles tightened further. All over his body, his skin felt like it was on fire, and it made him shudder. He fought it, closing his eyes to keep from looking at Ananchel and keeping Candra out of his peripheral vision. He couldn’t look at Candra now. The volume of the music seemed to grow until the bass was an eruption inside his brain and every thump matched his heart. His stomach pulled in on itself as wave after wave of trembling heat washed over him, making his body go weak. It made him want to give in and beg her to finish him. He wanted to lose himself in the familiar feeling, fall at her feet, and beg for mercy. But he couldn’t—it would leave Candra defenseless. Sebastian continued to fight the delicious chills racing up and down his spine and tried to keep his mind away from the growing hardness of his body. He felt himself spinning.

  Candra’s voice came from far away, frantically calling to him and pleading with him to answer her. Ananchel laughed, and then, without warning, it stopped. Small hands locked around his upper arms, shaking him.

  “Sebastian,” Candra called again and again, trying to break through.

  Then her hands were gone, and he felt something soft brush across his face. It smelled like tangy, fresh green apples. He inhaled deeply, concentrating on the fragrance to bring him back from the brink.

  “That’s enough!” Candra shouted.

  Sebastian could feel her body in front of him and her back flush against his chest.

  “You should get out of here now, Ananchel. I will think about your offer, but you need to leave now.” Candra’s voice was strong and determined; her conviction was indisputable. She expected no argument.

  Payne’s child, Sebastian thought to himself as he fought the gravity that was making his body sway. There was no argument.

  “Very well,” Ananchel agreed, surprising and worrying him at the same time. “I will be in touch when you’ve had a chance to think about our invitation.”

  Invitation. No. He couldn’t make the words come out, and he opened his eyes a little, only to feel them instantly roll back in his head and close. His hands found Candra’s hips again, as if he needed to confirm she was real and that she was really putting herself between him and Ananchel. His thumb brushed over her hipbone where her soft skin met the band of her jeans. He forced his eyes open to see Ananchel scrutinizing him.

  “I see.” She smirked wickedly.

  He felt Candra’s body brace under his hands, and a warm jolt shot over his skin through his fingertips.

  “This is lovely, Sebastian…quite unexpected.” The sleek, red-tipped feathers of Ananchel’s wings reflected the lights over the dance floor back into his eyes. He blinked rapidly in an attempt to focus.

  Her wings quivered and folded behind her. Since humans couldn’t see an angel’s wings, it was only an invisible barrier that kept them from getting nearer than a mere brush away once they were exposed. Some of the humans around her instantly moved nearer.

  “Just go,” Candra demanded, her voice rising with frustration. “Before I change my mind and make you.”

  “Make me?” Ananchel parroted with a strange, disturbed expression on her face.

  What in the Arch’s name does she think she’s doing? Sebastian thought. He couldn’t make himself react or do anything at all. Simply standing was draining him of all his energy.

  “And tell whoever sent you that Sebastian is off limits to you and everyone else from now on. Do you understand, or should I write it down for you?”

  Ananchel shrugged and took a step nearer to them. “This is a strange twist—or a little twisted…I’m not sure.” She tilted her head to the side n
arrowing her eyes. “I wonder what Payne would make of it?”

  Sebastian made to step forward, incensed by the mention of Payne’s name from Ananchel’s lips, but was halted by Candra, who gently laid her hand over his, bringing him back to his senses.

  “Go!” she repeated insistently to Ananchel.

  With one last glance, Ananchel turned from them, her folded wings fading in a rippling light along her back before they disappeared.

  Sebastian followed her with his gaze until she reached the door, where he spotted Lofi. Ananchel stopped for some exchange he couldn’t hear, and if he was honest with himself—which he rarely was these days—he didn’t care about. He let out a deep, grievous sigh as the full extent of his humiliation began to dawn on him.

  Candra was still in front of him, close enough that he knew there was no way she could fail to notice. He reached a new level of contempt for himself, but for some reason he still hadn’t let her go. It was as if the jolt of electricity he felt had glued them together. No amount of reasoning with himself that this was wrong, that it was verging on sick to take advantage of her innocence, that he was worse than the lowest form of life, could make him pull away.

  The music slowed. Ananchel was gone, and Lofi was making her way toward them. She knew: the look of pity in her eyes told him as much. Yet he didn’t break his fingers away from where they’d settled on Candra’s body.

  Eventually she did it herself. Her hands, that had so lightly covered his, slipped under his fingers and pulled them away enough that she could move her body out of his grasp.

  Sebastian closed his eyes again, not wanting to see the disgust he was sure would be evident in Candra’s expression. He’d made such a mess of things since he’d found Brie, and he’d done nothing but make wrong decisions since. He finally managed to flinch his hands away from hers. His scowl was uncomfortable, and the back of his neck ached from the rigidity of his shoulders. At least the effects of Ananchel’s encounter were beginning to wane. The once enjoyable physical reaction she could elicit from his body now made him sick to his stomach, although she still thought of it as a game. She would chase; he would give in.

  “Move,” Sebastian demanded out loud to his shaky legs through gritted teeth. “Move, damn you.”

  He winced when the warmth of two soft hands came up to wrap around the back of his neck, and he was overcome by the sweet fragrance of green apples. She wasn’t moving away. Candra had turned around to him, and unbelievably she was holding him. The slim fingers of one of her hands tugged at his neck, bringing his head nearer, and not really having the energy or the will to refuse her, he complied. Beyond the shock of her actions, he simply didn’t want to refuse her.

  Her heated body trembled against Sebastian, and her breath grazed his ear as she spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely audible above the music.

  Why would she think she needed to be sorry for anything? She didn’t start the war. She hadn’t killed anyone. None of this was her fault. The sound he made was alien to him, a long drawn out groan that started somewhere deep inside him.

  But it only made Candra pull herself closer to him until she was holding him so tightly she must have been using every ounce of her strength.

  Sebastian did something he considered utterly unforgivable. Of all the things he had done in his entire existence, this was surely the worst. He buried his face in Candra’s hair, leaning into the crook of her neck and wound his arms around her, crushing her to him with such force that she gasped.

  Chapter Six

  Candra let him hold her, supporting most of his body weight and hugging him back tightly, trying not to think about the evidence of his excitement and the tension in the muscles of his neck. She remembered reading somewhere that the best thing to do if someone was overstimulated or emotionally overwrought was to hold them. It was obvious of course, but there was also some physical reasoning behind it too. It was something to do with nerve endings being compressed.

  She was shaking and not feeling nearly as brave as she wanted Ananchel to believe moments ago. The slow rhythm of the music was calming, and she tried her best to match her heartbeat to it. Taking slow, deep breaths was proving difficult, since Sebastian wasn’t leaving much room between them for her lungs to expand. She was sure there would be bruising tomorrow where his fingers pushed into her hips.

  She didn’t know what else she could have done. The guy had been coming apart right in front of her eyes, right in front of a roomful of people. He was crumbling and about to fall at Ananchel’s feet. She’d had to do something. Even through her fear when she was ordering Ananchel to leave, she could still feel him shattering behind her, and she was sure now Lofi wasn’t exaggerating; Ananchel didn’t hold back with Sebastian. He’d tried to protect her from Ananchel regardless.

  Candra thought she knew what Ananchel was about: it wasn’t the lust or the searing heat she could create inside you or how she could make you feel your body was turning inside out. It was about the surrender to something more powerful than yourself. Ananchel used it to take control. She used it to make anyone who stood against her submissive. It was the cruelest use of power Candra had ever seen inflicted, and it was torture to see it done to Sebastian.

  His breathing slowed, and gradually Sebastian began to support more and more of his own weight. As he slowly shifted, she had an almost overwhelming compulsion to touch his wings before they disappeared again. One hand moved as if against her will and eased down his neck and over his upper back until her fingers brushed over soft feathers. They felt so real. She didn’t know what she expected, but apparently it wasn’t that. She guessed she thought they were some kind of apparition, that they were visible at times but not real in a corporal sense. Candra gripped his neck with one hand, feeling when the tendons tightened in his throat as he swallowed, unsure if he was aware of her explorations or not.

  The fingers of her other hand tentatively stroked the plush down at the joint where his wing broke through his shirt. It was the softest thing she had ever touched, like liquid satin under her fingertips. She could feel where it met his skin through the small slit, its flesh and down over bone coming from an elongated skeletal structure beneath his shoulder blade. Well, as much as she could tell without full-on groping him. It wasn’t a human structure, but it wasn’t bird either, and she wanted nothing more in that moment than to explore its length. But she didn’t.

  Taking advantage of him now would make her no better than Ananchel. She moved her fingers back up and into the soft golden waves of his hair. It wasn’t as soft as the feathers, but clearly its silken strands weren’t a human boy’s. Standing in the room full of teenagers with him, it was bluntly apparent to Candra that Sebastian wasn’t human, and if she could see it, then neither was she.

  Finally his arms began to loosen a little, enough that Candra could breathe easier, but he didn’t pull away. He let her go only when his wings eventually faded away.

  Candra noticed Lofi standing over by the stairs where she had spoken to Philip and Daniel. She didn’t look out of place at all, apart from an invisible barrier she seemed to have in place around her that repelled any of the guys walking past. They didn’t appear to be bothered by it in the slightest; they simply smiled at her and continued on their way. Candra offered her a strained smile, sure that Lofi understood what she had missed. When she turned her attention back to Sebastian, he refused to make eye contact; instead, his eyes scanned the room, apparently searching for any further threat.

  “I need a drink,” he stated flatly without looking at her, before he turned and walked away.

  Candra spotted the two holes in the back of his shirt where his wings had protruded and the patches of smooth tanned skin under them as he moved. She hadn’t figured out how they worked yet. Where did they go? Did they hurt? And the practicality of them—could Sebastian and the others fly? For a brief second, another question flashed through her mind. It occurred to her, as bizarre as it might be, she was at
least a little like them—so where were her wings?

  Candra scurried after him as he bolted through the room, barely sparing a glance in Lofi’s direction and heading straight toward the kitchen. Several buckets filled with ice and bottles of beer were interspersed between the kegs and partygoers scattered around the large room. It was modern and impersonal with a large marble-topped center island and white cabinets, not a family kitchen in the slightest.

  Ignoring the small group of guys chugging beer directly from a line attached to a keg, Sebastian pulled a beer out of one of the coolers and tossed the still wet bottle to Lofi, who caught it easily.

  “Beer?” he offered Candra, holding up a second bottle acquired from the same cooler.

  “Underage,” she replied, pointing to herself despite the fact he still hadn’t looked at her.

  The proffered beer remained in this outstretched hand, so she took it. It wasn’t as if it was her first beer; she simply didn’t expect angels to encourage underage drinking. Surely they were supposed to at least be law abiding or something. Sebastian grabbed a bottle for himself, opened it, drained it, and started on another before Candra had twisted the cap off hers.

  Lofi watched him warily and took a sip from her beer. Candra followed suit and grimaced as the bitter foamy liquid slid down her throat. It was freezing. Even with the music still blaring and the noise and chatter from the other people in the room, the atmosphere between the three of them was deathly quiet. Candra continued to sip her beer, more for something to do than because she liked it.

  “There you are!” Ivy bounced in the doorway, smiling brightly.

  “Jeez, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over the place for you,” Candra told her, glad at least that her presence would break the stalemate.

  “I met a guy.” She leaned in closer, placing one hand on Lofi’s shoulder as if she was about to reveal a great big secret. “He was so hot.”

  “Nice,” Candra mumbled, sneaking a peek at Sebastian who was twisting the lid off his third beer. Could angels get drunk?