Ember

by Oates, Carol

  He winced again. It was then Candra remembered the cracking noise she heard when he’d fought with Draven, and her nightmare was instantly forgotten. She flung the covers away, jumping out of bed and rushing to him.

  “You’re hurt,” she said softly, reaching for his wing. She could now see it was bent awkwardly.

  “It’s nothing,” Sebastian responded moodily, moving around from Candra’s outstretched arms and turning his damaged side from her. He wasn’t fast enough to hide the tightness in his eyes from her—he was lying.

  He was holding that stone that she had seen him with in his hand again. She guessed she’d disturbed him while he’d been healing himself.

  “Wow!” Candra sighed in exasperation, dropping her hands limply by her side.

  Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up in question to the action, arching perfectly over his expressive brown eyes. Expressive now, but Candra remembered how fast he could bring down a veil, cutting her off from anything he was thinking. She realized suddenly how much she hated not knowing what he was thinking.

  “Are you going to elaborate on that, or am I meant to guess?” Sebastian snapped.

  Candra narrowed her eyes at him and turned briefly to switch on a lamp in the corner, casting the room in a pinkish glow. She turned back, fixing the tank top strap that had slipped off her shoulder, and was surprised to see him watching the action closely—even more surprised when he quickly averted his eyes and swallowed hard. A sudden heat rushed up her spine and flooded her cheeks, once again reminding her of Draven’s words. Candra shook her head, dismissing it.

  “You have lived all these years and you’re still a grumpy teenage boy. That must take effort,” Candra scolded him.

  “I am not,” he snapped back, making her lose the battle with the smile she was trying to hold back.

  Sebastian rolled his eyes, smiling at last and making her stomach do a tiny somersault. “Point taken.”

  “Can I see now?” Candra asked, holding her hands up, gesturing that he could trust her.

  Sebastian sighed heavily and turned his back to her. The first thing Candra noticed was the way the wings protruded flawlessly from his smooth back on either side of his spine and the way the wide expanse of his back narrowed to a tight waist, drawing her eyes to the band of his jeans below two small dimples, and then to the curve of his ass. She gulped as hot blood thundered through her body at an alarming rate, then lifted her hands again to find them trembling. He flinched when she touched the joint below his shoulder, where a swelling told her something had been damaged, but it was the tingle that shot up her hand through her fingers that distracted Candra the most.

  So, I’m attracted to him. I knew that, didn’t I? Even if she didn’t like it very much. And he was an ass—right now an ass in pain, but still an ass. And he lied. And the things he’d done…she shuddered.

  “What?” he asked, worry coloring his tone.

  Candra had no idea if it was her silence or if he sensed her sudden trepidation at their closeness.

  “I think you broke something,” she said shyly, hearing the small crack in her voice.

  “I didn’t,” Sebastian responded coldly, his shoulders stiffening.

  Candra was about to say something about him rushing in to save the damsel who wasn’t in distress but thought better of it, knowing it would rile him further. “Can I help?”

  He turned around again, holding out the stone in his hand. “This is a curleax healing stone. It’s nothing more than a crystal, really, but each only resonates with one being. This one is mine; it won’t work for you.”

  The small, smooth stone shimmered in his palm. It looked like a milky quartz, picking up and reflecting the light that danced over his chest, depending on how it was turned.

  “How does it work?” Candra asked curiously, unable to resist the urge to run one exploratory finger over the smooth surface. The hair on her arms stood as if she were cold. When her finger brushed the skin of his hand, a fiery heat crackled across her skin. Sebastian’s hand clamped over hers, and she looked up to his downturned face, only now noticing how close she was standing to his semi-naked form. Gold glinted in his eyes, and her pulse quickened. She blinked.

  “It allows us to concentrate our energy, our life force, and we can use that energy to heal.”

  “You healed me.” It wasn’t a question. There was no doubt in Candra’s mind that he had healed her on more than one occasion. He nodded, and she swallowed, even though her mouth was dry. “I want to heal you,” she told him, taken aback by her honestly. She didn’t know why it was so important to her, but she wanted to take away that pain she saw in his eyes every day. Sebastian’s warm breath fanned across Candra’s face, and she moved toward it blindly.

  Sebastian’s other hand was on her waist, and he leaned toward her, his eyes focused on hers with a smoldering intensity.

  She wanted to kiss him. It wasn’t like the park; well, in a way it was, because she didn’t know why she wanted to kiss him, just that she did and it was all coming from her own thoughts. She wasn’t being influenced; she was sure of it. There was something between them. Candra understood now it had always been there, even when she denied it. They had some sort of connection. They were both broken in some way—him because of a history he couldn’t forget and her because of a history she was learning. It was both exhilarating and frightening. His hand that held the stone slid around to her back, and she felt its smooth warmth against her skin.

  “Wait!” Candra pushed back from him, leaving him looking a little dazed, and she rushed to her closet.

  “I’m sorry,” he started.

  “I’ve just remembered something,” Candra said excitedly, choosing to ignore the regret in his tone. She came back to her bed and sat down, holding the shoe box she had retrieved. “And you have nothing to be sorry about. I wanted to kiss you this time.”

  “You did?”

  His unconvinced tone made her look up to him. Unfortunately his smug grin didn’t match his tone.

  Candra shook her head, exasperated, and turned her attention back to the box. “It seems we’re making progress. You’ve never said sorry to me before…for anything.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for that too,” he muttered.

  She continued to rifle through the contents of the box and harrumphed, wondering if he actually meant it.

  “What?” Sebastian demanded in frustration. “You have no idea how maddening it is to never know what is going on inside your head.”

  “I don’t think you mean it,” she stated flatly.

  “Everything I do is for your own good. I’m sorry if that’s a problem for you,” he excused himself defiantly.

  And…he’s back! She laughed inside.

  Sebastian yelped, Candra presumed because he rolled his shoulders back the way he always did when he was being self-righteous, but in this case he’d forgotten his damaged wing.

  “Oh, please stop now. I’m not sure I can handle all this groveling,” she said, snickering sarcastically. “Ah ha, I found it!” She held up the smooth, black, crystalline stone to show Sebastian and enjoyed the moment of confusion on his face before he recognized it.

  “It’s Payne’s.”

  “It is,” Candra confirmed, placing the box on the bed beside her and standing. “Can I try?”

  Sebastian frowned and reached up to rub the back of his neck, forgetting again before the sharp pain manifested in a grimace on his face. “It won’t work.”

  “He was my father. He gave me this before he died. I thought it was just a pretty stone, but I’m thinking now that he may have had reason to believe I could make it work.”

  He pursed his lips dubiously.

  “Can I try?” Candra repeated. “And if it doesn’t work it will just be another thing you were right about, won’t it?”

  He smirked, and butterflies began to do a little dance inside Candra.

  “Okay, you can try,” he agreed reluctantly and stood, turning his back to her.

>   “What do I do?” Candra asked, laying her hand over the space on his back between his wings. She slid her hand carefully downward over the warm flesh covering his spine, raising goose bumps. She felt him shiver. It wasn’t from pain; she was sure it wasn’t. Did that mean he liked it? Things were getting complicated…well, more complicated.

  “You have to want it.” He paused and cleared his throat. “It comes from your emotions, a kind of force of will.”

  Very gently, Candra brushed her hand over the injured appendage, enjoying how the silken feathers slipped through her fingers. “You mean that I have to make up my mind to do it and just do it.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Find it inside yourself to make it happen and the curleax will focus your energy.”

  “Okay, I can do this,” Candra whispered under her breath. “I can do this, I can do this.”

  “Don’t think it. Just do it.”

  She brought one hand to the spot where she could feel the cracked bone and very gently positioned the stone over it, feeling his steady breathing hitch at her touch before returning to normal under her fingers. She could smell his heated skin, a scent that was uniquely Sebastian. Candra closed her eyes and inhaled, concentrating on nothing but him. She had no idea what she was doing; she only knew that she didn’t want him to hurt anymore and the tightness it caused in her chest when she knew he did. She clung to that feeling and listened to the sound of her heart. There was no question that she wanted this.

  It began with a warming sensation in her stomach and coursed quickly through her entire body, not unlike the sensation of a comforting embrace. The heat traveled through her chest where it caught her heart with a few ragged beats and fired like a lightning bolt through her arm and her fingers. Candra felt the smooth stone in her fingers warm and then sear until she wanted to fling it away, but she didn’t. She held still, willing it to work, focusing from the boiling temperature in her hand to Sebastian and the idea that she was doing this for him. She was helping him. Her arm shook, and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. She clenched her teeth and curled her toes against the wooden floor beneath her as a surge of energy bolted through her.

  Then, it was over. The heat subsided quickly, leaving her drained and weak on shaky legs. The room seemed to darken, and Candra’s hand fell lifelessly by her side. She didn’t have the strength to hold the cooling stone, which felt as if it weighed a ton. It dropped to the ground with a low clack. Her eyes rolled, and then everything went suddenly black.

  “Candra?” Sebastian’s voice called to her softly.

  Candra blinked furiously, attempting to bring him back into focus. He was above her, surrounded in a warm halo of light making his blond hair shine. His face was in shadow, with worry etched in deep lines across his forehead.

  “I passed out?” she asked, slightly bewildered as he smoothed hair away from her face.

  “Yeah, you did, spectacularly actually. You dropped like a brick,” he told her, and she wasn’t expecting the pride in his voice or the way his lips twitched at the corner before he smiled. She was on the floor, cradled against his warm body. It felt nice, comfortable, and not awkward at all. The halo was, in fact, only the light of the lamp coming from behind him.

  “How long was I out?”

  Sebastian grinned, his eyes crinkling at the corner, and his full pink lips pulled back, displaying his blinding smile.

  “What?” Candra grimaced, confused as to why he was wearing his teasing expression, and how she even knew which expression was his teasing one.

  “You been out about all of four seconds,” he said, chuckling.

  “Huh?”

  Sebastian scooped her up off the floor as if she weighed nothing and swung around to sit on the bed…with Candra still cradled in his lap. “You barely had time to get horizontal.”

  “I did it?” She’d expected it to work but was still surprised. He nodded. “So you’re healed? I healed you?”

  He nodded again. His wings were gone, and he looked just like a human guy again—an extremely good-looking, semi-naked guy who was holding her in his arms, on her bed. Her eyes followed to where her hand was resting on his shoulder and slipped down, gliding over a tight bicep. She swallowed thickly as her heart started to beat erratically, and she felt the muscle tense under her fingertips.

  “Is that how your wings work too? You want it and you find it in yourself to keep them hidden?”

  “More or less.” He shrugged.

  Candra flipped her fingers over and grazed the smooth curve of her nails back up his skin toward his collarbone, watching how the pressure left pale lines that disappeared almost instantly.

  “What were we doing before we got distracted?” Sebastian breathed huskily into her hair, snapping her back to her senses.

  This is Sebastian I am man-fondling, she realized to her horror.

  She pulled away quickly, pushing off of him, but Sebastian held her tight, chuckling merrily, all traces of his earlier pain gone.

  “No,” he said, pouting playfully. “I like you right here, where you can’t get into any trouble.”

  Candra stopped fighting him and crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly. Sebastian’s definition of trouble and hers were apparently quite different. “Is that what I am to you? I’m just a project to study. Are you like the others, waiting to see if I’ll change?”

  Sebastian pursed his lips and frowned, drawing his eyebrows downward. He shifted Candra on his lap, still holding her tightly, and scooted backward on the bed, until his back hit the metal frame.

  It was all Candra could do to keep from groping him, the way his muscles twitched and the fine indents appeared on his shoulders…and his scent—it was so strong. Every inhaled breath was filled with the sweet spicy fragrance of his skin lightly underlaid with a smoky aroma. She wondered if that was what Brie was referring to. Did Sebastian go to a bar earlier?

  “No and no,” he replied sternly, his serious brown eyes glinting with gold. “You are so much more.”

  “What then? Why didn’t you kill me?”

  Sebastian leaned his head back against the bedframe and closed his eyes. Candra watched his Adam’s apple bob and had the strongest urge to lay her lips against his skin. Her angel crush was growing at an astronomical rate. She guessed there was some truth in the idea that there is no one as attractive as someone who’s in love with you. Except that she was positive Sebastian wasn’t in love with her.

  “I just couldn’t,” he said after a long sigh.

  Candra scowled even though Sebastian wasn’t looking at her. “That really isn’t an answer, is it? Please talk to me. I want to understand who I am and where I come from. Please help me do that.” There it was. She couldn’t be any more honest than that with him, or anyone for that matter. She didn’t believe she was asking for much, just the truth about herself.

  Sebastian looked back to her and hesitated. She wondered if he trusted her at all. He had just said he wasn’t waiting for her to change, but maybe he was already so convinced she would take Draven’s offer that he didn’t want to share the darker part of his personality, that he was expecting her to betray him. Really, when it came down to it, she wondered if she had a choice. The finality of the situation was apparent to all of them. She would have to go to Draven; it was simply a matter of when.

  Chapter Eleven

  Candra contemplated asking Draven, if she were to go to him, if she became one of the Tenebras, if they left the city, could she still maintain her relationship with Brie? She knew it wouldn’t happen. She wasn’t stupid; Brie would still be seen as one of the Nuhra. She would never be accepted by them. Even if Candra could ask her, she wouldn’t. There was clearly something between Brie and Gabe. Brie had given up so much; Candra would never ask that of her too.

  Tears itched in her eyes when she realized she was fighting the inevitable. There was no way to come out of this unscathed; maybe that was why Sebastian was being so nice. Sudden desperation washed over her when
she realized their time was limited. Her head leaned against his shoulder, and her arms sought his waist of their own volition.

  “I wish I could find another way, but I don’t know how,” Candra murmured against his skin and felt his heart jump.

  “Why don’t you hate me? I’ve done such terrible things,” Sebastian whispered against her hair. She could feel the vibrations of his lips against her scalp, and his fingers threaded up through her hair.

  “Why don’t you hate me? I’ve invalidated everything you thought you stood for.”

  “I was looking for Brie, because I needed some sort of closure. I have a little problem with always wanting to be right about everything.” He paused to chuckle, and Candra couldn’t help joining in. At least he could see it.

  “Wow, really? I hadn’t noticed. You always seem so open and willing to compromise,” Candra teased. Again, her body reacted without conscious decision, and her head turned toward him. Sebastian’s breath stopped when Candra’s lips brushed over the skin below his collarbone, and she froze. I didn’t kiss him, she thought. It wasn’t a kiss. It was just her lips accidentally touching his body—it wasn’t a kiss. All the time she was trying to convince herself, she was stock-still and he wasn’t breathing, but his heart was thumping heavily. Candra was relieved when instead of confronting her with her actions, Sebastian continued on.

  “I was convinced that Brie was persuaded against her will to fall, even though my rational mind knew it to be completely impossible. You see, like everything else, we have to want it badly enough and truly enough. There can’t be any indecision. Still, I searched for her. When I found her, I found you.” He stopped again, breathing deeply and exhaled, sending his warm breath over Candra. “This is hard. I haven’t spoken about it with anyone else.”

  “Then I’m glad it’s me.” She focused on the metronome beat of his heart to steady her nerves. At this point she was willing to concede that Sebastian didn’t, in fact, hate her.

  “They are all wrong about me. I know what they think: that I can’t accept what I’ve done, that I’m still looking for forgiveness. I’m not proud of my actions, but I did what I had to, and if I’m being honest, I would make the same decisions again. You don’t invalidate what I’ve done in the past. What I did in the past was right at the time, but I hate that I had to do it. The first time I saw you, I knew you were different. Do you want to know the first time I laid eyes on you?”