Ember

by Oates, Carol

  “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  She smirked and looked up at him, tilting her head to the side. “I liked you just fine the way you were.”

  Sebastian didn’t resist the smug grin fighting to get through because Candra wasn’t angry; she didn’t even seem upset to know he’d been playing nice to distract her…and she liked him, which surprised him.

  “Well, once I got used to your…” She pressed her lips together like she was searching for the right word to use. “Well, just you. Once I got used to you. You were pretty hard going at first.” She looked down again briefly and then looked up. “Are we friends now?”

  “I think we are.” That took Sebastian right back to wondering if friends was the right definition of what they were.

  “Can I ask you to do something?” She sucked in a quick breath. “As a friend,” she tagged on at the end, hesitantly.

  “What?” he asked dubiously. What exactly was the limit on what one friend could ask another to do?

  “Lofi told me you are leaving soon. This isn’t exactly easy, standing with Draven…officially, and I’m going to need my friends to be there for me. Can you do that for me?”

  “You mean the ball?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t recall getting an invitation,” Sebastian replied wryly.

  “I’ll make sure you receive one, post haste,” she said.

  “Do I have to keep being nice?” he asked in an attempt to distract himself from the fact he wanted to break Draven’s neck for putting this on her, and that he wanted to break her neck for expecting him to let Draven have her.

  “No.” She smiled. “You can go back to being a pain in the ass, if that makes you feel better.”

  “Hmmm, I do look good in a tux. I suppose if that’s what friends do, then I can do it.” Sebastian wasn’t sure he could. It wasn’t in his nature to give up and walk away, but he could tell it was the answer she needed to hear.

  She smiled again, bumping his upper arm with her shoulder.

  “But I think maybe I’ll at least try to keep being nice to you,” Sebastian added, grimacing as if it would be an effort.

  “Don’t strain anything important while doing it,” she joked.

  They came to the top of a short sloping hill, and Candra paused, looking over it and then looking back to Sebastian. It was times like this he truly wished he could have some sort of insight into what she was thinking.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

  “I had a dream about my dad. I was frightened of the guards around the city, and he told me they were there to protect me,” she told him wistfully, staring into space ahead of her. “Do you think that means I could see them, even when I was hidden? I feel almost like he’s trying to tell me something.”

  “No, if you could see them, they would have been able to see you. It was just a dream. Payne is gone,” Sebastian answered, although he was curious about where she was headed with this and what she thought Payne was trying to tell her.

  “I used to come here with my dad. We would roll down this hill until we were too dizzy to climb back up it again.” She smiled sadly at the memory and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The gentle wind blew strands of hair across her face, and Sebastian stood there watching, once again wanting to reach out and touch her and not fully understanding why.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what would make a difference to her melancholy . He didn’t like this, feeling out of control the way he did since he crashed into her life. Candra moved to the edge of the slope, and without a word she sat down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to roll down,” she answered as if it should be perfectly obvious why any young woman would sit down on muddy grass.

  “Why?” Sebastian asked confused, moving closer to her.

  She tugged on the leg of his jeans, urging him to sit with her. “Because I can, because I want to remember what it felt like, because it’s fun.” She tugged again more harshly and grimaced at his lack of enthusiasm.

  “It’s been raining, if you haven’t noticed. Getting covered in mud and grass is fun?” He raised his eyebrows, wondering if she had finally lost her senses.

  Candra rolled her eyes and smirked before lying down and launching herself down the hill sideways. It took a matter of moments, but her laughter filtered through the air until she stopped after a few more rolls at the bottom. She stood up a little shakily with mud and grass smeared over her clothes and her hair an untamed mess, but she was smiling and then rushed back up the hills again.

  “Your turn,” she informed Sebastian brightly. It was almost completely dark because of the thick cloud cover, despite the fact it wasn’t night yet.

  “My turn?” he parroted, wondering if she was actually expecting him to roll down a hill.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Your turn.”

  “Look, if you want to revert to your chil—”

  “Oh, just roll down the hill, Sebastian,” she cut him off, exasperated.

  Sebastian stared at her wide-eyed. She was audacious and courageous in everything she did, be it rolling down a grassy knoll or facing up to decisions he didn’t want to. Before her, his life had become monotonous and unsatisfying. In essence, for a long time he had stopped living. He merely existed. Yet here was Candra, so full of life and wanting to share this moment with him, and he was stuck, reluctant and a sorry excuse for a friend.

  She was still watching and waiting defiantly, unwilling to give up on him.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” he grumbled, slumping to the ground.

  Candra giggled, clapping her hands together.

  With a last glance, Sebastian lay down, closed his eyes, and rolled. It was over in a flash, but he could see how Candra would find it invigorating. He had been so obsessed lately with manipulating everything going on around him. But in those brief moments rolling down the hill, the feeling of being out of control was dominant. It was freeing to know that even with closed eyes and no control, the world was spinning past, it kept turning with or without him. It wasn’t flying, but he could see the attraction. Sebastian stood up, pulling back down his T-shirt that had ridden up, and rejoined Candra.

  “Fun, right?” She beamed.

  “Yeah, sure.” He shrugged, and she swiftly lay down to go again.

  Except this time she didn’t reach the end laughing. She let out a sharp gasp, accompanied by the sound of ripping fabric, about two-thirds of the way down the hill, and she stopped at the bottom but didn’t stand. Instead she curled up clutching her leg.

  Sebastian ran down after her and spotted the stone he hadn’t noticed before jutting out of the ground, now traced with Candra’s blood. He knelt down beside her.

  “Crap, what did you do?” he asked.

  “I would think it was perfectly obvious,” she said, pouting, tentatively exploring the small cut through the jagged rip in her jeans. Her cheeks were ruddy from exertion, and her eyes were damp. The sudden pain had caught her off guard.

  “Let me see.”

  “No.” She swatted his hands away stubbornly.

  Sebastian sat back on his heels, placing his hand on his thighs. “So it’s like that, is it?”

  “Like what?” Candra didn’t look up. She pulled at the jeans and poked her finger through, hissing when she touched what was a small but deep cut on her shin.

  “You get to help me, but I can’t help you.” Sebastian reminded her of her own words.

  Candra peeked up at him, scowling. “I don’t want you to heal me.”

  Sebastian was sure he would never understand females of any kind. What in the Arch’s name was she thinking? The question must have been written on his face.

  “It makes me not human.”

  “But you are human, and you’re in pain,” he argued, reaching into his pocket to draw out his stone, running his thumb over the surface.

  “You were the one who told me I w
asn’t human, and I’m not. Not that part of me, not the part that can be healed. That makes me one of you.”

  “Being one of us is bad?” Sebastian asked, feeling a stab of bitterness toward himself. He was probably adding to her confusion all along by trying to label her neatly, when in reality Candra was so unique she couldn’t be labeled. She was part-human, part-angel, a Nephil with a soul, not light or dark but somewhere in between. She didn’t fit anywhere because she was part of all of them, and he had made her feel bad for it.

  A tingling sensation started in the center of his chest and spread out through his body. It felt like a jolt, an abrupt eureka moment. He was sure it was something he should understand, something he already knew but had kept hidden. Emotions he had never felt before were fighting their way through his subconscious. He was suddenly wide awake and buzzed, giddy just to be in Candra’s presence.

  “What, are you going to sing me the joys of being an angel?” She laughed miserably, snapping his attention back to her, and winced again.

  “It has its advantages,” he said excitedly. His heart quickened, and he wanted to share the feeling with her, except he couldn’t put his finger on what the feeling was, but he knew the next best thing.

  “Oh yeah, like what?” she asked.

  “Let me heal you, and I’ll show you,” Sebastian offered. He considered it a fair compromise for what he was offering.

  “Show me, and I’ll let you heal me,” Candra countered. She was just a stubborn as he was.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “But we should at least get you home and cleaned up first.”

  “Are we going somewhere formal?” she asked with a hint of a teasing smile.

  He sighed heavily and got to his feet, putting the curleax away. “No, but I don’t think dripping blood is a good look for you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Candra knew she was being childish, preferring to suffer than allow Sebastian to heal her, but she had only days left feeling human, feeling somewhat like she had felt her whole life up to now. Then she would find herself submerged into their world. She didn’t know where she would be living or studying. She had no idea what would be expected of her apart from being by Draven’s side. That was something that she resolved to clear up as soon as possible.

  She didn’t think it was asking too much to bleed a little…okay, it wasn’t exactly a little; there was a small, disgusting flap of skin about an inch wide pulled back on her shin, and the blood was oozing out in a constant flow. It hurt, but she was sure her jeans took the brunt of the damage. She was just a little annoyed at, yet again, something going wrong for her.

  However, since Sebastian wanted to show her something, she was a little more than curious to see what it was. So much so that she didn’t want to waste time going home to clean up her leg, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to concede to allowing him to heal her first. He was being the nice guy now. She wasn’t sure if it was still a façade, and she didn’t really care, but she still couldn’t bring herself to just give in.

  Sebastian stood over her, his hand outstretched to help her up. Candra ignored it and grabbed a hold of the edge of her shirt—she knew it would rip easily because the fabric was flimsy—and tore off a strip from the end.

  “Okay,” Sebastian chuckled, taking his hand back to scratch the back of his neck.

  “I’m just doing what I was told to do and cleaning up,” Candra responded softly, wincing when she accidently brushed the cut as she pulled the leg of her jeans up to her knee. “This will do until you heal me,” she told him, wincing again as she positioned the small flap of skin and tied the strip of cloth around it. It looked like someone with a knife had taken a small slice of her. She must have hit a sharp rock at a wrong angle rolling down, but it really wasn’t too bad.

  “It will get infected,” Sebastian warned.

  Candra looked up to his concerned face. Actual genuine concern, she noted. He wasn’t happy about her makeshift bandage at all.

  “If you’re going to heal me anyway, it won’t matter. Or I could just heal it myself.” She pushed her hands to the ground to stand. Sebastian rushed to help, standing her up with little effort.

  “You passed out the last time. Maybe you should just leave the healing to me for now, okay?” he reminded her. “Besides it wouldn’t heal properly doing it yourself.”

  “But you were trying to heal your own wing.”

  “I’m a stubborn ass. I would have had to ask someone for help eventually,” Sebastian conceded.

  Candra nodded, and he released her arm with a smile that reached his eyes for once. Her insides fluttered.

  “So?” she prompted.

  He smiled again and glanced around them sheepishly like a kid up to mischief. Sebastian looked young when he wasn’t sullen. Looking back to Candra again, he crossed his arms and grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, pulling it up and over his head.

  Candra had seen him bare-chested already, but it never failed to hold her interest. She watched in utter female fascination as the defined sinewy muscles of his abdomen corded, stretched, and flexed with the movement, the way the golden skin of his stomach pulled in over the waistband of the jeans that always sat so enticingly low on his hip bones—not to mention the splattering of hair that disappeared south in a fine line. She suddenly felt the air become much warmer.

  “You’re kind of making me feel objectified here.” Sebastian chuckled, snapping Candra back to reality.

  She appeared to be staring at his crotch. Her face flamed because she wasn’t—she was staring at his waistband. But judging by his comment, it appeared she was staring lower down. Candra was mortified, and her cheeks burned almost as much as her leg. Of course it was like telling someone not to think about pink elephants or chocolate ice cream or hot guys. The moment she thought about the fact she wasn’t checking out what was going on below his belt, her eyes were automatically drawn there, which brought about Round Two of laughter from him.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Candra barked through her embarrassment. “I was just thinking if you going to take those off, I’m leaving.” She pointed to his jeans, totally aware he wouldn’t believe her for one second.

  Sebastian hummed conceitedly, stuffing one end of his mud-stained T-shirt securely into the pocket of his jeans. “I like this shirt; I’d like to keep it.” With that, the golden mist that signaled the appearance of his wings rolled down his back, and they unfurled, flexing outward and flapping twice as if he was stretching them for use.

  Oh, my—Candra wasn’t coherent enough to complete the sentence in her head.

  Sebastian approached her, grinning, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Don’t worry. Humans won’t be able to see either of us once we’re up.”

  “Up?” she echoed as a combination of excitement and nervousness began to pump adrenaline through her body, making her heart race.

  Sebastian pursed his lips, still smiling, and pressed his body against Candra’s firmly so she could feel the hardness of his chest and his heat invading the air around her. Butterflies went wild in her stomach as she suddenly realized that they could fly and Sebastian was about to take her up with him. She wasn’t sure she was ready, but then, how does someone prepare to fly with an angel?

  “You’ll need to put your arms around my neck and hold on tight.”

  She complied eagerly, reaching up on her toes, which made her leg throb and sting, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t think of any place she would rather be in that moment than flying in the safety of Sebastian’s arms.

  “It would be easier if you put your legs around my waist too.”

  Candra looked up at him, surprised to see the wicked glint in his eyes, and she couldn’t figure out if he was flirting with her or teasing her. “Let’s just see how this goes,” she replied wryly.

  “Suit yourself.” Sebastian scanned the area once more.

  “You have done this before? Taken someone with you?” she wondered aloud as he tightened his grip o
n her waist.

  “No, never.”

  “Wha—” Candra hadn’t got the whole word out before his powerful wings flapped, pushing them off from the ground. They shot up, spinning into the air, leaving her stomach floating somewhere down nearer the ground.

  Up and up they went, with Sebastian’s face lifted to the sky above them, but she could see he was smiling widely, each whoosh of his huge wings pushing them higher and higher. This was his rolling down a hill, she realized. This was where he felt free, and he was sharing it with her. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She looked over his arm, past their dangling legs to see the ground getting further away, vanishing further into the clouds with each passing second. She wasn’t scared; it was fascinating, thrilling. Her heart felt as if it would burst with elation, and she could feel Sebastian’s heart thunder along with hers.

  The air around them grew dark and hazy, like a thick wet fog. The dampness settled on their skin, cooling it and soaking their clothes and hair. Sebastian pulled Candra up his chest, and without thinking about it, she lifted one leg and then the other, hooking them around his body.

  Candra was able to shift herself further up, clinging to him and forgetting about the pain in her shin, until their faces were almost level. The only thing preventing it was that Sebastian was still looking up.

  All of a sudden the cloud mist began to clear, and Sebastian slowed as they came out into the clear sky. His gently moving wings created a breeze that wrapped around them, and Candra’s eyes widened. Sebastian finally looked at her. She could see him in her peripheral vision and feel his penetrating gaze on her, but Candra was looking away in compete awe at the breathtaking view around them.

  The sun was setting. It had almost disappeared over the horizon, and the sky that hadn’t been visible through the cloud cover was now revealed in shades of gold, magenta, red, and blue, fading and mingling like a painted rainbow that had been smudged and blended perfectly. Sebastian turned slowly, treading air as one might tread water, as the shadow of the crescent moon appeared in the darkening sky—translucent, barely there, like a phantom creeping into being. It was surrounded by a few dim stars that were nothing more than pinpricks through the dazzling canvas of the burgeoning twilight.