by Carol Oates
The illumination over Candra’s skin intensified, and her heart jumped. One part of her wanted to stop the woman from leaving, and another part wanted to wrench Sebastian out of the way and fly at her in a rage.
“Wait…you have to wait,” she implored, at last managing to push her way to Sebastian’s side. Still, his arm crossed her chest as an impenetrable barrier, keeping her at bay.
“Let her go,” he forced out as though he’d swallowed something rotten.
“But—”
“That thing is not Ivy,” he cut Candra off caustically, speaking the words as if they were repugnant to him.
Candra froze. He was simply confirming what she knew already, yet it drove the knowledge home as sharply as a blade, slicing her already-shattered soul further. Watching the woman’s lips turn up and part, revealing her glittering smile, she asked herself again how one person could be expected to take so much pain. He was right. She was loath to admit it, but her own instincts had been telling her the same thing since the moment the creature in front of her had stepped out of the shadows. Craving something wasn’t enough to make it real.
Clearly sensing her game was up, the imposter shrugged noncommittally. “So close,” she breathed quietly.
“Get out,” Sebastian repeated and threw his arm over Candra’s shoulder, drawing her to his side.
She fell against him, too weak to do much of anything else. “I wanted her to be Ivy,” she murmured and turned her head to his chest.
“I am Ivy…in a way,” she said matter-of-factly, and Candra’s head once again snapped around. “What I mean is she is in here.”
Sebastian’s arm tightened around Candra to the point she clearly felt his pulse through her skin. The light around them began to dim again, and she wished for an instant that it appeared by force of will as the angel wings did. She wished for one moment that she could harness whatever locked-up power resided within her and use it against this thing in her room.
“You’re a monster.” Sebastian spat the accusation venomously.
The woman tutted, her expression displaying her indignation. “Come, come, Sebastian. You know how this works for me: I needed a soul to cross through, and I like to travel first class.”
“You could have taken anyone. Why her?”
“Why not? I think this makes everything so much more interesting.”
As much as she wanted to, Candra couldn’t help but notice the familiarity between the two. She seemed to have Sebastian’s history with unsavory females thrown in her face at every turn. She would rather ignore it. Rationally, she knew his past torrid affairs should be the last consideration on her mind. Her mind didn’t want to be rational, and she couldn’t block out images playing there. She shook her head to no avail. All she saw was Sebastian with this creature who had somehow taken Ivy.
“Get out of my head!” Candra roared, flinching away from Sebastian and pressing her fingers into her temple. The corners of her eyes stung, but she refused to cry. The images dissipated at once, like fog burned away on a bright day.
“Ivy wanted him too, you know,” the encroacher taunted, quirking an eyebrow. She closed her eyes, a lazy smile spread across her lips, and she hummed as if imagining something enjoyable. “Ivy had thoughts about him, deliciously dark and sensual. I can feel them now, making my skin tingle.”
“Stop it!” Candra snapped. “Stop it now!”
“Or what?” the imposter mocked, fixing her cold stare on Candra.
Candra struggled not to look away from the green eyes which reminded her of Ivy.
“What are you going to do? Look at both of you. You’re a disgrace. The mighty leader of the Nuhra and the Arch’s weapon…how pathetic love has made you. Look at yourself, Sebastian, so weak you lack the desire to fight me, so…human. I recall a time when you would have confronted me without blinking an eye.”
“I’m simply biding my time, Lilith.”
He knows her. The words echoed inside Candra’s head repeatedly. It took every ounce of her remaining reserve of willpower not to show jealousy on her face or the silent crimson rage hissing through her. How does he know her?
The woman laughed brightly. “We shall see.”
She disappeared before their eyes, or moved so fast Candra didn’t see her go. She was there one minute and gone the next, leaving nothing but remnants of the destruction in Candra’s bedroom.
Sebastian pulled Candra’s against his chest so fiercely, she struggled to breathe, although she knew that wasn’t the reason she didn’t return the intensity of his embrace. Her face pressed into his damp skin, and his scent surrounded her. Candra’s arms circled his waist shakily, and her fingers swept over his back to where the elongated skeletal structure of his shoulder blades supported his wings.
“I should never have let you leave alone,” he whispered against her scalp.
“I didn’t ask your permission,” Candra reminded him. She shut her eyes tight and shuddered, powerless against the images she witnessed in the darkness. Images of Sebastian hungrily tracing kisses along a bare shoulder and his fingers entwined in sheets of black glossy hair.
Chapter Three
OMINOUS STORM CLOUDS REMAINED over the rain-ravaged city and hid every star in the night sky. It seemed even the moon had sought shelter from the impending storm. If only Sebastian could run from it too. He would take Candra and flee, leaving Draven to clean up the mess they had made.
Why should Candra be the one to pay for their sins? Why should their corruption and vanity destroy her innocence more than it had already?
The others had arrived while he’d walked with Candra. They’d left under the pretense of her needing air after her confrontation with Lilith. If she did, it was immaterial to him. Really, Sebastian had needed to center his thinking, and he wasn’t prepared to trust her safety to anyone else until they found out how Lilith had gotten so close. He glanced up at the surrounding rooftops as they returned to the townhouse, seeing the hunched, winged creatures huddled together in groups—more guards ordered by Draven. He should have done that before he allowed her to go anywhere, Sebastian berated himself. Love was making him sloppy.
He watched her turn the key in the door and listened to the mechanism work, the screeching of metal before a click releasing the lock. He kept his expression neutral when she glanced at him with an encouraging smile. He just about managed one in return and fought the urge to grab her around the waist and take to the sky. None of the Watchers on guard duty around them would be able to catch him, and even if they could, they would never defy him. He had been their leader for thousands of years. They trusted him implicitly. He only had to say he was taking Candra for her own protection. They would believe him without reservation and a sense of shame that they’d dared question his motives. Their negligence had almost cost them—him—dearly tonight. Candra pushed the door in and turned to him, standing on her toes to reach his lips with a quick peck.
“Time to face the music, I suppose,” she said, running her fingers tenderly down his cheek. They were the first words she’d said to him since her scalding remark after Lilith fled.
Sebastian frowned as soon as she faced away and then crossed the threshold behind her. They walked into the front room, a room not set up to hold seven adults. Furniture was minimal. A love seat took up space against one pale, painted wall, and a La-Z-Boy was in front of the bay window area. Flocked mint-colored drapes cascaded from the ceiling and gathered on the stripped wooden floor. On the main wall, a flat screen television hung over the empty fire hearth. Despite Brie owning a gallery, there was surprisingly little artwork displayed. Aside from the abstracts in Candra’s bedroom, the theme continued throughout the house. He hoped those pieces weren’t damaged by the elements and shattered glass, since he knew they were among her favorite pieces.
Sebastian remembered thinking the house seemed a little bare because it was Brie’s style—just like his—to keep things simple. The first time he’d walked into the townhouse, he’d dis
missed the sparse furnishing as being a sign neither Brie nor Candra entertained much. He hadn’t thought about it again during all the nights he’d spent there over the last several months.
For some reason, he saw things different today. A veil had lifted from his eyes after the dangerous encounter here. He finally began to notice his surroundings. The minimalist house wasn’t a fashion statement. It was unsettled. The house belonged to a person always on the verge of running and planning to leave few clues behind. He’d been so oblivious for so long. What kind of a brute was he that his own twin, Ambriel, feared him? When he weighed up the difficulties involved in moving them both to a safe house, he realized there was little to move. Brie had expected him to show up one day, and she had expected to run from him.
Sebastian wanted to tell Candra everything, but as usual, he held back, afraid of what the truth would do to her…to them. For the first time in his remembered existence, he knew happiness and hope. The young Nephil beside him in the townhouse, where she had remained hidden from him for eighteen years, stirred both. At the ball, when Draven had offered them a way out of his deal with Candra, Sebastian quickly gathered it had been Draven’s plan all along. The only way to make Sebastian understand what it felt like to be an angel and crave human life was to make him experience it—and crave it he did. Those fragments of happiness with Candra were extraordinary in their depth. Seconds lasted an eternity, and hours passed in the blink of an eye, but they always ended the same: their situation came crashing back with absolute vengeance.
If he had the option to live a different way, he would. If he could change the past, he would. His fear of losing something he loved was his Achilles’ heel. Rejection from heaven had devastated him, and the loss of Brie had utterly ruined him to the point he’d refused to feel anything for a long time. He’d allowed his heart to turn to cold, hard stone…until Candra.
She healed him in ways he was completely incapable of expressing. He tried, but he had buried his emotions so long and so deep. He wasn’t sure he could make her understand the sheer violence of his love. It ripped through him every second of every day and night. His desire for her crawled under his flesh and plucked at his nerves as if he was merely an instrument, played for her amusement. He would die for her in less than a heartbeat, and it was becoming increasingly likely.
Draven stood from the La-Z-Boy the moment he saw Candra. His navy eyes moved over her quickly, assessing her for any injuries before his wide shoulders relaxed. Sebastian’s jaw tightened at the sight of his nemesis—his ally now, he reminded himself. The allegiance of the sides still felt unnatural. Sebastian’s heart pumped so hard, he thought his ribs might crack from the strain. They had fought just a week ago. The others were, as yet, unaware of all that had transpired in Draven’s library to make Sebastian bend to his will. Between them, Sebastian and Draven had decided to allow Candra to mourn her best friend, gunned down in a botched robbery. After eighteen years of waiting, neither of them had believed the great threat Candra’s father had warned about would arrive so suddenly. They had revealed only skeletal information to anyone.
Sebastian kept his hand on the base of Candra’s spine, reminding Draven that she was with him now. He was positive Draven desired her for more than the friendship he would have some believe.
Ananchel, shoulder to toe in skintight black leather showing every inch of her sleek muscled body, stood by his side. Draven’s loyal and obedient guard dog swished her red hair, creating a halo of fire around her spectacular face. Her full lips pouted, as if blowing a secret kiss in Sebastian’s direction.
He glared at her, knowing her display was for Candra’s benefit and meant to remind her of a past relationship Sebastian would sooner forget. Candra wiggled his hand off and met Ananchel’s eyes with equal determination.
“We are done with games, Sebastian,” Candra said with a blunt tone and walked away toward Brie.
Draven grinned smugly, leaving Sebastian to shrug off his suit jacket with too much force. He heard a seam split but didn’t bother to examine it before tossing it on the floor by his feet. Candra hated the idea of anyone laying claim to her, but the situation was different now, wasn’t it? She loved him, and he loved her. Didn’t the admission of love imply some sort of ownership?
He frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. His thumb automatically began to run over the curleax he always carried with him. He would never get used to this relationship stuff. A thousand lifetimes of flings and a dubious sexual game of cat and mouse with Ananchel had left him unprepared for loving the Arch’s weapon, one of the Nephilim he’d abandoned heaven to slaughter. No. Not one of them, he corrected himself. He watched her embrace Brie, who had sat on the small couch between Lofi and Gabe. Candra has a soul.
Brie looked tired. She always looked tired, or perhaps just older. Among them, she was the only one who appeared past thirty. Once she’d fallen, she had begun to age. The strain of protecting Candra from him showed in the fine lines permanently carved across her forehead and the way her clothes hung from her slim frame. She was still beautiful, with large brown eyes and short jet-black hair. Brie had been a fearsome warrior, all valor and might, wielding a sword as if it were an extension of her arm.
Gabe’s almond eyes met his for a moment and conveyed a silent question. His auburn-haired second-in-command knew him too well. One look, and Gabe pinpointed Sebastian’s thoughts. His big hand ran up Brie’s back and settled on her shoulder in a familiar way, showing how, despite Brie leaving him behind too, they had worked out their differences. Gabe lowered his head, a mark of respect between angels. Sebastian understood what Gabe wouldn’t say out loud in the tense present company: It was her choice, not your fault. Free will, Sebastian.
“I’m fine,” Candra assured Brie, who seemed to be checking her temperature, smoothing her palm across Candra’s forehead.
Lofi looked on with amused empathy, twirling a long, candy-pink streaked piece of her blond hair around her index finger and actively avoiding looking at Ananchel. The situation was ignitable to say the least, and the atmosphere heavy with the long running animosity between the sides. One handshake in front of a crowded room couldn’t eradicate a history of violence and murder.
“Our best guards are watching your home now. No one will get through,” Draven told Brie, although he clearly intended the statement for the entire room.
Sebastian’s eyes flickered to him without conscious decision. Draven was barefoot again, his expensive leather shoes tucked away on the floor at the side of his seat. He was already aware that Draven preferred to go shoeless; this wasn’t news. It shouldn’t have made Sebastian’s fingers curl tighter around the stone in his pocket, but it did.
“As are ours,” Lofi added in her usual soft voice. Lofi rarely needed to raise her voice. Her tone possessed a quality of strength that in no way matched her exterior appearance. To the average eye, she appeared to be a regular, fashionable teen. However, her dyed hair showed she didn’t wish to conform. In fact, Lofi didn’t really care what anyone outside their small circle of friendship thought of her—they could take her or leave her. She had become his best friend since Brie, so there was no surprise that she spoke up when he didn’t.
Candra smiled and carefully removed Brie’s hand. She returned to Sebastian’s side and slipped her fingers around his waist, pulling herself close to his side. Some of the tension immediately left his body. The heat of her body permeated his and, in a way, grounded him. She knew what he needed before he did. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pretended not to notice the way the corner of Draven’s lip twitched upward.
“Thank you both,” Candra started in a deceptively steady voice. Sebastian could feel her fingers gripping his shirt to prevent them from trembling. “I do appreciate it…we both do,” she added, tilting her head to Brie. “Now, would someone please tell me who the hell that woman was?”
“You have no concept of hell,” Ananchel muttered under her breath before Draven lifted his
hand to silence her. Ananchel rolled her eyes dramatically and crossed her arms over her chest, pressing her lips together.
“Wow, that almost looks like an apology coming from you,” Lofi snickered dryly.
Ananchel noticeably bristled with rage. Her hands dropped in the same fraction of a second Draven’s arm came up across her chest and Sebastian maneuvered Candra to his side. Lofi smiled and scooped pink hair behind her ear.
“Don’t,” Draven warned sternly. Black mist rolled down the length of his spine, heralding the appearance of his vast wings at any moment. They didn’t show. It was a warning to keep Ananchel in line. Sebastian couldn’t understand why he bothered with her; surely their bond couldn’t be any stronger than his had been with Brie, and yet Brie had still walked away.
“Keep her on a leash,” Sebastian ordered harsher than he needed to.
Ananchel’s anger pulsated all around, and her flame-colored hair seemed grow brighter when her eyes darted to Draven. Any second now, things were going to get very ugly. Sebastian pulled Candra a little more, ignoring that she removed her arm from his waist, and instinctively split his stance for balance. His wings tingled below his flesh.
“Enough!” Candra bellowed, shoving past Sebastian. “All of you, enough.” Her furious eyes passed over each of them. No one escaped her angry glare. She combed her hair away from her face with a shaking hand and swatted at a stray tear on her cheek with the back of the same hand. “I’m so sick of all this.”
“Candra—” Gabe began.
“Don’t, Gabe,” she cut him off. “Just don’t make excuses for anyone.” Her attention snapped to Ananchel. “If you don’t want to be here, go.” Candra swallowed hard, and a flush bloomed across her cheeks.
It was as if even the room reacted to her and the walls thudded with each beat of her heart. Potent strength and authority radiated from her in waves, bubbling through the thick atmosphere. This part of her both enthralled and terrified Sebastian. He feared she would one day overestimate her ability to face-off with a Watcher and end up dead. They were an ancient warrior race, after all, and whatever else Candra might be, she was also still just a mortal young woman.
