by Carol Oates
“You did this?” She stole a quick look over her shoulder.
Draven made no outward reaction to confirm the painting was one of his. His expression remained neutral. Several of his works hung in the library of his home, each one a completely different style. It was impossible for her to tell if this was one of his creations, but who else would paint her?
Candra lowered her hand and stepped closer. No signature—not surprising, since he didn’t sign any of his other paintings. The painting before her caught the light from the moon coming in from the skylight. She guess it wasn’t a permanent position, but rather a placement made to show it to full effect at this exact point of the evening. The girl in the painting wore a long black strapless gown, and few strands of curled hair fell forward over her shoulder. The sadness in her eyes made Candra’s breath catch in her throat, but there was something else, too…a fierce determination. Her shoulders were rolled back and her head held high, her gaze fixed on something in the distance Candra couldn’t see. The girl stood in blackness, except for one thing. Every inch of skin glowed with a pearlescent light, the effect intensified by the silver moonbeams landing across her skin. The girl in the painting existed like some kind of beacon in the dark.
“Is this how you see me?” Candra asked, barely able to get the words past her trembling lips. She heard his footsteps behind her, soft leather on cold marble.
“No, this is a poor imitation. You are so much more.”
His long fingers once again found her skin. They curved around the front of her neck as his thumb grazed across the heated flesh where blood rushed to the surface. Candra allowed him to tilt her head back, and when she looked into his eyes, her heart seemed to fragment inside her chest. The longing in his eyes quite literally astounded her. He pressed his lips together, and his jaw tightened. Candra watched as the tiny muscles twitched and knew he was waiting for permission. The first time he’d kissed her, he’d taken the kiss he wanted. Not this time.
Candra swallowed and twisted her body toward him. Carefully, she slid her shaky fingers over his chest to the collar of his shirt, and then she paused, unsure. Draven’s hand slipped from her neck toward her shoulder, and he quickly brought his other hand up, drawing it lazily along her spine to hold her there with him. He gripped her lightly, letting her know she could back away any time she wanted.
“Maybe all this time, we have been reaching too high, trying to figure out all the answers. Maybe the answers won’t come from believing everything is possible.” Draven’s voice dripped with heat and restrained need. Passion smoldered through each syllable of every word that passed his lips. Candra watched his tongue roll over each word. “Perhaps we should start by believing in just one thing.”
“What do you believe in?” she asked, hesitating and waiting for her body to tell her this connection was a fallacy. Something created by angelic touch. Pressure swelled inside her body, as if every molecule reached boiling point at once.
“I believe in you.”
Candra melted into Draven’s strong embrace. The air around them seemed to thicken and compress her skin to the point that she felt his touch everywhere through her. His lips met hers with reverence and trepidation at first, as if he feared she might break apart in her delicate state. Candra’s fingers wound into his soft hair and twisted through it, pulling him closer and urging him on. Her yielding moan drifted out in the warm air surrounding them, dissipating into silence.
Draven tasted of passion and strength. His large hands glided along her ribcage to her waist. His fingers tightened into the fabric of her shirt, growing more determined with each sweep of his tongue against her lips and each lungful he inhaled of her, as though he might consume her if he could.
Candra stood on her toes, reaching to him, wrapping herself around him. She dreaded him pulling away because it was the last thing she needed or wanted. His kisses grew more desperate, more searching, sparking a flame inside her that burned bright enough to light an entire city block. Her skin prickled and tingled so intensely, she imagined she might slip right out of it. She hadn’t felt that way since…
Chapter Twenty-Three
SEBASTIAN HUDDLED AGAINST THE SKYLIGHT GLASS, crouched and praying to an Arch who no longer resided in heaven for help he knew would never come. The descending winter turned the night air in Acheron frigid. Sebastian’s breath condensed against the glass, and he wondered if it was possible for his heart to freeze out here. If it could freeze, could it shatter? He didn’t doubt it would be a relief to be without his heart right now as he peered down on the scene playing out below him in the museum hall. Sebastian’s fist clenched around the metal piping on the roof and left deep imprints of his rage when he released it.
He’d expected Draven to take his chance. He would have done the exact same thing. He did do the same thing: he took his chance, and then he messed it up. According to Ananchel, he’d messed it up a long time ago.
She was right. He couldn’t trust Draven to help him. Sebastian had to deal with Lilith himself. Then he would give Ananchel her due. Watching as Draven embraced Candra and she returned his kiss with exuberance, Sebastian contemplated hell. If heaven could be a place created on Earth, surely his blasphemous words had locked him in a hell of his own making.
“Why do you torture yourself?” Gabe asked quietly from the shadows not far away. “We know you are lying. We simply don’t know why. You need to let us help you.”
Sebastian turned his head in shame and tucked his chin to his shoulder. He refused to see Gabe now, or the other Watchers musing over his recent bizarre behavior. He couldn’t trust anyone with his secret. It was his burden to carry.
“Go back to Ambriel. Hold her. Love her…protect her.” His words left his lips drenched with sadness in thick, bilious clouds of heated air and evaporated into the cold night as if they’d never existed. Sebastian flapped his great wings with a violent fury. He shot into the sky like a golden comet across the blackness and above a city that didn’t realize it sat, very precariously, on the brink of the end of days.
“Wait,” Candra gasped and landed back on her heels with a thud to the marble floor, snapping back to reality. Sebastian’s face once again plagued her thoughts.
Draven stopped kissing her immediately, but didn’t pull away or release her from his embrace. He seemed to have found reassurance of her affection in that kiss. A little thing like the tears that suddenly began to spill unbidden down Candra’s cheeks apparently wasn’t going to put him off. Candra looked up at him mournfully.
He scowled, and anger radiated from him in powerful waves that threatened to bowl her over. Candra internally cursed the unjustness of it all and wondered if her father ever had any idea of the torment he was leading her into by making the choices he did. Maybe everything would be simpler if she had never existed. She was just one great big avalanche thundering down a mountain, destroying everything in its path.
“That asshole,” she ranted. “I am so sick of crying. I never cried before.” She stepped back, shaking her head, unsure who she was referring to.
“Who?” Draven’s warm breath brushed the side of her tear-soaked cheek. The combination of it with her damp skin made her shiver.
Candra looked up at him. His chest heaved as his eyes darted back to her mouth. Without warning, his thumb swiped across her lip. His navy eyes pierced though her heart, and her lungs filled with a startled breath when he brought his thumb to his mouth. As if she’d caught him unguarded, Draven paused with his hand frozen in front of his face and swallowed.
A chill rocketed down Candra’s spine and sent needles of excitement shooting through her body. “Why did you do that?” she asked, although her lips barely moved and shock kept her riveted to the spot, her hand still resting on his chest.
Draven took his eyes from her and dropped his hand to her waist. His tongue traced across his bottom lip, leaving a glistening moistness. Candra had no idea why she found the action so incredibly hot. A deep, searing need hissed like nothing Candra
had ever experienced before. Her nails bit into the tensed flesh below his shirt and trembled to explore him. Her heart sprinted, and her lungs moved, but Candra convinced herself that her light head was a result of the shallow breaths she managed to suck into her lungs.
“I don’t know.” His voice tinged with a gravelly desire. His eyes smoldered, half-closed so his long, dark eyelashes cast shadows across his golden skin.
The air left Candra’s lungs in a great whoosh as fierce as if she’d been stabbed with a dagger of ice straight into her chest. Draven forced her behind him roughly, leaving welts of white fingerprints on her flushed skin.
“We’re not alone,” he hissed, scanning the long room for the apparent intruder.
“Wh—”
She didn’t get one word out before he threw her a withering look over his shoulder. His nostrils flared, and Candra felt the vibration of his wings about to burst out of his skin. She stumbled backward, smashing her back into the painting behind her. How different Draven’s imagined image of her was. The girl in the painting needed no protector; she burned brighter than the sun. Just as Candra expected, Draven’s black wings shot out from his clothes and left her trapped and blind behind a wall of lustrous dark plumage. Draven had never looked so terrifying.
“It’s me,” Gabe’s disembodied, authoritative voice called out.
Candra’s hands disappeared under Draven’s wings, and she shoved him forward. He resisted, she supposed on instinct to protect her. She shoved again. She didn’t need any protection from Gabe.
“How did you get in here?” Draven demanded, his wings pulling in.
Candra scowled at the low warning pitch of his voice and ducked sideways around his wings. “It’s only Gabe. Put the guns away.”
Gabe emerged from the gloom of a side door, wingless and frowning. Okay, maybe she’d spoken too soon. There was definitely more than a hint of trouble brewing about his stiff posture. His mussed-up auburn hair looked sort of windswept, she presumed from flying.
“I got in the same way you did—security guy,” he answered.
“What’s wrong?” Candra’s heart still hadn’t returned to its normal pace, and a steady blush bloomed across her cheeks. He saw us. How would the embrace look from Gabe’s point of view? She wasn’t sure someone like Gabe could understand her confusion. He’d loved Brie, even when they weren’t together, and had held onto the belief that she would eventually find her way back to him. Even now, when Brie’s fallen body continued to age and her mortality stared them in the face, he remained loyal.
Candra cast those thoughts aside for later, when she had a chance to digest what occurred. She recalled the last time a Nuhra had burst in on her and Draven: it had been Lofi delivering the news about Ivy. Her stomach turned over violently. No more bad news, please.
“I thought Candra should be made aware that you had an audience,” Gabe said plainly. His finger curled into a fist and straightened by his side. No person was capable of lying. Even when the words were believable, the body betrayed them. Gabe words weren’t meant as merely informative.
Candra’s eyes flickered back and forth between him and Draven, waiting for one of them to elaborate. Draven closed his eyes and shook his head, his wings vanishing as if they were never there, and left it to Gabe to answer.
“I found Sebastian on the roof, licking his wounds.”
“Was he drunk?” Candra snapped.
Gabe’s eyes widened, clearly expecting a very different reaction. “No.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll correct that soon enough.” Ice-cold anger shivered down her spine. How dare Sebastian spy on her again, when he knew perfectly well how she felt on the subject? Part of her wondered as to the extent his prying went to; how much had he witnessed and heard?
“Candra—”
“No.” Most likely, Gabe wanted to make some excuse. She wasn’t about to let anyone explain this away. Sebastian had betrayed her. She wouldn’t have been at the museum if he could keep his hands off Ananchel. Then something occurred to her. “Wait.” She turned on Draven. “You knew he was there?”
Draven’s smirk was unapologetic. “If you want me to be sorry, I’m not.” Appearing to sense their date—was it a date?—was over, Draven unbuttoned his sleeve and began rolling it back over his tanned forearm. “Sebastian would have anticipated this situation, and if he didn’t…well, he should have.”
“You’re a dick,” Candra chastised him and punched his shoulder for extra effect.
“You’ll forgive me.” His sexy smile caused a tremble in Candra’s stomach.
She couldn’t blame him. She had been an active participant, and she agreed with Draven that if Sebastian saw something that bothered him, he only had himself to blame.
She sighed. This wasn’t about hurting Sebastian. Why was he spying anyway? He had what he wanted: his freedom to get back to his games with Ananchel. It was easier to believe he no longer cared than to believe that he did and had walked away regardless.
“Can you take me back, please?” she asked Draven.
He nodded, holding his hand out, palm up. He scrutinized her, conveying a subtle expectancy and taking in every nuance of her reaction to his offer. Candra hesitated, still wary of leading him on. Friends held hands too. At least, that was what she told herself when she slid her palm across his. His fingers closed with a reassuring squeeze and guided her to his side.
“I’m sorry,” Gabe offered in a muted voice. “I thought you should know.” His eyebrows pulled down into a frown, and his lips pressed together tightly, holding back on whatever else he wanted to say.
Chapter Twenty-Four
FOR EVERY CHOICE MADE, there had to be a negation of another choice that could have been. Each choice sees a person as a traveler on a road, unable to return to an earlier point on the journey and decide differently. How, then, could that person learn to live with those decisions, knowing they had destroyed an infinite number of other possibilities? As Candra made her way through the city, she wanted to believe that somewhere out there, other versions of herself were traveling different journeys.
Brie’s gallery was in a slightly bohemian part of the city, despite it being a little out of the way for some of her regular high-end clients. Most were prepared to travel for a viewing of the pieces she sold. Some asked her to decide for them, but that was something Brie rejected. Art was too personal, something to be savored and embraced. She didn’t deal in investment art. Every piece, like a precious child, went to a loving home. Brie happily displayed artwork for her clients, making sure the light was just right and the selected piece would be shown for maximum impact. Sometimes, Candra wondered if her method was a phantom impression of the angel she once had been. Each client had to make an individual choice—free will.
Smaller, older stores selling art supplies surrounded the renovated building. These were mixed with book stores, where a lucky browser might come across a signed first edition of their favorite tale, and several coffee houses, where writers, painters, musicians, and other creative types congregated, sitting on comfortable mismatched chairs and drinking gigantic steaming mugs of the best coffee in the city. In the summer, they gathered in the open, enjoying the sun under the cool shelter of brightly colored awnings. Now, they huddled inside, away from the chilled air and gusting winds blasting up the street.
In the process of establishing a solid reputation as someone trustworthy in art circles, Brie had discovered several successful local artists. These people would never have gotten a showing without Brie’s dedication, space, and time. She nurtured them and protected them until they were ready to break out on their own, but she hadn’t been able to do much nurturing lately. The majority of her time had been spent obsessing over her stepdaughter. Candra felt immensely guilty about it.
Candra held tightly onto the cardboard tray holding three cups of coffee she had just picked up and pushed open the single paned glass door. A bell tinkled overhead before the door closed. Inside, the gallery was e
ven more in contrast to the surrounding buildings. Crossing the threshold was almost like stepping into a futuristic world of stark white walls and stripped floors. Metal and glass stairs swept up to the top floor to Brie’s office and the painting storage area. A room at the rear of the main viewing area held sculptures currently not on display. The most recent collection consisted of blockish colors over large canvases and roughly carved figures standing on high pillars.
She went to the tall, curving reception desk and peered over the top to see Gabe diligently one-finger tapping at the keyboard of a computer and looking thoroughly mystified.
“I smell coffee. Please tell me you have one there for me.”
Candra had learned over time that angels had many vices, coffee being the very least of them. She pulled out one of the disposable cups and placed it on top of the counter. Gabe looked up, and his grateful smile was dazzling. Candra’s cheeks heated. In spite of the expensive suit, Gabe’s youthful appearance made it easy to take him for a college student earning some extra cash or gathering work experience. His careful demeanor and the way Candra had seen him keeping a wary distance from any of the works of art in the past showed he was no art dealer. He let out a long sigh, his shoulders rising and falling before he took the cup.
“Why do you come here when you clearly have no idea what you are doing?” Candra teased him.
Then it was Gabe’s turn to blush. He scratched his jaw absently with one hand and shrugged. He didn’t need to answer; Candra already knew. Gabe had been stuck to Brie’s side like glue since they had been reacquainted. Brie had never said directly, but Candra had deduced almost within moments of first seeing them together that they had a romantic history. Candra suspected Gabe of being leery about letting Brie out of his sight again, even if that meant working alongside her in the gallery. He was besotted with Brie, although she still struggled with the new dynamics of their relationship. After all, she had walked away from him—she had fallen without ever saying goodbye. Brie claimed she’d never regretted the decision, but sometimes, Candra noticed she couldn’t quite meet Gabe’s eyes, and she frowned if he ever spoke about the time they were apart.
