Ember (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

  Behind her eyelids, fireworks exploded, white fireworks. They could have been anywhere; she didn’t care. It was as if time slowed down. Sebastian’s breath was hot as it brushed the side of her face, and he smelled delicious, like cool, fresh mint mingled with musk and salt.

  She didn’t know how it happened. A few moments ago she couldn’t stand him, now she couldn’t think of one thing in the world she wanted more than to feel his lips moving against hers.

  Sebastian slid his hand slowly and intently up Candra’s neck, absorbing the shiver of her skin through his fingertips and leaving a trail of goose bumps over her flesh. His other hand brushed hair from her face, and his lips parted close to her ear. Candra let out a quiet gasp.

  “Nice try,” he whispered.

  “W-What?” Candra stammered.

  She opened her eyes. Sebastian had pulled away from her and everything was just like it was before. They were standing on the pathway in the small park. A woman was casting them a disapproving look over her shoulder as she exited the park with her husband, and the only heat Candra felt was coming from the sun. The one thing that was the same was her heart; it was still thundering like a racehorse.

  A furious heat burned up her neck and over her cheeks. Sebastian smirked in a patronizing way, patiently waiting for her to regain her senses while the blood in her face smoldered beneath her skin.

  He did that on purpose. Why? Was it just to embarrass me or prove he could? The questions she knew she would ask rushed through her mind. Asking Sebastian why he didn’t kiss her would be akin to admitting she wanted him to…and she didn’t.

  Tears prickled her eyes, and she looked away briefly, blinking and refusing to allow them to spill over.

  “Nice try,” he repeated. “I know you’re guessing.”

  Candra desperately wanted to scream or hit him, or both. Her fists clenched by her side.

  “Even though the answer is perfectly obvious,” he added with a wink.

  “What? So you’re saying I’m stupid now?” Candra raged.

  Sebastian’s smile slipped. “Absolutely not. You simply have to look harder. I can’t tell you because I promised Ambriel I wouldn’t until she is ready, and you can’t see because your mind doesn’t want to accept the truth yet.”

  “What kind of mumbo jumbo crap is that?” Candra spun on her heels and headed to a large mound of rock nearby. His last words confirmed two things to her: Brie knew exactly what was going on, and if Sebastian had to promise not to tell her, it was because he wanted to. She sat down heavily and regretted it right away when a shard of loose rock scratched her lower back deeply, making her wince painfully.

  Sebastian walked toward her slowly, rubbing his hand roughly on the back of his neck, trying to ease a knot there. The muscles flexed and tensed in his arm with each stroke.

  “What are you doing now?” he asked impatiently.

  “I’m sitting down, and I don’t intend to move until you give me some answers.”

  Chapter Three

  Sebastian grimaced, watching her small face scrunch up into a hard scowl as he got nearer, and he almost laughed when it dawned on him that she didn’t even know she was doing it, making faces at him out here in the broad daylight. He understood she didn’t know who he really was or about the monster he was capable of becoming. Thanks to the promise he had made to Ambriel, he couldn’t warn her. Although Sebastian knew he was just as stubborn as Ambriel and it wouldn’t take long for him to come up with something to get around his vow. Or at least part way around it—there was some information he had no intention of sharing. After all, he was protecting her, protecting both of them as far as he could since he found them. Not that he wasn’t looking all along, but Ambriel was meticulous in her usage of the blessing Payne gave her to keep the kid away from all of them.

  Sebastian almost snorted out loud, thinking how ironic it was that Payne was the one who broke the covenant, since he was the one who first suggested it.

  Candra was still making faces at him. He tilted his head watching her quietly rage, well aware it was probably at him. A kind of seething anger at things she didn’t know and would never understand seemed to linger within her. He found it cute in a bizarre way, a small child kicking at the ankles of an angry giant. Sebastian hadn’t intended to take things so far when he’d almost kissed her. He knew women often had a strong reaction to him one way or another, but he never acted on it…well almost never. He had never once done what he just did to Candra, confusing her like that. It was so easy with her standing in front of him so angry and innocent, so consumed by passion and questions that he couldn’t resist. He made a promise to himself to never do it again.

  He nodded to the spot on the rock beside her, indicating his intention to sit. He knew she was nervous around him, and he preferred not to push that feeling further. Things were complicated enough, and they would be getting more complicated soon. Truth had a way of rising and making itself known, even when it was hidden beneath layers and layers of crud and the murky waters of lies and deceit. For Sebastian, it all came down to control, how much Candra would learn and when.

  Candra appeared to take his nod as a request to join her and pointedly looked away without reply, but not until after her eyes had subconsciously flickered to her right, telling Sebastian she wanted him to sit with her; she just didn’t want to admit that she wanted him to sit with her. He held back the smile he felt, knowing it would antagonize her, and took the space where the rock had become mostly smoothed out over the years. “So how was class today?”

  Candra’s head swung around, eyes popping. “School! You’re asking me about school. When I’m trying to figure out my entire life, you want to know how my English lecture went?”

  For want of a better reply, Sebastian answered simply. “Yeah. Isn’t it polite to show interest?”

  She huffed and turned away again, pulling her legs up to her knees and adjusting her skirt at the same time. “That’s not what I want to hear.”

  Candra was beginning to make Sebastian question the nature verses nurture thing. From what he knew of Candra’s mother, from Brie, she was sweet and laid back, never asking questions about things she didn’t want to know. Candra was stubborn and inquisitive, much more like Ambriel not that long ago. He smiled at her apparent determination to ignore him until she got some answers.

  When she leaned forward, Sebastian saw the small, uneven red stain spreading on her back, below the place where her long dark hair settled. He wasn’t sure how she managed to damage herself again until he noticed the tiny shard of jagged stone jutting out where the otherwise smooth boulder had cracked. In her eagerness to sit, she had cut herself. It was another confirmation for him of what a delicate little thing Candra really was, although she didn’t look it. He found himself taking advantage of her momentary silence—since there weren’t many of them—to observe her. He wasn’t used to being so close to her. She was a good deal smaller than him, and slim. But even in her uniform, he could see her body was naturally toned and sculpted; her muscles contained the genetic memory of a warrior. Her delicate features and her symmetrical bone structure were definitely angelic in nature, but made softer by the human blood that flowed through her veins. Candra was certainly beautiful.

  He shook his head, smiling to himself when she still wouldn’t look. He reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around the small stone he always carried, and he pulled it out slowly, hoping she wouldn’t notice. He ran his thumb over the smoothness while debating if this was a good idea. Strictly speaking, it didn’t come under any of the warnings Ambriel had issued, and the girl was bleeding. It had to hurt, or at the very least sting, despite the fact she seemed to be stubbornly ignoring it.

  Somewhere deep inside Sebastian was vaguely aware this was breaking the rules, but it didn’t take much to force the thought back down. He knew Candra was searching for answers, and she wouldn’t take long to find them. He wasn’t telling her the things he wanted her to know, and it certainly w
ouldn’t lead her to the one thing he wished she’d never have to learn. He couldn’t bear to think of how she would look at him after she found out what he really was.

  Over the last months, he had come to think of Candra as a responsibility he never expected. Watching over her had given him purpose again after so many years, and strangely, at some point, what she thought of him had begun to matter. He even went so far, once or twice, as to not be as careful about concealing himself as he should have been. He knew she would be confused by what she saw and wouldn’t remember clearly enough to ask questions, thinking it was her imagination. Confusion was something Sebastian knew a lot about these days: wanting to be seen and at the same time wanting to stay hidden was making his brain spin inside his skull.

  Regardless, he wanted to give her a little nudge in the right direction and to help her ask the right questions. He hated that the human emotion he was feeling so often lately was making him as devious as a Tenebras.

  He placed the stone lightly at her back, feeling the heat radiate up through his fingertips and arm, filling his body. It didn’t take much; it was just a scratch, but it was enough.

  Candra leapt from the rock, landing extremely ungracefully in front of him, panting and red-faced. She frantically tried reaching around to the spot on her back where Sebastian knew tendrils of heat spread and dissipated, taking away the sting of pain.

  “Don’t touch me,” she yelled.

  In true Acheron form, the only man within hearing distance put his head down and walked away fast in the opposite direction. Sebastian didn’t stand, certain she was already scared, or would be any moment now.

  “What the hell did you do to me?” she demanded, this time at a lower volume. Candra kept putting her hand to her back, trying to see over her shoulder and turning side to side like a dog chasing its tail.

  “I didn’t do anything to hurt you,” Sebastian stated with an even tone. Ungrateful kid, he thought.

  “I felt something,” Candra hissed incredulously, wide-eyed and still trying to see the spot on her back. “Something hot.”

  There was a twinge of guilt in Sebastian’s stomach; it was easy to ignore. He could deny what he was doing until she looked directly at him, and her expression told him denying wouldn’t make any difference now. He watched as a series of emotions transformed her face: anger, confusion, disbelief, fear, shock.

  Candra was frozen, and Sebastian wasn’t sure what his next move should be. He suddenly realized he didn’t put enough thought into this. It wasn’t the first time he’d acted without thinking about the consequences when he was around Candra. He wanted to touch her; he wanted to let her know he was real and she was safe. She didn’t move away or scream when he lifted his hand, but her stomach sucked in harshly with her sudden inhale. It was enough to make Sebastian reconsider and drop his hand.

  “What. The. Hell. Are. You?” Candra took an unsteady step, backing away from him.

  Sebastian put his hands up in front of him, palms forward, letting her know she was safe. “Calm down. Everything is okay.”

  “Okay,” she echoed as if she had no words of her own.

  “I would never hurt you, Candra.”

  “But you have…you have…” She stumbled another step backward, her whole body shaking, and Sebastian wondered if this was such a good idea after all.

  Then her eyebrows pulled down, and her lips pressed together. Her incredulous expression returned. Sebastian took one more step, reaching out to catch her elbow. Her arm was rigid.

  “You have wings,” she said calmly, as if hearing it would make it seem more real for her, rolling her tongue around each syllable slowly and carefully.

  Sebastian had known the effect of the curleax before he’d used his on Candra. He knew that they rendered the user’s ability to hide their wings from their own kind useless. The small stones drew strength from emotions; using them was an act of will, just like containing their wings. Fortunately, even then, pure blood humans couldn’t see them. If he needed any further proof that Candra carried Payne’s blood, this would have been it. The first Nephil since the war, the first he didn’t kill on sight.

  “You noticed that, huh?” he joked, trying to smile reassuringly and feeling only one side of his lips affected. He flexed his wings until they were fully extended and pulled them back in, fluttering closed.

  A multitude of questions rocketed through Candra’s head, crashing against each other and becoming nothing more than a garbled mush. Her brain wasn’t coherent enough to phrase the words into anything resembling something that would make sense. His wings…his wings. She kept repeating it to herself…Sebastian’s wings. As if saying it over and over would make it lose its meaning. Sebastian had wings, and it wasn’t the first time she had seen them.

  At the parking garage, she thought she’d imagined it or the paramedics had given her something. She remembered it like it was a dream, just like all the other times in the fuzzy memories.

  When they stretched out behind him to their full majestic size, the fine plumage looked luxurious and soft as satin. They trembled gently in the light breeze, thinning out to golden tips at the very edges. Something about it reminded her of swans rising proudly from water.

  Sebastian flexed his wings until they were fully extended once more and pulled them back in, fluttering closed. Candra cocked her head to the side, curious to get a better view as they retracted, pulling up at a joint midway and folding in on themselves until they were pressed snugly to the full length of Sebastian’s back and as far down as mid-calf. She was considerably taken aback by his casual attitude. He’d said, “You noticed that,” as if he’d told her he had pancakes for breakfast.

  She shivered, coming back into her body with a jolt. It was getting dark, and she had no idea how long they had been there staring at each other. His wings were gone, but she was positive she hadn’t imagined it; the wings were real.

  Sebastian was still standing ramrod straight in front of Candra, his face completely devoid of any kind of emotion, and she found it oddly calming. She couldn’t take her eyes from him; he was the only thing that existed for her in that moment: the way the golden highlights in his hair caught the fading light, the shadows that moved around him, the darkness seeping in to bleach the color from his brown eyes turning them a silvery gray.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, but to Candra, his voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

  She couldn’t recall if she answered him; she barely recalled nodding. Then it was over.

  A shrill ringing broke into Candra’s mental meanderings, along with the sound of cars on the street nearby, and somewhere close by a train passed through, and a motorbike engine revved before the sound rumbled away into the distance with a thunderous roar.

  She blinked and took a rattled breath. Her eyes were dry and stinging. She wondered if she had been staring so intently she forgot to blink. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and she shivered; the air had turned cool, and it was almost night.

  Sebastian reached into his pocket and retrieved a small flip phone. He never took his eyes from Candra’s as he lifted it to his ear.

  “Yes?” He paused, apparently waiting for the caller to speak. “We stopped for coffee.”

  She found herself tilting her head again to examine him. He looked just like any of the boys she hung out with, nothing extraordinary—well at least nothing extraordinary to identify him as not human. A tremor shook her legs for a moment. Not human. The words rang out in her mind. Her eyes wandered to the statue a distance behind him, caught in the semi-darkness of the city, looking ghostly pale, almost iridescent, and gazing to heaven. The stone wings were opened wide, hard and rigid. A carved angel.

  “Yes, coffee,” Sebastian said with a hard edge of annoyance toward to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “I told you I wouldn’t.”

  Candra raked her brain. There was nothing there to set him apart from other guys. Even in his voice…yeah. It was cool and assured, and it could
be considered cocky, but most of the teenage guys she knew were cocky to some extent. They presumed, being from an all-girl school, she was starved of male attention and would be grateful for their advances.

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” He didn’t say goodbye before closing the phone with a snap and pushing it back into his pocket. “We have to leave. Apparently you have a visitor waiting.”

  “A visitor?” Candra asked. Her voice was husky, her throat dry.

  Sebastian opened his jacket out and held it open for her, raising his eyebrows in a silent request to approach.

  She nodded, but something still didn’t feel right. Sebastian moved behind her and held the jacket so she could reach her hands into the sleeves. She slipped it on with stiff arms. It was too big, and the sleeves came down over her hands, but it was warm, and it smelled nice: the scents she’d noticed before, when she thought he was about to kiss her. Something else too, a bitter trace of an odor that scratched the back of her tongue: cigarettes. He didn’t smell of cigarettes when she sat beside him, so she deduced he spent time recently somewhere where people did—a bar maybe.

  Candra’s hair was trapped beneath the collar of his jacket, and she reached back to pull it out, at the same time as Sebastian cupped his fingers under her hair at the nape of her neck. Their fingers touched for an instant, and Candra pulled her hand away sharply, allowing him to finish.

  She still couldn’t figure out what it was that was so off about him, and her face and shoulders tightened with the mental exertion of trying to work it out.

  Sebastian stood behind her, waiting patiently yet again despite the fact they had to leave. There was someone waiting to talk to her.

  Candra decided she was in shock. She had to be. It explained the time lapse and her legs not wanting to move her. What Sebastian had said earlier, about not wanting to accept the truth, made sense to her now. She weighed the possibility her brain was trying to block out what she saw.