Ember (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

  She grimaced, as if Candra had slapped her, and her eyebrows pulled down into a scowl. Her hands trembled almost indiscernibly, and she pulled them below the table quickly, but not so quickly Candra didn’t see.

  “I didn’t know what he would do. We’ve all done terrible things in the name of mankind.”

  Candra recoiled at the abrupt flashback in her head: Brie standing triumphantly over the dead baby, and she had to remind herself it wasn’t just a baby; it was a monster. She swallowed thickly and reached into her pocket, finding the small stone and running her thumb over the smooth surface to remind herself they were just as capable of great kindness and healing, as well as the brutality she had witnessed and heard about.

  “But he didn’t hurt me, the opposite…he’s done nothing but try to protect me. You had to have known he wouldn’t hurt me.”

  Brie shook her head sadly. “Because you want to believe it, you think that it must be true. The truth is that you don’t know what he is capable of given the right set of circumstances. I doubt he knows what he is capable of.”

  Candra stood abruptly, and her chair scrapped across the floor as it pushed back. Hadn’t she been convinced Sebastian was dangerous? She was scared that first day, but now…Candra couldn’t imagine the possibility Sebastian would ever have hurt her. He said so last night. He said he couldn’t hurt her, and she believed him.

  “You’re defending him now?” Brie raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  “No,” Candra shot back defiantly and slumped back into her seat, trying to give the appearance of remaining calm. “I…we…” She stumbled over her words, feeling the blush rise in her cheeks. “We are friends now, that’s all.”

  The raised eyebrow was still there, taunting Candra as she absentmindedly fingered the open fold of the envelope. Brie’s eyes tightened, and her head tilted. Even in her peripheral vision, Candra could see Brie observing her.

  “Hey.” Lofi appeared at the doorway to the kitchen with a bright smile in place.

  “What were you arguing with Sebastian about?” Candra asked her immediately. “Was it about me?”

  “Honestly, Candra, what makes you think it was about you?” She beamed innocently.

  Candra stood and brought her half-eaten bowl to the sink, turning her back on them. “Please, Lofi, are we going to keep pretending? I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “I know everything!” Candra turned sharply, frowning and curling her fingertips into the ridge of the sink at her back.

  Lofi laughed brightly and stepped to the side of the table to pick up an apple and began to toss it hand to hand. “I seriously doubt it. No one knows everything.”

  “This is just ridiculous,” Candra said, throwing her arms up into the air. She forced out a breath through pursed lips in an effort to calm herself. Above all she needed to remain calm. She refused to give anyone the opportunity to accuse her of being too overwrought to understand what was going on around her. Her back teeth clenched so tightly her jaw ached, but she remained in control. “I healed Sebastian last night. I healed him with my father’s stone. Shouldn’t that mean something to you people? Sebastian seemed to think it did.”

  Both their faces paled significantly at her revelation, and she caught Brie placing her hand over the envelope, attempting to inconspicuously slide it off the table.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s nothing,” Brie said nonchalantly, waving Candra away.

  “More secrets.” It was pointless, useless, beyond stupid. While Candra accepted they thought they were protecting her, the only thing they were accomplishing was pushing her away. Regardless of how calmly and maturely she presented herself, none of it made a difference. She made to storm out of the room, but Lofi caught her arm tightly. For such a little thing, she had a cast iron grip, and it was locked around Candra’s arm.

  “What?” Candra forced out through gritted teeth, feeling the nerves vibrate inside her body. She needed to get out into the fresh air where she could breathe without tightness in her chest.

  “The other Nephilim couldn’t heal, Candra. So how can you? It’s not a secret, just something we weren’t expecting and have no answer for.” Lofi turned so she wasn’t looking at Candra. Candra only saw Lofi’s profile, the slight dusky rose blush that spread over her cheeks and the glimmer of gold that caught in her eyes. “Show her, Brie,” she instructed solidly, leaving no room for argument.

  Brie shuffled the envelope under the table, hesitating, but not refusing the instruction.

  “If you don’t tell her, Sebastian will. I believe he is feeling quite ruthless at the moment,” she finished darkly. It was suddenly like all the golden sunlight that had been flooding in from the windows was sucked from the room, leaving a dark gloomy shadow hanging over them.

  Brie took the envelope out and placed it on the table, keeping her fingers lightly pressed to it. The two deep frown lines had returned over the bridge of her nose. She looked around guardedly, which in turn made Candra glance around the room too, as if someone would pounce out of one of the cupboards and snatch it from her hand. Candra shrugged Lofi’s hand away and gingerly approached the innocuous looking and obviously offensive envelope, sliding it out from under Brie’s grasp. Her stepmother stood immediately, her eyes damp from the tears she was holding back, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Candra’s ear.

  “You know, I don’t know where the years have gone. I feel like I’ve been barely awake and time has drifted away from me.” She smiled with trembling lips.

  Candra narrowed her eyes, confused. “What is this?” she asked, shaking it lightly. The paper was thick and clearly expensive. The heavy fibers of the bleached white envelope were rough against her skin.

  “It’s an invitation to a ball,” Lofi offered from behind them.

  “I really don’t understand.” Candra pulled out the white beveled card from inside and ran her fingers lightly over the embossed writing inviting her to the main hall. She presumed that was the ballroom she had been in the day before.

  “It came with a letter from Draven explaining his offer,” Brie said in a hushed voice.

  “Oh.” Candra shrugged, turning it over. “I guess Draven wants to show me off…but then you knew that would happen, didn’t you?”

  Lofi and Brie exchanged a concerned glance but said nothing. Candra tossed the card on the table. She felt strong for the first time, knowledgeable. She knew what was expected of her, and now she had a date, so she knew when too. Knowledge is power…right? She had four weeks, four more weeks of her life belonging to her.

  “I get it. Some of it at least. You thought no one would ever have to know. You thought in the same place where it all began was the last place they would look for me. I get that Draven is the type of guy—” Candra used her fingers to make quotation marks and ignored Lofi. She rolled her eyes when Lofi chuckled. “—being…whatever, who likes to think he had one over on everyone else. But this is my life…my life. No more lies, no more half-truths. I decide. From now on, I decide. So tell me, what else don’t I know?”

  Brie rolled her shoulders back and sniffled away the almost-shed tears. “Nothing. There is nothing. Everything I know, you know.” She lifted her hand and rubbed Candra’s arm up and down roughly before Candra leaned forward, pulling her into a hug.

  “I love you, and I’m grateful for everything you have done, but this is my path to follow. You have to let me follow it.”

  She felt Brie nod against her cheek and hugged her tighter. Her heart faltered. “Anything you would like to add, Lofi?” Candra lowered the tone of her voice minutely, just to let Lofi know she meant business.

  “There is something I think you should know. I can talk to you on the way to our first lecture.”

  Candra pulled back from Brie and looked to Lofi casually leaning against the door frame. “Uh uh…not anymore. No one will touch me…right? At least for now?” Lofi nodded. “Then you can go back to doing whatever it is you did before, b
ecause I don’t need shadows anymore.”

  Lofi looked down and shook her head, glancing back up to Candra from under thick eyelashes. “How about today you indulge me. We need to talk.”

  Finally Candra was getting somewhere. She couldn’t actually jump for joy about the information she was acquiring, but at least it was something—at least it was the truth. Lofi told her about Sebastian and his plan. Candra wasn’t angry or, surprisingly, even shocked that Sebastian would try to keep her away from Draven any way he could, even going to the extremes of being nice to her…of “turning her head” as Lofi put it so eloquently. They were basically the same animal—Draven and Sebastian—both believing so violently that their way was the only way and that their solution was the only one.

  Any hope she had that Draven would simply get bored of her and move on were dashed to smithereens by Lofi. Draven had apparently never taken a partner before, which Candra found hard to believe. The fact that he had chosen her, coupled with the finality of her life, Lofi assured her, meant he would keep her with him to her dying breath.

  Candra didn’t want Lofi to tell Sebastian she knew what he was up to. It served no purpose. Sebastian would still try to convince her, and she would still only have a month…four weeks, twenty eight days…hardly a wrinkle in time to him, but to Candra, it was an eternity. At least this way he would be nice to her for the duration, she consoled herself. She couldn’t deny that her fascination with understanding him still festered like a scab she couldn’t help picking at, even though she knew it would hurt in the end. She felt entitled to a peek inside his head, since he had been in her life for six months without her knowledge. She was just beginning to get to know him. She didn’t want to stop, and she was sure, even though she didn’t tell Lofi, that at least some of his feelings for her were real. They had to be. Deep down, where his heart resided, strangled up in thorny vines of guilt, anger, fear, and longing, there lay something deeper in him, something that he couldn’t see but she could. Candra suspected he couldn’t admit he liked her because he didn’t believe he deserved it.

  Sebastian was the wallflower at a party, believing he didn’t truly belong there, that his presence was never entirely welcome. He watched from a distance and petulantly refused to admit that he yearned to join in…yearned to be expected or wanted.

  Chapter Twelve

  “No, thank you. I told you, I am never touching that stuff again,” Candra said, politely declining Draven’s offer of a drink. He was pouring from a bottle this time, the same amber liquid but retrieved from the fridge in the kitchen of his apartment.

  “You said ‘something strong,’” he teased with the same sexy smirk he turned on her every time he offered. This wasn’t a meeting, like the first time they met. It was a date of sorts, or what passed for a date during the last few weeks, given their strange set of circumstances.

  “Strong, not hallucinogenic.”

  He chuckled, spinning the cap back onto the bottle and replacing it in the fridge. Draven kept an apartment in the building where the ball would be held. In fact, all the apartments and offices in the immense building belonged to him. Most of them were occupied, especially now when the number of Watchers in Acheron was still growing.

  Candra still didn’t remember her first journey here, but it was different now. Apparently Draven had trust issues about where he stayed. Who could blame him after the way Sebastian stormed in when he found out where they were? The building was located in an affluent part of the city occupied by business types and the wealthier end of society.

  Draven’s apartment was large and decorated in a modern, tasteful way with floor-to-ceiling windows in every room, looking out over the city. In a way, it reminded Candra of a king surveying his territory, a little conceited. It was not overly ostentatious, apart from his kitchen, which had been designed for a person who liked to cook, as Draven obviously did. There were masses of storage and glass-fronted cabinets where his ingredients and equipment were readily visible.

  She was chopping tomatoes for a salad after watching him expertly prepare lasagna. She narrowly missed her finger with the sharp blade because she found it hard not to look at his tightly rounded, denim-clad ass as he bent to take fresh crusty bread from the oven. Like before, he was barefoot.

  “Draven,” she called to attract his attention as he placed the tray of baguettes on the counter island. “I’m enjoying this whole romantic set up thing you have going on here.” He flashed a gleaming smile, and she swallowed, taking a sip from her glass of cola to wet her suddenly dry lips. “We both know you have me.” He frowned, taking off his oven gloves. “Whatever you want to call it, you’ve won. Why do you care if I like you?”

  He sauntered toward Candra and stopped the opposite on side of the counter she was working on, popping a piece of tomato into his mouth and chewing. Candra widened her eyes to indicate his lopsided grin wasn’t enough of an answer.

  “I haven’t won anything, Candra. When you accompany me to the ball and promise your loyalty, it will be the happiest night of my life. You can’t blame me for wanting you to be at least a little happy too. I don’t want you to be with me under duress.”

  Candra sighed heavily and scooped the tomatoes up in her palms, scattering them in the bowl. “I hate to break it to you, but telling me you’ll allow your people to unleash Armageddon on the city unless I play house is duress. You’re not a bad person, Draven; I know there is more to what is going on here than you are telling me.”

  He shrugged, picking up a mushroom and chewing it. “I hope that when the time comes for you to choose, you will at least like me. I think if you give me the chance, you will.”

  “I’ve chosen.”

  “No, you haven’t. You only think you have.” He grinned. “But you will.”

  She grimaced disapprovingly and carried the bowl of salad over to the island where the bread was and where they would be eating. “Always so cryptic, Draven.”

  He chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair, the action pulling his worn white T-shirt up, revealing the sprinkling of dark hair across his stomach. “Always so inquisitive, Candra.” He followed her over and took the stool beside her before he commenced slicing up the lasagna which, she had to grudgingly admit, smelled divine.

  “So what do you do, Draven? How have you spent all your time when you aren’t trying to get me drunk and seduce me? I imagine living forever gets boring,” Candra asked curiously.

  He grimaced and rolled his eyes at her directness. “As boring or as exciting as you want it to be, and you know we don’t live forever,” he retorted, shoveling a mound of the deliriously fragrant cheesy mass onto her plate.

  “Forever, unless you are mortally wounded?”

  He nodded. “I’ve been a lot of things in my life, a scholar, an artist, a doctor…a priest,” he finished with an amused expression. Candra presumed he was trying to goad a reaction from her.

  She was surprised, but beginning to understand that they infiltrated all walks of life, even religious.

  “Right now, I’m involved in a trust that is financially responsible for many charitable causes.”

  “Why?” Candra pushed, putting her napkin up to her mouth because she forgot she shouldn’t talk with her mouth full. Chewing cow wasn’t a good look.

  “Why what?”

  “Why help humanity if you think so little of it being destroyed in your war that you would risk me refusing you?”

  “I never said I think little of it. I think of little else.” There was an undercurrent of restrained anger in his tone, and she wondered if he was trying to hide it from her.

  “You will live as long as your body doesn’t get damaged. I have that much right at least?”

  “Pretty much, but of course there are the stones. We can’t heal ourselves properly though.” His shoulders settled. It seemed to her she had easily managed to distract him from his brief moment of annoyance.

  “But another Watcher could use their stone on you? Or if you hav
e a minor injury, then you could heal yourself?”

  Draven nodded, and Candra didn’t add that she had already managed to use her father’s stone. It somehow still felt like a private moment between Sebastian and her, something she shouldn’t share. She even felt a little strange that she had blurted it out in front of Brie and Lofi. It was like the feeling of dreaming that you are walking on a busy street and looking down to realize you were naked. They didn’t know why or how she could do it, and she felt she had unwittingly exposed something she should have kept to herself.

  “Is that what Ananchel was doing the day I fell, testing a theory…seeing if I carried angel’s blood?”

  Draven grimaced and pursed his lips as if he was considering something, then took a long sip of his brandy. The silence sounded distinctly like a blaring white noise…a stall, and so instead of waiting for him to answer, Candra returned to her food.

  She was actually enjoying it a great deal. Draven knew his way around a kitchen. Although it was probably easy to be good at everything given enough time and practice. The thought made her cheeks flood with heat as she wondered what else Draven was well-practiced in. Even if he hadn’t had a mate, she was sure there must have been women in his life. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smug grin; he missed nothing.

  “Ananchel was only playing that day.”

  “Really?” Candra raised her eyebrows, roughly tearing off a piece of the still-warm bread to sop up the tomato sauce.

  “Yes, really,” Draven responded firmly, pushing his plate away, appearing to lose interest after only a few bites of food. “Please believe me, Candra, we are not murderers. Ananchel is a law unto herself at times, but I know her. She was just playing with you—she does it to everyone. I know she respects you for standing up to her. I think she even likes you, actually. She can’t have any effect on those who aren’t open to her. She would have healed you herself if the others hadn’t come along.”

  Candra hummed dubiously. “I’ve seen what she can do. I’ve felt it…and at the party…what she did to Sebastian…” She shuddered at the memory.