Ember (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

  “What in the Arch’s name is going on here?” Draven raged.

  “Call your dog off, Draven,” Lofi warned venomously through gritted teeth, swatting Ananchel’s hand away from her arm, “before I put her down for good.”

  “What do you want here?” Draven demanded, ignoring Lofi’s warning.

  Candra panicked and stood up to go to Lofi, who was edging toward her, continuously evading Ananchel’s grip.

  “Call someone,” Ananchel shouted to Draven.

  Candra made to move toward them, but Draven caught her arm, holding her back.

  “Stop it,” Candra roared toward Ananchel, and she noticed Lofi was holding her phone in her hand. Bile rose, burning in her throat. This was bad…she knew it was bad. Lofi wouldn’t have come here otherwise. Something was very, very wrong.

  “Please, Draven,” Candra begged as both Ananchel’s and Lofi’s wings sprouted from behind them. “Please.”

  “Ananchel!” he bellowed and as if he had physically restrained them, they both stopped just as two burly men—Watchers—appeared at the door, ready to tackle Lofi.

  Lofi’s wings instantly disappeared, and Draven released Candra’s arm. She flew toward Lofi, Candra’s eyes already filled with tears of shock and fear. She didn’t even know why yet. Her mind refused to wrap around her biggest fear.

  “You have to come now.” Lofi sniffled. “Something awful has happened, just awful. There was nothing anyone could do. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. It was already too late.”

  Candra’s hands were on Lofi’s arms and hers on Candra’s, already grasping at each other for support. “Where’s Brie?” Candra asked shakily as a thick, salty tear rolled down her cheek and over her lips.

  “She’s at the house; I was nearest to here. I tried to call you, but—” she held her other hand up, showing the phone “—I forgot you left it at our house last night, and I had it in my purse to bring it back to you. When I called here, they wouldn’t put me through.”

  Candra glowered over at Ananchel, who made no gesture of remorse. She simply glowered back defiantly. Suddenly Lofi pulled Candra into an embrace, and she felt sick and shaky. Candra’s mind called Sebastian’s name, but her mouth couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “I’m sorry,” Lofi muttered repeatedly.

  Candra’s body felt like jelly; her legs felt empty, not able to hold her weight. Her whole body felt pliable and hollow, as if she would float away at any moment except for Lofi holding her there.

  “It’s Ivy.”

  It was two words, just two tiny words, and Candra felt her whole world implode. Everything went dark as she sagged against Lofi, both devastated and elated in one gut-wrenching and terrifying instant. All the air left her lungs in a terrible wail. Sebastian was safe; he was alive. For a fraction of a second it was just like losing her father all over again. It was her only other experience of death since she didn’t remember her mother. In that moment she had been terrified that Sebastian had done something stupid, because he’d been distracted or worried, that had gotten him killed. Her world had stopped turning. But it was the very same instant when Candra knew he was safe, she realized Ivy wasn’t.

  After Lofi said Ivy was gone, Candra felt the world fade away. Time stopped for her. Candra vaguely recalled demanding to know how Ivy died and then crying, lots of crying. She had covered her ears like a petulant child refusing to listen. She didn’t want to know. Knowing would mean it really happened, and as if a switch flipped inside her, she shut down. The tears continued but nothing else. If she refused to hear how it happened, she could pretend to some degree it was simply another bad dream. Everything began to spin and buzz around her, but she was standing still in the midst of it. She remembered the smell of leather, but she couldn’t remember how she got home. But she knew she was home; it smelled like home.

  Candra had a vague recollection of raised voices and being carried, but she tuned it out—it didn’t matter. She thought about time and decisions and consequences and how every little action in an entire life can mean setting an entirely new course.

  If she had stayed with Ivy instead of running after Sebastian, would Ivy still be here? Her friend would have been safely tucked in bed instead of lying cold on a slab if she’d had the sleepover Ivy wanted. If she had told Ivy the truth, if she had never sat beside Ivy in class the first day they met, if she had turned away when Ivy spoke to her? Candra couldn’t help wondering if any of these choices changed the path of Ivy’s life that led to her death. She imagined time as a living breathing animal that she could corral and tame, a thing she could force her will upon instead of always the other way around. If she could just take back one moment, just one tiny moment in the grand scheme of whatever it was she was giving up everything to save, it would all be different now.

  What if she couldn’t change anything? What if she gave up everything and the Watchers’ war began again regardless? Why should she be the one to sacrifice everything to save the lives of beings that were all going to die eventually, no matter what she did? The Watchers weren’t immortal. They could die, and eventually they all would, one way or another, and still there would be no eternity for them. It was all so unfair.

  Sebastian was thinking about what he had promised Candra as he spent the day watching her drifting in and out of consciousness. Her mind didn’t want to accept the reality of what happened with Ivy, and instead it kept her locked in a semi-waking state where everything was just blurred around the edges enough to make it feel like a dream. He was meant to help her through it, the transition from her life to a life with Draven. It was such utter bullshit. How could he possibly stand there and hand her off to another guy? The part of Sebastian that was her friend—the one that cared for her enough to let her go as long as she was okay—was being repeatedly shot down by the two other parts: the Watcher part that was loath to give in to Draven and the guy part that was emotionally inexperienced with women and was torn between being a gentleman and just going with what he really wanted to do. Sebastian was used to controlling his desires, and having them control him was a whole different situation. So far he was pretty sure he was failing miserably.

  Flying had been an impulse decision, a damned stupid impulse decision. He had gotten caught up in the moment when Candra made him roll down that hill, and he had wanted to share something with her. Sebastian never wanted to share anything with anyone.

  Just before he had taken her up, he felt a rush of excitement, like every molecule in his body was roaring at him, trying to wake him from the stupor he had been walking around in forever. And then, in the clouds, she was suddenly everywhere, and the stunning view around them paled in comparison to her, not just her outward appearance, but everything about her: the way he wanted to touch her, the way she made him crazy and talked him in circles, how he couldn’t help smiling every time he caught her checking him out. He realized the time he spent with her wasn’t for her benefit—it was for his. He hung around so much because of how he felt by just being close to her.

  Sebastian had so many misgivings about everything pressing down on him, and it made him want to scream or fight. But he couldn’t fight the past or change anything he had done, and at the same time, he knew it was his decisions that had brought him to that moment in the sky—Watchers, like humans, were the sum of their experiences. Sebastian truly didn’t want to make another mistake that could potentially leave Candra with a battered and bruised heart or carrying more emotional scars into her new life. Neither could he deny his feelings any longer. They had come flooding out of him in a torrent he couldn’t control.

  He wanted to tell her—he was practically bursting at the seams to tell her—and the setting couldn’t have been more perfect. Up in the clouds was his secret place, where he went to be alone, and it was as if the sky itself had been rooting for him. But he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. Apparently words were not his thing, and so he’d told her a story he had heard once. It was utterly pathetic; for everything
Sebastian had experienced in his life, he couldn’t afford himself the vulnerability of exposing his emotions that way. Then, he had kissed her…and she had kissed him back. Really kissed him back. Words didn’t seem so important any longer.

  Rage had sliced through his body at the sight of Draven waiting for them at the townhouse—and not just at Draven, at himself too. For one glorious, foolish moment, he had allowed himself to believe Candra couldn’t leave him, that there was no way she would be able to walk away after what had just happened between them. It had blackened his rage further to know it was Draven that shattered his illusion, reminding him that his time with Candra was short. He did promise to let her go. A ridiculous promise.

  When he had gotten the call from Brie about the shooting, he had rushed right over to the townhouse. Candra had come through the door, and flung herself across the room, crashing into his arms. That was when the proverbial shit hit the fan. Sebastian had scooped her up as she buried her tear-soaked face into his jacket. Brie wasn’t happy, Gabe wasn’t happy, and Lofi had worn a strange expression of disappointment. He had no idea what was said, because he hadn’t been listening. He could guess it went something along the lines of this being his plan all along. They would have been partially right; he did want Candra to fall for him, and it would have worked too, if he hadn’t gotten so damn close to her and fallen for her instead.

  After that, he had held Candra for a good portion of the day, unwilling to force her to deal with the situation, knowing it made no difference. It wasn’t going to change anything if he let her sleep through her sobs. That turned out to be another wrong decision.

  “Shush,” Sebastian whispered against Candra’s ear. He was lying curled behind her, his fingers soothingly combing through her hair.

  “What time is it?” Candra’s throat was raw, and her chest felt like someone had stood on it. Outside her window, she saw it was nighttime, and her room was in darkness apart from the glow of streetlights.

  “It’s just past midnight. You’ve either been crying or sleeping for most of the day,” Sebastian told her in a hushed voice. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything for you. I felt so helpless just lying here listening to you weeping your heart out all day.” He kissed her head, and then she felt him twist his body away from her to reach behind for something.

  “Here.” He offered Candra a bottle of water.

  Candra had never been so happy to see a bottle of water in her entire life. Her body was stiff and sore from dehydration. Every cell felt as if it had been squeezed of every last ounce of fluid. She took the bottle and pushed herself into a sitting position. They were both still dressed, even down to sneakers. She opened the bottle and drank deeply, stretching her legs and feet.

  Sebastian held out two small white pills. “I could heal you, if you want?”

  “Aspirin is fine.” Candra forced a smile, taking them and gulping them down with her next mouthful of water, at the same time using the toe of one sneaker to push the other off her foot.

  Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “You wouldn’t let me take them off.”

  Candra tilted her head, pushing the other sneaker off with her toes. “Really?”

  “People do weird stuff when they are in shock.” He shrugged.

  She rubbed her face roughly and placed the empty bottle on the bedside table. Sebastian had copied her, taking his shoes off, and she wondered if she had told him he couldn’t either. He was leaning back against the metal frame of the bed with some cushions behind him, looking at her anxiously.

  “What?” he asked.

  Candra’s mind was spinning; it felt like a cyclone was twisting questions around inside there. Her skin felt tight and restrictive. She hated not understanding why everything was happening to her. That was the worst part: the colossal neon sign hanging over her head, reading “Why Me?”

  “I can’t see my life without you anymore.” She frowned worriedly.

  He didn’t say anything at all. He didn’t make any gesture or even so much as blink at the declaration.

  “I can imagine it without everyone else. I can deal with losing everyone else. I hate it. I hate it so much it’s tearing my heart out, but I can imagine it.”

  Still, he made no reaction other than the tiniest twitch at the corner of his lip and the bobbing of his Adam’s apple when he swallowed.

  “I can’t see myself without you anymore. Today, for a second, just for a second, I thought it was you.” Candra’s voice broke with emotion, and Sebastian reached for her hand. She cringed back to the corner of the bed, pushing herself as far from him as she could, like a frightened animal. She didn’t want him to comfort her; she didn’t want comfort from anyone. She didn’t feel like some sort of self-sacrificing half-angel. She was selfish, and in the one instant that mattered, she had put herself before everyone she had ever known.

  Sebastian blinked, and gold glinted in his brown irises from the streetlights. His eyes narrowed, confused by her reaction.

  “Don’t you get it?” Candra pushed, threading her fingers through her hair and pulling it harshly when her fingers caught in knots winding around them. “I was happy. I was more than happy; I was ecstatic that it wasn’t you because I couldn’t see any future without you in it. I would have let them burn. I’m so damned tangled up in you that none of it means anything without you anymore. My friend is dead.” Her heart clenched, and she sucked in a sharp breath that caught in a sob. “My best friend is dead, and the only thing I could think was ‘rather her than you, rather anyone than you.’”

  Sebastian’s calm expression slipped, and she saw it was more than confusion in his eyes; his emotions were as twisted as hers.

  He reached forward, grabbing Candra’s upper arms and pulling her to him, but she fought him, banging her fists violently against his chest.

  “No, don’t. I don’t want you to be nice. I don’t want you hold me…please.”

  He managed to scoot himself up while holding her still. “Candra, stop it. You need to calm down. Stop.”

  Candra continued to pull away, a strange unrecognizable fury boiling in the pit of her stomach like lava, spitting molten rock and spewing chaos and putrid sulfur, tainting the air around her.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

  “It’s the shock, Candra. Breathe…breathe.”

  She was panting, and Sebastian wasn’t holding her arms any longer; he was holding her face tightly, his palms pressed flat against her overheated skin as her chest heaved over and over again. Candra’s fingers were clamped on his shoulders, her nails biting welts into his smooth, golden skin beneath his T-shirt, and his beautiful face was inches from hers.

  Candra had no idea how they had gotten into the position they were in, but he was kneeling in the middle of her bed, and she was sitting astride him on his lap with her legs wrapped around his waist.

  She wanted him. She couldn’t rationalize it, and the words in her head were too jumbled to verbalize the sudden and ferocious need she felt to be as close as physically possible to Sebastian. Each short pant made her chest slam against his, and it wasn’t enough. The muscles in his jaw clenched and twitched, and his fierce gaze seemed to penetrate the confusion raging inside her to see what she needed. His reluctance was evident in his expression. Candra couldn’t blame him. She was acting like a crazy person, but she needed to think about something else. She needed to feel something else beside the overwhelming fear and pain coursing through her body, and the heavy weight of responsibility and loss threatening to pulverize her.

  Sebastian dropped his arms to Candra’s waist, holding her tighter than she’d ever been held in her life. So tight, she was sure it would leave bruises. Deep inside, some dark part of her cried out for more, wanting to be marked to prove it was real, that he was really there, that angels did exist, and that she belonged to Sebastian, that she wasn’t simply crazy.

  Candra leaned her forehead against Sebastian’s shoulder, breathing in his scent and commi
tting it to memory, then she turned her head to the side so her temple rested against him. His arms shifted slightly. It wasn’t to tighten; it was more like he was getting comfortable, assuming she was resting her head to sleep. She wasn’t. Candra shifted her own body to compensate and heard the sharp hiss through his clenched teeth.

  Hooking her fingers into the neck of his T-shirt, she pulled it out of the way so she could touch her lips to the skin over his collarbone before opening her mouth a little to run her tongue in a circle over his warm flesh.

  “You can’t do that,” Sebastian complained, but tilted his head to the side, letting her drag her mouth up his throat to the warm, slightly salty skin below his ear.

  She could feel his blood pumping under his skin, his heartbeat, the part that made him more human than angel, more like her.

  In a sudden blur of movement, Candra was on her back with Sebastian hovering above her, one hand pressed into the bed by her head and the other at the top of her thigh, holding her leg around his hip. His eyes were closed, concentrating and moving behind his eyelids with each deep breath. Candra didn’t have time to react, or move or say anything at all before the gold mist that she knew so well now rolled over his back and his wings shot out through his T-shirt as they reached past the edge of the bed on either side, enclosing them both.

  “Shit,” Sebastian growled under his breath and grimaced in frustration.

  When his eyes opened, Candra recognized the need in them, a need he was fighting with every ounce of willpower he processed. When his mouth pressed hard against hers, she could feel he was losing the fight and she was winning. This…the heat, the fire that erupted inside her belly and the way her heart just sang with pure joy because she was touching Sebastian, this was what she wanted.

  All too soon he dragged his lips away and kissed her cheek gently.

  “I told you, you can’t do that,” he groaned next to Candra’s ear. “I need to stay in control. You’re in shock, and you’re grieving. I can’t be with you now, not like this. It’s for all the wrong reasons. You know it, and I know it.”