Ember (The Ember Series)

by Carol Oates

  Candra felt the tears well up again and flow down her temple and into her hair. Then, silently, just as he had done the night before, Sebastian kissed away her tears, trailing his warm mouth over her temple and then toward her jaw to the hollow at the base of her throat and back up to her lips again. Painstakingly slowly, making sure to catch every tear. Candra kept her eyes closed the whole time, hooking her thumbs into the loops of his jeans. Until finally Sebastian rolled onto his back—his wings had disappeared—and took her with him to lie against his chest, so that they were at the wrong end of the bed.

  “Your wings.” Candra only needed to say those words, and she knew he’d understand her question about their sudden appearance. It wasn’t exactly like she didn’t know the answer. She knew Sebastian and the other Watchers needed to maintain control of their emotions to keep their wings hidden.

  “You took me by surprise, and I haven’t got quite the same control with you that I did with others,” he said matter-of-factly. “It won’t happen like that again.”

  Others. The appearance of his wings didn’t have the ability to remind Candra where she was and who she was with, but that one word did. Sebastian wasn’t just another guy to fool around with. He wasn’t even human. He was a Watcher angel with thousands of years and probably thousands of women in his past. But they were just women to him, bodies to distract himself with. Apparently she wasn’t. If they kept going, it wouldn’t only be a distraction; it would mean something more, and neither of them were ready for that.

  Her breakdown was an attempt at avoidance. Candra knew Sebastian wasn’t prepared to let her just run away from what happened to Ivy. Pain began to swamp her mind, heart, and body. She didn’t want to deal with this. There was no other distraction she could throw in her own way. Anything she was going to feel would hit her like a tidal wave yet again in a matter of moments.

  “How did she die?” Candra asked.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Daylight had flooded the room by the time Sebastian had managed to drag his eyes open a few hours earlier, and the very first thought that had stuck him was: one day. That was all the time they had left before the ball. His second thought had centered on the mess of chocolate and dark gold-colored hair splayed out across his chest and the small murmur of dispute that Candra had released when he’d shifted her away from him a little. Last night had been confusing in the worst possible way. She had practically thrown herself at him, and in a move that Sebastian considered would probably lose him his guy stripes forever, he’d had to say no.

  Everything seemed to be turning into one nightmare after another after another, beginning the day he had found Brie and Candra. If he could take that day back now, he would in a heartbeat, but then he wouldn’t have woken up with Candra’s eyelashes fluttering against his chest. Of course, he had finally caught on to what Lofi could see from the beginning: His reasons for wanting to stick close to Candra were not as innocent as he wanted to believe. Sebastian was in love for the first time ever, and he couldn’t say with any honesty that he was enjoying it. If they had never flown, he could have continued to live in blissful ignorance. It was then, as he’d swept Candra up into the air and had experienced the most overwhelming feeling of wanting to keep her there forever, that he’d known.

  He couldn’t pinpoint the moment it happened. He’d like to think it was a gradual thing from the moments he spent watching her and then getting to know her, but he did know the moment he realized it.

  At least he hadn’t turned into some kind of lovesick puppy, he reasoned. He still felt like himself. Everything about him was still the same, just with the added realization that he was actually capable of a level of emotion he’d never considered possible. He wasn’t different around Candra, just a better version of himself. It didn’t matter because in one day it would all be over.

  When she’d finally woken during the night and he’d given her some aspirin, she’d been so distraught and furious that she’d rambled about it being him that had died. Like a total messed-up, love-poisoned idiot, he had let her because it had felt good to hear it, regardless of whether she meant it or not, but he had been totally unprepared. Sebastian had known the moment she had straddled his legs that they were headed into dangerous, uncharted territory for him. He had never brought feelings into the equation before in intimate relations. Anyone else, any other time, he would have just gone with it, but he didn’t.

  Instead, Sebastian had told her what he knew. Ivy had walked into a store and had become a statistic when some guy had decided to commit armed robbery and another guy working behind the counter had decided to try to stop him. Ivy had been caught in the crossfire, and being human, there had been nothing any of them could have done to save her after she’d been fatally injured. The Watchers keeping an eye on her had been powerless.

  Candra had been angry again when he’d finished, but fortunately for Sebastian, managed to refrain from striking him. She cried and had refused to accept that no one could have helped Ivy and demanded to know what use they were if they couldn’t save one human girl who had only just begun to live. She had even begged a little until he convinced her it wasn’t their decision when someone’s time ran out.

  He could see it was hitting her hard; he had never seen so many tears come from one human being. Candra’s emotions were raw, inflamed, and she was vulnerable. He didn’t have the perspective or experience to deal with what she was feeling. Sebastian was all tapped out from merely holding her. Be that as it may, he tried to compare it to how he felt when Brie left, his only frame of reference for losing someone so unexpectedly and cruelly.

  Even then he couldn’t, because he didn’t deal. At least Candra had some fight in her. For Sebastian, it had been a matter of simply refusing to believe Brie’s defection was reality. His denial had been palpable for several months. He had carried it around with him like a shield, and every time someone had tried to fling the reality that she was gone from his life, he had held his shield up. He had stayed on his side where his delusion kept him from accepting that Brie hadn’t been stolen away from him. He had only recently accepted the truth: that Brie felt her path in life lay elsewhere.

  If he couldn’t deal with his shit, how was he ever going to help Candra deal with hers? Even now as Candra moved, dragging her thigh up his leg, it was pretty difficult to not think of what could have happened the previous night.

  She shifted again, and Sebastian knew she was waking. A quick glance at the clock beside her bed told him it was already late afternoon. He kissed the top of her hair as she moved again, stretching her body against him. Sebastian could smell himself on her and smiled, then cringed a little. Really was that all it took? he berated himself. Clearly there was a Neanderthal part of him after all and it wanted to acknowledge he was spending nights in Candra’s bed, which meant she was his, when he knew she belonged to no one but herself. If she belonged to him, he would never allow her to make the decisions she was making. If she belonged to Draven, she would already be gone.

  She wrapped her arms around him tightly and hummed into his chest, still fighting sleep. Sebastian wanted to let her, thinking she must still be tired, and yet there was the other part, the part that selfishly shifted and fidgeted, knowing he would wake her, because they were wasting time.

  Sebastian instantly felt like crap when Candra looked at him with eyes still swollen and bloodshot from crying. Her pupils dilated almost indiscernibly, and he saw the instant she went from that waking state where everything was confused to remembering with savage clarity. Her lips turned down at the corners, and her flushed face suddenly paled. Her bottom lip pouted and quivered as her heart picked up pace, banging an uneven beat again his chest.

  She silently searched his expression in an effort to garner some reassurance that the day before had been nothing but a bad dream. It was reassurance Sebastian couldn’t give her.

  After a moment, Candra sighed painfully and placed her head against Sebastian’s chest.

  His
T-shirt grew damp where her tears began to fall again.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered for what felt like the thousandth time.

  Candra sniffled, abruptly sitting up, raking her fingers through her tangled hair. Without a word, she scooted to the edge of the bed and stood, taking a deep breath that caused her slim shoulders to rise and fall sharply. It was only when she turned her head to the side and Sebastian saw her face in profile that he knew something was very wrong. Her eyes were damp and her pale skin was blotched over her cheeks, at least where he could see through her hair, but there was no emotion in her expression, in the way she held her body ramrod straight or in her eyes. She looked distant, like a ghost.

  Sebastian instinctively reached forward to grab her hand, only to have her snatch it away. A weird, alien feeling shot through him. Was this what rejection felt like? If so, he had no desire to feel it again. He sat up, frowning, and pulled his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them and pushed out a harsh breath through clenched teeth. He threaded his fingers through his hair, trying to make sense of yet another twist in Candra’s behavior.

  “Thank you for staying with me,” she said quietly.

  It caught Sebastian off balance. Where else would he be? He had been with her every night for months.

  “I’m going to take a shower, and then I need to go to Ivy’s house to pay my respects,” she said, taking a black dress from her wardrobe.

  “Candra,” he started kindly as she once again turned her face away. He didn’t know how to say it without sounding cruel. “Her body won’t have been released yet. There will be procedures. Any services won’t take place for days.”

  The fingers of Candra’s hand nearest to him twitched, but that was good, he thought. It meant she was feeling something. When she spoke again, her voice was shaky, like she was trying to talk normally but couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Ivy’s family is Irish. It’s a tradition. They will be expecting me there today. Ivy is my friend, and I’m going.”

  Sebastian nodded even though she couldn’t see him, and he watched her walk into her bathroom and close the door, never once making eye contact. It wasn’t lost on him that she referred to Ivy in the present tense, and he wondered if she was taking refuge behind a shield of her own, in a vain attempt to protect herself from all the changes in her life that she had little or no control over.

  The water felt fantastic. Candra was sore all over; even her hair hurt. It sort of reminded her of the hangover she’d suffered after drinking angel wine. The only difference was that she needed more than pain medication and water to make the feeling go away. Candra washed her hair and scrubbed her skin much harder than necessary as she tried to dissect what she was feeling…slightly numb, but even the thought of Ivy and the terrible fear she must have felt in the moments before her death made a painful sob catch in Candra’s throat. She swallowed it down, pressing her lips together. She knew Sebastian was hovering right outside the bathroom door; she could see his shadow under the small gap at the bottom.

  It was so beyond messed up. She should have told Ivy the truth; she should have told Sebastian the truth about what happened with Draven instead of pouncing on him in the middle of the night. The thought made her already heated cheeks burn. She closed her eyes and placed her face directly under the scalding spray. She had read once that it was natural to want to do something life affirming when a loved one died. She couldn’t completely write her behavior off as that, simply because she didn’t think she would have had the same reaction if she had woken up with anyone else by her side. The fact remained that she had fallen in love with Sebastian, and she wanted to be close to him.

  In the cold light of day, Candra felt differently. Once again, her life had changed forever. Yet to her shame, every thought was for herself, not for Ivy. She should have told Ivy the truth about what she was and about angels because it would have alleviated her own conscience. Then again, how could it possibly have made Ivy’s life better to know supernatural creatures existed? Candra was sad for herself because Ivy was the one relationship she—maybe—could have held onto, and now she didn’t have that. Of course there was the instant she had actually been glad it was Ivy and not Sebastian. What kind of a monster did that make her? Maybe Draven was wrong from the beginning; maybe they all were. Candra wondered if she wasn’t just a soulless monster like all the other Nephilim. She had never felt as flawed or weak, or human, in her life.

  Candra turned off the spray and saw the shadow disappear from under the door. When she was growing up, she’d wanted to save the world. She’d wanted to help people and learn to heal. The day she’d told Sebastian she was going to accept Draven, she’d felt empowered because she was doing something that no one else in the world was capable of. She’d had delusions of grandeur. How could she save the world when she couldn’t even save Ivy? The worst kind of death was reserved for those left breathing, knowing that they were insignificant and powerless against it.

  Her hand lifted gingerly to the mirror in front of her and wiped the condensation away. She grazed one finger over her own reflection, tracing the still slightly swollen skin below her eyes.

  Candra knew that she was lying to herself again. She pretended that every step she took toward Sebastian was insignificant and pushed it from her mind, but each one was momentous in its own way, and she was always moving toward him. One step forward, and one smaller step back, inching toward him and the future which still seemed inevitable; both of them would end this with a broken heart. Or they would be together in the midst of a war, and right now, Candra couldn’t help at least considering it. She was already so close to the abyss. All it would take was one more short step to fall in and disappear, because surely choosing war made her no better than the old Nephilim. Would Sebastian even want her if he knew the battle raging inside her?

  She dried her hair and dressed slowly in a black wrap dress and high-heel pumps. She looked like a grown-up, a calm, controlled grown-up, and she was glad of that one mercy. No one would be able to judge from her exterior that she was falling apart on the inside or that she didn’t feel mature at all. She felt like a little kid who wanted to be held, cuddled, and told that she was safe and the big bad world could never hurt her. She wanted Sebastian to be that person.

  When Candra came back out, Sebastian was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands folded in his lap. He stood up immediately, and his eyebrows drew down as he took in her appearance. He clucked his tongue, waving his hand up and down his body.

  “I should probably stop by the house to change before we go.”

  “You don’t need to,” Candra said as she put her phone and keys into a shoulder bag. She kept her back to him, aware of the coolness of her tone, and she knew he’d pick up on it.

  “I want to,” Sebastian assured her. “You made an effort. I should too.”

  Candra bit the inside of her cheek, guessing from his tone that Sebastian’s eyes would be burning holes in her back as he tried to understand the abrupt change in her behavior. She closed her eyes tightly and breathed out heavily through her nose. “No, I mean you don’t need to come with me. I can go by myself. I’m sure Brie will drop by after work. I can catch a ride home with her.”

  Candra turned, keeping her expression guarded and her eyes trained on the sharp outline of his collarbone through his T-shirt. She didn’t want him to know why she was doing this. Of anyone, Sebastian was the one person she didn’t want to see her defeated, because that was how she felt. What good did it do her to have a best friend and loving her dearly, only to have her snatched away when Candra needed her the most? What good did it do her to have a mother in Brie when she would never be allowed a relationship with her? And what good did it do to love Sebastian, when she was going lose him too? Love didn’t feel like a blessing anymore; it felt like a curse…a punishment. Candra truly believed she was doing him a kindness. Telling him how she felt would only be condemning him to the same fate as her: a lifetime of knowing it had
all been for nothing. At least for her, it would be over relatively quickly. For him, it would be much different.

  Like a heartbeat, time quickened when least expected. It skipped beats, and in the blink of an eye, another day was passed, but sometimes it slowed to the lethargic, strained tick tock of a waiting heart. For a heart left behind to sit on the sidelines and watch life pass by hour by hour, moment by moment, time could be a long road stretching into the horizon with seemingly no destination. For a perpetual heart like Sebastian’s, there was no measure of time, and his pain would be endless. Candra would spare him that, if she could.

  Candra was a dark path for Sebastian. She could so easily choose having the blood of thousands or hundreds of thousands, both human and Watcher, on her hands over being without him. She guessed that Sebastian thought she’d said the things she’d said out of shock, which was only partly true. He believed she was fundamentally good; he’d given that as the reason he didn’t kill her. Sebastian had misjudged her, and it was better for him that he didn’t know it.

  “Look at me, damn it. You think by now that I don’t know you’re avoiding me when you do that?” he spat angrily. He could see right through her.

  Candra moved her gaze to Sebastian’s eyes, holding the bag in front of her body protectively and remaining expressionless. His jaw was clenched tightly, and the sound of him gulping cut through the sudden quiet in the room. He stared at her beseechingly, his brown eyes wild and mystified.

  She wondered if he expected her to relent as soon as she looked at him, but it wasn’t that simple. She wasn’t good in the way he believed her to be. She attracted tragedy the way the old Nephilim attracted it. It wasn’t like Candra had started to believe she was evil, but the desire inside her to stay with Sebastian, regardless of cost, was so strong. It left her wondering whether malevolence was more dominant within her than he wanted to believe.