Iridescent (Ember 2)

by Carol Oates

  “Not as a Watcher, Sebastian,” Candra warned, stroking her fingers along his forearm and loving the way tiny goose bumps rose up under her touch. Sebastian’s role as leader of the Nuhra made him intimidating when he wanted to be. His return to Acheron had caused Brie to retreat into herself, convinced she had failed at protecting Candra. Brie had been unable to stand up to Sebastian after an eternity of following his lead. She still struggled but made a point about holding her ground over their relationship. She didn’t approve. “Talk to her as her brother.”

  Sebastian chuckled somberly. “I’m not so sure reminding Brie of the slight age difference between you and me is the way to lead into this conversation.”

  Candra lifted her hand over her shoulder and smoothed it around Sebastian’s neck. She turned her head a little to see his face. His warm breath touched her skin, mint and spice—pure Sebastian.

  “Maybe if you were a human boy, age would mean something, but you are not a human boy, and I’m not a human girl. Talk to her as her friend, then. She knows how I feel. You need to make her believe you mean it too. I’m over eighteen, and I want to be with you. I don’t want it to cost you a relationship with Brie. I don’t want to defy her unless I absolutely have to. She deserves our respect.”

  Sebastian’s arms tightened, and gold sparks flared in his eyes. His strong heart pounded faster and heavier against her spine. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You make me feel worthy. You make this feel right, despite everything else.”

  Candra laughed, fighting off the warm shiver prickling over her skin. This moment was another of the reasons she loved him. Candra was capable of appreciating the fine physical specimen of a man wrapped around her like a blanket, but her feelings for him sprang from somewhere deeper and darker. It was his sadness; his beautiful torment had the power to stop her heart in her chest, and his gentle touch made her ache. The same hand that had ripped monsters limb from limb caressed her cheek as though she was made from the most delicate china. His stubbornness kept her safe while grudgingly allowing her enough freedom to make her own decisions. The place where the warrior, the angel, and the stubborn young man met was the place where Candra fell in love with him.

  Sebastian’s mouth came down on hers.

  Candra giggled. “Morning breath,” she mumbled against his kiss.

  “I don’t care,” he mumbled right back.

  “I need a shower.” She wasn’t complaining about his lips peppering kisses. Her fingers curled into his hair, and her body automatically twisted toward him like a plant might open itself up to the radiance of the sun.

  Without warning, Sebastian scooped her up into his arms. The air left her lungs in a great gasp of noise. Sometimes, his movements were a little disconcerting, faster than seemed possible, but no more impossible than the existence of angels and demons. She dragged a mental curtain across that particular thought for the moment. Right now, she didn’t want to be a solitary Nephilim with a soul. She didn’t want to think of the Nuhra or the Tenebras. She didn’t want to look at Sebastian as a light bringer—Lucifer.

  No, what she wanted was for Sebastian to make her forget it all. Her insides churned delightfully, melting away her anxiety. Only now matters, she told herself. If this is all we have, we have to make it matter. The idea of his hands on her bare skin erased everything else. Candra believed Sebastian could make her forget her own name if he chose to. Which was why it confused her when he stood, carrying her as if she weighed nothing at all.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, clinging onto his neck even though she had complete faith Sebastian would never drop her. She had flown with him, after all. If he hadn’t dropped her from the sky, he wasn’t going to do it on the way to his bathroom. His bathroom.

  Candra uselessly struggled against him. He was too strong and too fast. In a matter of seconds, they were both under the warming spray, fully clothed. Sebastian even left his boots on. Candra continued to struggle, simultaneously laughing and distracted by the way water ran in rivulets over his clothes, soaking them both.

  “You smell like an Irish man,” he teased, placing her on the shower floor and pouring a musky-scented soap over her head.

  In her bare feet, and with Sebastian still in his boots, Candra came up to eye level with his upper chest.

  “You’re insane,” she scolded him, but failed miserably at keeping any sort of annoyance in her voice.

  Sebastian lathered the soap into her hair, grinning down at her as the room filled with steam. She especially loved this part of Sebastian, the carefree part, the part of him that could be with her without the weight of the past crushing him. She so rarely saw it.

  Without conscious decision, her hands trailed down the wet cotton, stopping when his stomach sucked in. Candra bit her lip and held very still. Neither of them seemed to be breathing, and the one sound was the constant tinkling of water against tile. Sebastian’s fingers remained in her hair, and Candra peeked up through wet eyelashes to see him watching her intently. His jaw set, and his cheeks flushed. Candra’s heart fluttered inside her chest. She felt like a small animal in the sights of a predator.

  She had always known Sebastian might be dangerous. Something always simmered below his skin, a scorching, righteous passion forever on the verge of exploding into an inferno with the slightest provocation. He was a force of heaven with an exquisite, virile presence. A weak person could so easily lose herself in him completely. Sebastian would never allow her to be that person. Therefore, she balanced on the precipice of oblivion, where love provided both freedom to soar and security to keep her grounded.

  Sebastian’s palms flattened tenderly against the side of her head, tilting her face to his. “I love you.” His soft lips swept across hers chastely before he pulled back to look at her again. His brown eyes were fierce and full of longing.

  It made Candra’s chest swell and her blood heat. She circled his wrists with her fingers. “We will make this work.”

  Sebastian smiled, his expression pure satisfaction, like the cat that got the cream. He straightened and angled her head back under the spray to rinse the suds from her hair.

  Chapter Seven

  SEBASTIAN NEVER SPENT MUCH TIME evaluating his relationships. They were always just there, like a heartbeat…or air. He didn’t share blood with his family, but they claimed him as their own, just as he claimed them. They shared something reaching beyond the bounds of genetic code. Their connection didn’t begin and end with the shape of a nose or hair color. They always showed up when he needed them to. They knew him inside out, for better or worse, and stayed by his side regardless. They called him on his faults, but never deserted him—at least, that had once been true. Sebastian accepted he only had himself to blame for what had changed.

  Payne and Gabe had both been like brothers to him, despite parting ways for a long time after the war. None could bear to look in the eyes of the other and see the terror they’d reaped reflected back. As time had passed, the others seemed to heal. Gabe, Ambriel, Payne, and Lofi all moved on, and Sebastian felt left behind and jealous. He couldn’t let go the way they had. Part of Sebastian needed to cling to the past and to his distrust of the Tenebras. Without his history, what was he? A man without purpose or direction, a week-old newspaper scattered across an empty street by a breeze, something that once had worth but contained nothing of relevance any longer.

  Ironically, when he’d returned to Acheron and found Candra, he hadn’t turned to his family. The first person he’d gone to for advice was probably the very last person on the planet who should ever offer him comfort. Sandal’s child had been the first to experience the steel of his blade. He hadn’t gone to her seeking forgiveness, only understanding, which she’d offered unreservedly.

  The real torment began for Sebastian the first time he’d spilled blood. Afterward, he’d spent years in a constant struggle to reconcile the man with the sleeping monster. He hated that part of him, but he couldn’t
regret his actions. His determination to protect Candra was never about seeking atonement, as his family so often believed. The monster resided quietly inside him now; it had become part of him long ago. He supposed he was the monster as much as it was him, but who would want a monster dating their daughter? Who would lay their child at the mouth of a sleeping beast?

  Sebastian asked himself the same question repeatedly as he paced back and forth by the stone boulders in the small park near Saint Francis College. They could have been some form of modern art, except Sebastian knew from memory that these stones were anything but modern. Over time, people sitting on them had worn some spots down. He made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort when his line of sight found the statue nearby, wide wings extended and its hands raised to heaven. Ambriel had made him swear not to tell Candra what he was, so he had shown her instead…standing in the shadow of the angel.

  He spotted Brie approaching from the park gate in the distance, wrapped up against the elements in a long, padded black jacket. Her appearance was in stark contrast to the muted tones of winter around her, the faded greens and muddy browns. A nondescript shade of pale blue filled in with off-white cotton ball clouds made up the sky.

  This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. In his wildest imagination, he couldn’t have dreamt it. Mostly because if they were never meant to have children, how could he have foreseen he would fall in love with Payne’s child?

  Sebastian didn’t want Ambriel to think he’d ambushed her. He planned to put her at ease from the beginning; however, as she came closer, the prospect of that scenario seemed to fade quickly.

  “Hey.” She smiled, her eyes guarded and suspicious. The skin across her face had pinked up in the cold breeze and tightened over her cheekbones. The same tension trickled down her back, making her shoulders rise almost to the point that she lost her neck behind the dark gray scarf wrapped around her.

  Sebastian strained, searching for some part of him to pick up on her emotions, other than guessing them by looking at her. There was nothing but empty air between them.

  “Hey.” He retrieved, from one of the stone grooves in a boulder, the two take-out coffees he had bought on his way here. “Cream and two sugars,” he said, handing her one of the cups. Steam rose in a slim ribbon from the hole in the lid, indicating he hadn’t been waiting for her long. It seemed like forever and a day to him.

  “What’s going on, Sebastian? Why are we meeting here?” she asked apprehensively and then blew into the lid before taking a sip. She kept her gaze on him. He knew her well enough to suspect she already had an indication of the purpose of their meeting.

  His stomach twisted, and nausea threatened to weaken his resolve. What made him think a cup of coffee would make this any easier? The several strong cups he’d had earlier gurgled inside him while the caffeine worked on his brain. It ticked over too fast for him to keep up, and his skull felt like it was shrinking. This had to be the equivalent of a migraine. Man up, he scolded himself.

  “The setting seemed fitting.” His easy tone shocked him, not reflecting his insides in the slightest.

  Sebastian gestured for Ambriel to sit. She continued to watch him dubiously, alternating momentary peeks at the stone, as if it might jump up and come to life. His heart boomed inside his ears, reminding him of the insistent ticking of the grandfather clock that once took up space in the study of the brownstone. With the wretched thing’s constant tick, tick, tick…how was he supposed to concentrate?

  Should it be this difficult? Yeah, because some things were worth standing up for, regardless of the cost. Sebastian suspected today, the cost could include vital organs he had grown rather attached to.

  “It’s about Candra…” he began and then trailed off.

  Ambriel stiffened further. He wasn’t sure how that was possible and feared she would crack apart like glass under pressure at any moment.

  Get a grip, Sebastian. Talking to himself wouldn’t make this conversation go any smoother, since every time he did, all it achieved was stretching time out further. He considered the possibility he lacked whatever genetic code made it possible for beings to form and keep relationships, since Gabe never made love look this hard. The opposite, Gabe made loving Ambriel look effortless, although Sebastian knew it couldn’t be.

  “She’s okay,” Ambriel pushed, visibly irritated with his stalling. Her jaw quickly twitched several times, suggesting she was chewing the inside of her cheek.

  “Yes,” he assured her. Sebastian made a conscious effort to smooth the frown he knew she was fixated on, making her worry more that she should. He placed his cup back on the boulder, since it was nothing more than a pointless accessory, a useless prop. The taste in his mouth was bitter enough already without drinking more of the tar he called coffee. “I wanted to talk to you…I mean…I wanted to ask.” He paused and pulled in a lungful of cold air, forcing it back out through teeth firmly pressed together.

  Ambriel lowered her head and flicked at the rim of the plastic lid with her thumbnail, the clicking growing more insistent with her exasperation.

  “You want me to believe you are good enough for her when you can’t even come up with the words to tell me how you feel?” Her statement was blunt and direct, intended to cut him to the quick. She’d probably rehearsed it in her head, knowing this conversation was coming and knowing he would fall at the final hurdle before admitting his feelings out loud.

  Sebastian recoiled from them internally, but stood his ground. “I love her.” Ambriel’s accusation shook him. He compared it to the moment light hits a blade and blinds the poor sap about to be struck down.

  He didn’t need it pointed out to him; Sebastian knew he didn’t deserve her. Regardless, Candra had chosen him.

  Ambriel shook her head and sipped her coffee without saying a word. Sebastian ducked down, trying to see her eyes under her dark hair and hoped it would give him some clue to what was going on inside her head. Her blank expression told him nothing, and his anxiety doubled up. Sebastian had no desire to offend Ambriel, but he didn’t have a back-up plan if she tried to put a wedge between them. He decided to give honesty a go. What would it hurt?

  “I tried not to. I really tried very hard—”

  “Not hard enough,” she broke in coldly.

  “Ambriel, please don’t—”

  Her anger ignited like a match struck against a wall, radiating toward him in waves. “Don’t what, Sebastian? You can’t tell me what to do anymore.” Her voice carried a weight absent on so many occasions lately, a weight that screamed, “You did not just go there.” She sprang up from the boulder, fast as lighting and, he suspected, just as dangerous.

  Sebastian stepped back tentatively, more for her sake than his, abundantly aware of how his temper could explode. Ambriel got right up into his face and stared him down, eyes blazing with determination and jaw set in incredulous anger. It would have been easy for him to forget himself if she said or did the wrong thing. It seemed not long ago, she had been his sparring partner. Now, he might hurt her by accident, given the right provocation.

  “I’m not—”

  “You’ve always been this way. The Arch knows I love you, but your torment…it was crushing. You made your choice, Sebastian, just like the rest of us did. You carry this—” she waved her hand in a small circle around his heart “—this burden as if it was forced upon you. Now what, you’re going to tell me you couldn’t help yourself?”

  “I…”

  Her eyes grew watery, but she made no effort to look away or hide the emotions bubbling to the surface at a disturbing rate. Her obvious frustration and hurt made any words he wanted to speak quite literally catch in his throat. He swallowed and clenched his fist, distracting himself with the sharp sting of his nails biting into his palm.

  Ambriel trembled when she spoke again in a voice devoid of any discernible emotion. “I should have stepped in—I know I should have. You made me feel weak and pointless—Sebastian, the great leader of the
Nuhra, and Ambriel, his sidekick.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Sebastian told her softly. At least, that wasn’t how he remembered. Ambriel was always the stronger of them, always showing the control and self-awareness he woefully lacked. A powerful warrior—that was how he remembered her.

  She rolled her eyes, and a small smile played at the corners of her lips but didn’t completely reach her sad gaze. “Oh, please.” She blinked and stepped back, keeping her eyes on his as if they were laser beams straight into his soul.

  He felt exposed and more open than he’d ever been. Before Candra, he’d had bravado and a lopsided grin. He’d used deflection so others couldn’t look too closely, knowing if they did, he would too. Why hadn’t Ambriel mentioned any of this before? It seemed to him she’d saved it up for when she could damage him the most.

  One hand found her hip—or where he estimated her hip would be under the bulky coat—and the other balanced the coffee cup at her other side. “But you know what? I’m not that weak sidekick any longer.”

  No. No, she wasn’t. She was an angry lioness guarding her young from a vicious predator. Part of him saw straight through her deteriorating mortal exterior to what she had been before: formidable, fierce, and righteous. Sebastian didn’t expect the accompanying wave of relief that assaulted him, causing him to shiver and his lungs to constrict uncomfortably. Until then, he hadn’t known how much and how deeply the wounds created by her absence went, how utterly discarded and alone she’d left him. Seeing her now at least proved she still existed.

  “I needed you,” Sebastian admitted, and it was a dagger removed from his back to say the words. “I was nothing without you. Didn’t you have some idea I would fall apart without you there to hold me up?”

  “No.” She shook her head again. “You didn’t need me. You needed to go home. I couldn’t give you that, and I couldn’t stay.” Her voice hitched. “But I won’t let you punish me by hurting her.”