by Carol Oates
So, just like every other time since the morning of the ball, Sebastian backed off. Candra propped herself up on her elbows, with messed hair, flushed cheeks, and a look of sheer exasperation on her face.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly, watching Sebastian’s uncharacteristic nervous excitement.
His hand curled into fists with his nails pressed into his palms. After three steady inhales and exhales, Sebastian was sure he had calmed himself enough so his wings, tingling below his skin, would remain unseen. His wings, he thought and barked out a laugh that made Candra jump, although her questioning smile didn’t falter.
“I have to go.”
“What are you waiting for?” Candra sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. She closed her slender fingers around the hem of his T-shirt and gently tugged him toward her, her head tilted back to focus on his downturned face.
He moved unwillingly, wanting to be anywhere else. Temptation crackled in the air like static. Her other hand crept underneath his T-shirt. Sebastian raked his fingers through his hair, scratching across his scalp to distract from Candra’s nails gently teasing down his stomach toward the band of his jeans. The scent of her apple shampoo filled his head, and the combination made it hard to think straight. He practically swooned before he came to his senses.
“You’ve bewitched me, Candra,” he groaned and covered her hands with his to remove them from his body. His heart and his gut warred against him every step of the way. “The way I feel about you, it’s here—” he flattened her palm over his heart “—in every beat, growing unbidden. Sometimes, I think it was there all along, sleeping and waiting for you.” He smiled. “I sound like an idiot.”
“No.” She returned his smile. “It’s sort of refreshing. I spent so long questioning myself and wondering if you felt anything at all.”
“I don’t want to get this wrong,” he admitted, flinching at the almost debilitating fear it stirred up in him to talk about his feelings. Feelings were uncontrollable, unstoppable…regardless of whether or not they were welcome. It went against his very nature to give up control.
Candra lowered her head and took her hand away from his chest. She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed his palm. When Candra lifted her eyes, they were glassy with unshed tears. “The past is gone, and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s dust if we want it to be, stardust, nothing more…we can shake it off and move on.” Her hushed voice broke. “Maybe we’ll have tomorrow, maybe we won’t, but I do know we have right now, and I don’t want to gamble on wasting a moment. Do you?”
Chapter Thirteen
“NATHANIEL, I WONDERED when you’d show your ugly face.” Draven greeted his old friend with good-natured teasing.
The giant male slapped his hand into Draven’s and shook it soundly, clapping his other hand against his bicep. “Who are you calling ugly?”
Nathaniel was about as ugly as any of the Watchers, and that meant not at all. At six foot six of brawny muscle and a clean-shaven head, he was, without a doubt, one of the more intimidating. Added to that his penchant for black clothing, and he wasn’t the type of guy anyone would pick a fight with. His expensive tailored suit and Mediterranean skin tone gave him the appearance of someone who had walked straight out of a mafia movie.
“What are you feeding me?” Nathaniel asked, licking his lips before flashing his signature, blinding smile.
Draven opened the chrome fridge behind him and pulled out another wrapped steak, waving the pack in Nathaniel’s direction. He also grabbed a clear glass bottle, three-quarters full of an amber liquid sloshing around inside. The bottle contained wine, although of the angel variety, much stronger and drunk like brandy or whiskey. His fully-appointed kitchen was probably a little over-the-top as far as home kitchens went, but it was sort of a comfort zone to him. That was particularly important since he didn’t enjoy going outside much. He liked to cook and he liked to eat, so preparing food relaxed him. The large space would have put any medium-sized restaurant to shame, and his glass-fronted cabinets, filled with equipment and supplies, proved he made good use of the kitchen.
“Excellent. You remember how I like it?”
Draven went back to the island in the center of the room, over which a large frame held a myriad of pots and pans. He continued with the salad he had been preparing before Nathaniel’s arrival interrupted him. “Skin it, gut it, and slap it on the plate while it’s still mooing.”
Nathaniel laughed, a booming sound that seemed to rattle the cupboards. He sat down on one of the high stools, fixing his steel blue eyes on Draven, and rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.
Draven had been expecting this visit from his old friend, and frankly, he was surprised it had taken him so long to show up. “When did you get into town?” Draven smirked, tossing the towel over his shoulder and retrieving two glasses from an overhead cabinet.
“Just got here. I didn’t think you needed another complication.”
Draven nodded, getting back to slicing onions. “It’s been a long time.”
“Fast approaching twenty years.” Nathaniel snatched up a slice of potato Draven had prepared to sauté. “I’m guessing she’s still pissed?”
Draven paused and looked at his friend. He raised his eyebrows and barked out a laugh. The guy might be a man mountain, but he was delusional if he thought he could scare Ananchel.
Nathaniel frowned, creasing up his brow. “Shit.”
Draven laughed. “She’ll get over it, but you shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”
Nathaniel shrugged off his suit jacket and dropped it on the stool to his right. His sweet musk aftershave irritated Draven’s nose. The fragrance didn’t mix well with the aroma of food and spices already circulating through the warm room.
“She never would have let me leave, you know that.” He kept his eyes on Draven as he unbuttoned his sleeves and began turning them up over massive corded forearms.
“True.” Draven shrugged and did a double take. Although huge, somehow Draven remembered him being even bigger. The Nathaniel of his memory existed as over seven feet tall. He thought it funny how the mind worked. Even their minds, with infinite memory to both comfort and torment them. Vistas seemed less spectacular, fading like a sunset into darkness, parties less crowded when only the important guests were recalled. Pain dulled like an old knife, and people existed as giants, only to shrink to proportions that were more lifelike in reality. Maybe that was why humans seemed so obsessed with photographs and video recordings, their way of freezing moments so they never changed. Yes, a freeze-frame of time, something he had no use for. Draven preferred his memory, flawed as it might be, and his painting. His art was his vision of the world. Who was to say the real thing was better?
Draven sensed the direct honesty rising off the man in front of him, something of a rarity in this world. Nathaniel had always been more like Draven than Ananchel, going out of his way to avoid conflict unless necessary and embracing it with gusto when it was—so unlike Ananchel, who courted divergence. She wasn’t happy unless she was butting heads with someone, and unfortunately for Nathaniel, it was often him.
“So how is England?”
“Wet.” Nathaniel grinned. “But I’ve been happy there. Manchester is a lot different now than it was when we were there together.”
“And the shelter?”
The huge smile faltered, and Nathaniel brought one hand up to rub his bald scalp back and forth slowly. “Business is booming, I’m sad to say. There are a lot of folks struggling and many others who don’t care.”
He was referring to a joint venture of theirs. A place for anyone to go to when they found themselves in trouble. The grand old eighteenth century building at the edge of the garment district in the city had once been a textile mill and on the verge on demolition when they had come across it. The place looked more like a hotel after restoration. Red brickwork and large paneled windows took up a corner of an up-and-coming neighbor
hood. Ironic, since the proceeds of an extremely swank hotel on the far side of the city funded it. They overcharged the pampered rich to take care of the needy.
“So why come back?”
Nathaniel frowned, his thick brown brows creeping together like caterpillars in a race. “Who’s running the show here?” he asked, ignoring the question.
Draven calmly placed his knife down and ground out a breath through his nose. He closed his eyes and laid his palms on the counter, absorbing the coolness of the marble through his skin and allowing it to abate his temper. “Five minutes inside my door, and you are questioning my decisions.”
His friend remained silent while Draven watched the past play out behind his eyelids, the arguments with Ananchel right here in his kitchen about his decisions. The meetings with Payne about the child promised to save them. Nathaniel had been around for it all.
“You were wrong.”
“Oh, come on, Draven. You don’t want to admit the truth because you think if Ananchel has gone off the rails, then you must be a little bit too.”
He hung his head and looked at his friend across the island through his eyelashes, trying to get a read on what he was feeling. Nathaniel’s pulse remained slow and steady, and his breathing matched. “Nath—”
“I didn’t come all this way to dredge up old arguments,” he said, cutting Draven off. “I came because I see the way this world of ours is going down the sewers, and I’ve been hearing things.” He picked up the bottle, poured two fingers of liquor into each glass, and turned his piercing gaze on Draven. “Is the gossip true? Did you actually attempt to claim a Nephil as a mate?”
“I had a strategy, and it worked. Payne’s daughter loves Sebastian.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Nathaniel quipped dryly.
“More importantly,” Draven continued regardless, “Sebastian loves her, enough to play nice on the playground for a change.”
Nathaniel narrowed his eyes, measuring him. Draven caught a flash of gold in the blue of his eyes. When Nathaniel appeared to deduce whatever he was eyeballing him for, he clucked his tongue and handed Draven a glass. “Yeah, that was the other thing I heard.”
Draven realized immediately he’d have to try harder to bury his personal feelings for Candra. If Nathaniel could see it, others would too, and his friend was right: he didn’t need any more complications.
Nathaniel raised his glass. “Here’s to love in its many forms, old friend…and the crazy things we all do for it.”
Draven knocked his own glass against it and poured the warming liquid down his throat in one loud gulp.
Chapter Fourteen
SEBASTIAN DIDN’T OPEN HIS EYES when he heard the sound of wings swishing nearby. He knew that particular sweep of air as well as his own heartbeat.
“What are you doing all the way up here?” Lofi asked. Her feet crunched across loose stone like a gravelly accompaniment to the resonances of the city in the distance.
“Thinking.”
“So I’m probably disturbing you?”
“Yes.”
He blinked a couple of times and opened his eyes when she sat down beside him, dangling her feet off the side of the cliff ledge. She shivered despite being wrapped up against the cold night air in the thick tie-dyed poncho. The swirls of orange, red and purple weren’t exactly camouflage. They sat in silence for a while, so close their thighs and upper arms touched, and Lofi’s foot brushed against his every time she swung her ankle back and forth.
Sebastian had thought he wanted to be alone with his deliberation. He realized that wasn’t the case at all. He wanted Lofi beside him. She always spoke her mind and wasn’t afraid to slap him back down when he needed it, which was often. He needed her now.
From the ledge jutting out of the mountainside south of Acheron, the speckles of lights from the city were barely visible. They seemed almost a reflection of the endless night sky in water. Just a little farther south, from where dark clouds chased the rain, they wouldn’t be visible at all. The land there dipped to a small valley and an isolated lake with a rocky shore. The landscape was as near as possible to a time before cities. A time before choices about who and what he was, a time when all he had to think about was keeping the treaty intact and existing until the next sunrise. Sometimes, he went there to be alone, but not tonight. Tonight, he wanted to feel connected to the people he cared about, and that meant keeping the city in sight.
Sebastian had been examining himself from a new perspective. He contemplated his own future as it intertwined with another. His relationships had always been weighed in terms of him always being needed, instead of needing. He’d worked on the assumption that if anything happened to him, the world would keep turning, and life would go on. Now, as he saw it, his future had been twisted root deep with Candra’s. The revelations also made him understand how selfish he had been. Before Ambriel had left, he’d always put himself first and everyone else second.
“You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
Sebastian grimaced uncomfortably and glanced at Lofi sideways. He was biding his time, but Lofi bringing up his plan made it seem underhanded in some way. He’d thought making the decision would be the hard part. That turned out to be the easy part. It was inevitable…a logical choice. They couldn’t continue as they were.
“I’m waiting for the right moment.”
Lofi tittered a laugh through her nose. “Oh, yeah, because the perfect moment will make it all better.”
Sebastian combed his fingers through his hair and scratched his scalp. The strands were was still damp from the clouds he’d flown through earlier and refused to dry in the low temperature.
Lofi picked at some of the thick weeds growing around where they were sitting and began to pick them apart, leaving a green slimy mess all over her fingers.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Why does it matter to you if I am?”
Lofi huffed and tossed a handful of tattered weed into the breeze. Sebastian internally cringed at his rebuke. Of course his choices mattered to her, but he didn’t want to think about what Lofi stood to lose. Not yet. That could wait for another night. His stomach curled in on itself, and he swallowed repeatedly, fighting the abrupt wave of nausea brought on by the prospect of verbalizing his biggest fear. He owed her that at least.
“What if I tell her the truth, and she doesn’t want me anymore?”
His friend giggled, looking ahead and swiped her hands against each other in a pointless effort to remove the grunge. “Really, Sebastian, it’s not like you to be insecure.”
“I’m being serious.” He pouted, more than a little put out by her casually brushing off his concern. Despite convincing Ambriel to trust him to do the right thing by Candra, her words had tapped into his worst fears and anxieties when it came to the budding relationship. “Up to now, it’s all been so conceptual. If I tell her the truth, she might change her mind about me and walk away.”
“Candra taking the easy option,” Lofi mused. “Now that would be one for the books.”
He hunched against the wind blowing damp strands of golden hair into his eyes and didn’t bother to push it back again. What a pathetic mess he must look, not much of a leader—not that he ever had been. His confident exterior had been nothing more than a flimsy façade. Once Candra had gotten inside, his carefully-constructed illusion had shattered into a billion tiny shards.
“Candra loves you. I saw it even before she did…before you did.”
“But is love enough?” Was love ever enough? They were more different than alike at times.
Lofi placed her hand on his shoulder. “I can’t give you an answer.”
“I wish we had more time,” he groaned bitterly, ignoring the twinge of guilt at being self-centered again. Regardless, what difference would it make? If he had all the time in the universe with Candra, it would never be enough.
“You know—” Lofi removed her hand, lowered her head to his shoulder, and link
ed her arm through his “—you don’t have to decide now.”
Sebastian laughed darkly. He felt no humor in the situation. “If only that was the case. We aren’t human, Lofi, and no amount of time will alter the fact. I wish we could date like a normal couple, go off to college together, and make a home…I wish I could offer her a normal life.” His throat ached as if he’d been swallowing bent nails. Just speaking the truth hurt. All that stuff about a trouble shared, it was nonsense. He didn’t feel his trouble halved at all. The opposite, in fact; speaking his fears made them even more real.
“Pftt,” Lofi tutted. “What is normal, Sebastian? Does anyone ever have normal? Because I’ve never seen it. It’s an illusion. No one has a perfect life because we are all different and we are all just trying to muddle through together as best we can.”
“I can’t even give her that, not like this.” He waved his other hand up and down his front. “She will change, and I will always be the same.”
“You’ve already changed more than you realize,” Lofi argued softly.