Iridescent (Ember 2)

by Carol Oates

  Sebastian’s heart thrummed where her chest pressed to his, and his fingers kneaded the bare flesh of her legs. Her palms moved deliberately toward his hair, wanting to feel the silken texture again. Her movement paused at the heavy pulse coursing through his neck. Somewhere between his tongue meeting hers greedily, the frenzied movements of their bodies, and the taste of salt on her lips, she realized she was no longer being influenced. It was just them, as they were: passionately in love and caught up in the rampant lust that always accompanied it. She also realized Sebastian was once again weeping, and there was an underlying despondency in his kiss, and undeniable despair. Candra knew with unquestionable certainty that she would never kiss him again.

  Why? Her mind screamed a warning, but it was as useless as shouting into a void. Not like this. Not like this.

  A moment barely passed between the thought and Sebastian effortlessly rolling her onto her back. In a whoosh of sound and golden light, his wings encased them both. Sebastian pulled away from her mouth, panting, his chest heaving against hers and his face buried in her hair.

  “I can’t do this,” he murmured over and over as Candra stroked his hair.

  She bit down on her lip, chewing the soft skin to keep from speaking her mind too soon.

  At last, he began to calm, and his breathing leveled out. Once that happened, his wings quickly disappeared.

  “I think there is every possibility that you may hate me after today,” Sebastian said in a low voice a few moments later, his fingers tightening against her hips.

  “Impossible,” Candra assured him. She turned her head a little, kissing his hair and feeling his sighing breath against her neck.

  “Even if I tell you I’m walking away?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not good, Candra. I warned you in the beginning. I can’t change. Even now, I’m selfish. What I want and what I need comes before everything else. You deserve better than I can give you.”

  He groaned painfully, rolling away from her onto his back, and threw his forearms over his eyes. Candra inhaled deeply, tasting him on her lips, and stared up at the darkening sky. The clouds floated past, heavier than they had been before. There was a storm coming. Yet another reminder that while they stayed here, time moved on. She sat up, adjusting her skirt and jacket as she did.

  “You have to tell me, Sebastian. I’m not a mind reader, and you are making no sense,” she pleaded with him.

  He didn’t answer, and she tried again, swallowing down the nausea in her stomach. She guessed what he wanted to say and why he was angry. She didn’t do well with mixed signals, but she had worked out that he wasn’t angry with her—he was angry with himself for something he had done. She couldn’t dismiss the gut instinct telling her what he’d meant when he said he couldn’t change. He wasn’t ending his relationship with her. He expected her to end it. After everything they had struggled through together to get to this point, he had to know she wouldn’t walk away easily. She could think of only one reason that would make her.

  She recalled the last time she had thought of him with Ananchel in that way, playing their twisted game of cat and mouse. Draven had warned her, and she hadn’t listened. He’d cautioned her that Sebastian was forever telling Ananchel they were done, yet he always went back for more.

  “I have to hear it from you,” she choked out quietly.

  Sebastian pulled his arms away and stared up at the sky, his eyelashes damp and dark. He swallowed tightly, but his expression remained guarded. She tried, but couldn’t wipe away the imagines forming in her mind. She lingered in the hope that she was wrong and Sebastian would laugh and make fun of her for thinking such an absurd thing. He’d get angry, but she wouldn’t care as long as she was wrong.

  Her eyes burned, but she refused to blink, knowing blinking would make the tears scratching at the back of her eyelids fall. Instead, she remained utterly motionless, frozen because she didn’t want time to move on. She didn’t want Sebastian to confirm her suspicions, but at the same time, she needed his honesty. She had been stupid to think that this was all because of Lilith. The Sebastian she knew would expect her to refuse to sit back quietly. He would expect her to color the truth about her meeting with Lilith.

  It became hard to breathe, as if the air she tried to inhale was thick as molasses, choking her, drowning her.

  All it would take was one short sentence from Sebastian to deny everything. She knew the fear and humiliation must be written on her expression. He watched her with careful eyes, narrowed and astute. He had to have grasped her suspicion, yet didn’t deny it. That, in itself, was confirmation.

  Sebastian frowned gravely before his features went still and very somber. He closed his eyes again, but this time, he pressed them shut tightly and ground the heels of his hands against them. She wished he didn’t. Not seeing his eyes broke a connection between them and made it too hard to figure out his thoughts. He had to want her to know. Why else would he bring her here? He is saying goodbye.

  He flinched away from some thought going through his head and pushed himself to sitting. His hands clenched as he looked down on them, the tendons straining against his skin.

  A lie, she thought. Whatever he’s thinking is a lie. The flinch was his “tell.”

  “Do you really want me to say it?” he asked in a disconcertingly attractive, low, deadpan voice, his eyes flickering up to her briefly. He stood and walked slowly back to the water’s edge.

  She’d always found that part of him fascinating, the sadness and his tortured soul. How could he do this now, when she needed him more than ever? She needed to believe there was truth, honesty, and love in the world and that it was worth saving.

  Panic coursed through her at an alarming rate, followed quickly by disgust that she could still want him, even now. Worse, that she still loved him. She’d easily walked away from Philip as soon as she’d discovered his indiscretions.

  Candra pulled in an unsteady, excruciating lungful of air and found herself wishing she could take it all back. Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost was talking complete crap. This wasn’t better than anything at all.

  “Yes.” She scrubbed her moist palms against her skirt, concentrating on the barely visible fibers in the fabric to keep her mind focused and away from the image of Flame-hair and Sebastian together.

  “We were never going to work out like this. We are two different species.” He barked out a cutting laugh, his shoulders rising and sinking.

  One lonely tear overflowed and ran down Candra’s flushed cheek. She brushed it away quickly and flicked hair blowing across her face out of the way.

  “So you are running away and going back to what you know—” A heartbreaking sob escaped, and Candra’s hand darted to her mouth too late to stifle the sound.

  Sebastian turned his face toward his shoulder, bringing him in profile. “I’m doing the only thing I can do.” He took a cigarette packet out of his pocket and tapped it hard against his hand, freeing one white stick and placing it in the side of his mouth. “You probably loathe me for taking the easy option. I won’t blame you. I probably deserve it, but…” He paused, flicking his lighter so the orange glow illuminated his face when he lit up and took a long drag on the cigarette.

  Twilight was descending fast, and without the city lights, it was going to get very dark, very quickly.

  “How was this going to end any other way?”

  Anger boiled inside Candra. The sweetness that had been their love was a sugar now hissing and burning, turning opaque and hard, becoming something else before her eyes, and Sebastian still hadn’t laid claim to his part in its destruction.

  She guessed he didn’t apologize again because he recognized his actions were unforgivable. A wave of self-pity engulfed her as she contemplated the reason why he’d done as she’d suspected. Perhaps he’d wanted to finally prove himself right or be his very own self-fulfilling prophecy, or so she wouldn’t fight him when he walked away. She didn’t intend to.


  Candra stood brusquely and swept her hands over her skirt, knowing the smears of mud and grime weren’t the reason she felt dirty. She’d freely given herself to Sebastian, mind, body, and heart. Her soul too. She had handed it over, gift-wrapped in a nice, tidy package. She’d believed they’d found something special in each other. She’d been a fool.

  “How do I get out of here?” she demanded flatly.

  Sebastian turned on his heels with the smoking cigarette still in his mouth and ribbons of swirling smoke blowing upward and to the left before vanishing. His unguarded expression gave him away instantly—shock. Candra derived a wicked pleasure from it. Clearly, he’d expected her to beg. On the contrary, with the vision of Sebastian’s fingers gliding over pale flesh and winding into masses of red hair, she stalked toward him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “YOU THINK YOU PROBABLY DESERVE IT? Probably?” She jabbed her index finger viciously into his ribs. “You don’t.” Candra forced out an incredulous laugh, unsure of how sincere it sounded and so loud she could have sworn the trees laughed too, mocking her innocence.

  Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on her hand still poking into his chest.

  “You don’t deserve for me to hate you. You don’t deserve anything from me at all. You brought me here, to an idyllic spot, to a place I will never forget, to clear your own conscience.” Her fury was intoxicating, a curious light-headed sensation she felt utterly unapologetic for.

  Sebastian’s lips puckered with the visible effort he applied to not reacting. It was his nature to react. Candra watched the flush spread over his cheeks and the quick movement of his shoulder when he discarded the used cigarette, just as he was discarding her. She couldn’t even console herself by saying he had moved onto something better or someone she couldn’t compete with. He’d moved onto Ananchel, pure trash by anyone’s standards.

  “I brought you here so you wouldn’t have to look around every day for the rest of your life and be reminded of me.”

  “My life? Oh, please, don’t try to make this about me,” she sneered. “We have no idea what my life will be tomorrow, never mind further down the road. This is about you. Maybe you were running out of reasons to hate yourself, I don’t know. I do know this is not about what’s best for me. Nothing is ever about what’s best for me.”

  “Okay, I don’t want you to be reminded of me like this. I don’t want you to think about me as some pathetic, weak creature.” His eyes darted between hers, and his head inclined so they were practically nose to nose and the scent of smoke and spices wafted over her face.

  She wanted to hit him for the sheer mindless audacity of his ego. He’d taken her into the middle of nowhere so she wouldn’t have to relive the moments he’d kissed her and then shredded her heart into a million tiny pieces…not to mention showing her wings to her. He reminded her of everything she would never have. From day one, they were relentlessly marching to the end, but this wasn’t how it was meant to be. She should be the martyr, giving up everything for those she loved. Being dumped like yesterday’s garbage was never part of the plan.

  Everything stopped. Candra visualized her heart racing so hard and her body driving forward on so much adrenaline that everything seemed to freeze, leaving her unable to move at all. Her voice came out in a deadly calm even she didn’t recognize.

  “Trust me, Sebastian. You do not have to worry about me thinking about you ever again, for any reason. In fact, the only thing I want from you is for you to tell me to my face. I deserve that much.”

  “Why?” he asked stiffly.

  “Because I love you and I don’t want to.”

  Sebastian flinched, and one side of his lips twitched. The muscles in his tight jaw trembled. He took a deep breath and held it, locking her in his gaze. She couldn’t have looked away if she’d wanted to. She’d been lying when she’d said she would never think of him again. She didn’t want to be tossing and turning in bed later, trying to convince herself this had all been a big misunderstanding. She couldn’t exist on doubt, not with everything else going on.

  “I went to Ananchel.”

  Candra’s hand lifted of its own volition and made contact with a resounding crack across Sebastian’s face. The force made his head turn sharply and his blond hair swish across his forehead. Candra’s hand throbbed instantly, and she encircled her wrist with her fingers, giving it support.

  “Take me home,” she roared at him. “Take me home right now. I can’t bear to look at you.”

  “Let me see—” He reached for her hand, but Candra withdrew from him, catching a stone with her heel. The sharp pebble bounced up and smacked her ankle with force, reminding her of Sebastian’s words: Nothing is ever enough. It didn’t matter what they gave up or what efforts any of them made to move on; the past weighed down inextricably on every single one of the Watchers. None of them could move on until this was finished one way or another.

  “You don’t get to touch me.” Candra’s voice was higher and more panic-stricken than she’d intended to sound. The truth was she couldn’t let him touch her—touching would remind her that he had touched Ananchel again, and that would simply break her apart. She was determined to remain strong until she could break down in private. What good would it do, sniveling like a child?

  The color drained from Sebastian’s face, and his expression hardened. “I’m going to take you out of here now. So I will need to put my arms around you.”

  “No,” Candra spat out, horrified and inching backward away from him.

  “Candra, I—” he began to scold, his posture regaining some of his usual swagger.

  “I said no,” Candra interrupted and glowered at him irately for suggesting it. Her eyebrow arched in question, wondering what he could be thinking. There was no point in that train of thought since what Candra imagined Sebastian thought and what he actually did seemed to be two drastically distinctive roads. No way on heaven, Earth…or anywhere else for that matter, would she ever take off into the air with him. “You are just going to have to call someone to fly me out of here or find another way to get me back to the car. Surely someone is watching. It’s what you all do, isn’t it?”

  “No one is watching,” he responded coldly, “and there is no signal here.”

  Candra rooted through her pockets and located her phone. Sure enough, there were no bars, even when she held it up in the air, twisting this way and that. She cursed low and resisted the urge to fling the useless piece of hardware into the murky waters of the lake. Darkness was spreading, and only a hint of light over the trees remained.

  “There is no one around. I was careful to make sure we were alone.” Sebastian’s eyes roamed over the surrounding area. He combed his hair away from his face with his fingers and scratched his head. Vertical lines formed over his nose as he attempted to come up with a feasible solution.

  “You really thought this through, didn’t you? Bringing me here to pour your precious heart out,” Candra mocked with a caustic sarcasm. She wanted to hurt him, as childish and spiteful as it was.

  He sighed. “I’ve thought of nothing else for weeks.”

  “Weeks?” On reflex, Candra bent down and picked up a large flat stone, tossing it hand to hand, measuring it, running her thumb over its smoothness.

  “Throw it at me.”

  Candra’s eyes lifted at Sebastian’s suggestion.

  “Hurt me. I don’t care. It won’t change anything, but do it if it makes you feel better.”

  She dropped the stone at her foot with a clank. Find some other way to punish yourself.

  Just under an hour later, they emerged from the trees to find Lofi lying on the hood of Sebastian’s car with her head resting against the windshield. Candra had refused to acknowledge him for the duration of their trek through the forest. It took much longer under the cover of night and because of Candra’s unwillingness to keep up with him, despite her desire to get back to civilization. She enjoyed parks and sitting or lying on the grass. She did not
relish the noises of the wild creatures filling the forest, squawking birds, rodents, and small creatures that rustled leaves and scurried out of disturbed brush and mounds of molding leaves. The forest was alive at night, and Candra had no aspiration to be inside anything living for any length of time.

  The silence also meant she’d had time to think. She’d tortured herself wondering what she might have done differently to make Sebastian happy and then mentally berated herself for taking any culpability—fault rested solely on his shoulders. She reminded herself this had nothing to do with Lilith or the truths she had so far kept to herself. As much as she hated Ananchel, Candra knew Ananchel held no loyalty to her. Why should she care that her actions would devastate Candra? That was exactly how she felt—devastated.

  She raced forward toward the car and Lofi, practically flying into her arms.

  “Whoa. What’s going on here?”

  Candra couldn’t find the words. Despite her bravado, she didn’t want to make it real by telling anyone else. Lofi swayed a little, patting Candra’s back for comfort.

  “How did you find us?” Sebastian asked as if there was nothing wrong at all and he hadn’t been crying on and off all day. It was dark out. For all Candra knew, he was still crying.

  “GPS is a wondrous thing,” Lofi replied. “Your phone is in the car.”

  Candra couldn’t see what his reaction was to being tracked. She knew he wouldn’t like it, but because the tracker was Lofi, he would keep it to himself. There were no other vehicles around, but Candra really hoped Lofi had driven. She didn’t relish the idea of traveling back to the city with Sebastian. Lofi’s appearance had caught her off guard and caused her to let down her façade for a moment. The other option was flying with Lofi—Candra never wanted to take to the skies again.