A few minutes later, we’re out in the fresh air, surrounded by trees which shift gently in the breeze. It’s so much easier to breathe out here and all the panicked thoughts shooting through my mind settle for a moment.
“Your ideas and designs are incredible,” I tell her gruffly.
She smiles, but it’s strained and I wish we could go back ten minutes and redo the entire conversation. Dorian was right, she opened up more today than she has in all the time we’ve been here and we didn’t react right.
I’ve never felt worse about having shitty communication skills than I do right now. Maybe if I was smoother, I’d have the right words to say, so that she didn’t look like she was two seconds from bursting intotears.
My gut twists and my skin itches. Fuck. My inadequacy is making my tongue thick and my mind is blanking with what to say to comfort her.
“Have you ever heard of Nephilim?” Micah asks, pulling me out of my own spiraling thoughts to shoot him a bewildered look.
Sin shakes her head, glancing from him to me, as if I can help her. Too bad I don’t know what he’s talking about either.
“They used to call us fallen angels. Dropped from heaven to mix with the humans. I, er, I’ve been around a long time and I came from a different place, originally.” The words are stilted and slow, like he’s unsure how to say them aloud.
I’ve never heard this part of Micah’s story and wonder if anyone has.
He shifts from foot to foot, smoothing his hand over the bark of a nearby tree like he’s using the sensation to ground himself.
“A different place? Like how there weren’t originally demons in this world until they found their way through the portals?” Sin asks, before glancing at me. “I’m not too sure if Orcs are the same or—”
“Nah, we’ve always been here,” I rasp through a dry throat. “We just used to keep to ourselves in the mountains until the demons and the shifters first appeared.”
But Micah nods. “Before I wound up here, I was in another realm. It was... calmer there. Quiet.” His voice is soft, and he stares off into the distance, mesmerized by the movement of the trees. “When I first arrived, I was lost and alone in the middle of what felt like this endless forest. I remember there were wolves and that it was the first time in my life I’d ever been cold or hungry. Before I arrived there, I... well, we didn’t eat meat back home. But after weeks of walking and trying to eat whatever I could find on bushes, I was so painfully hungry, I—”
His voice breaks, and I think we both get the picture about what happened next.
“That was the point I discovered my empathy doesn’t just extend to other people. Sometimes, under the right conditions, I can feel animals’ emotions too.”
“Micah, this isn’t—” Sin cuts herself off, rubbing her face with her hands and letting out a deep sigh. “—you don’t have to do a tit for tat. Just because I shared something shitty with you, you don’t have to bare your soul to me.”
Micah meets my eyes and I see the panic in them. That’s exactly what Dorian suggested we do, and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
“I, er, want to. I want you to know me better, Sin,” Micah says. “And I’d like to get to know you too, if you let me. I like you, Sin. And I’m pretty sure we both suck at lowering our guards enough to let people in, but I want us to try. Together.”
Sin just stares at him for a moment before nodding hesitantly. “Okay.”
“That was what I thought would be the worst thing I ever did, but it got a lot worse in the months and years—” Micah continues.
“Micah.” Sin halts him with a hand on his chest. “You were alone, and you had to survive. No one’s going to judge you for that.”
They share a long look and I feel like a tool, watching and not contributing during this intimate moment. My arms feel overly long and I’ve forgotten how to hold them like a normal person. I’m no gentle prince like Micah. I’m a tongue-tied fool who knocks shit over and has broken more chairs with my heavy ass than I can count.
For once, though, I find my tongue untangling when I need it to. “And how old were you when you first met that guy... Cedar Orlog? You lived with him, right?” I ask Sin. I know there has to be a story there, a reason she wound up in that situation.
She turns to look at me and my gut clenches with her attention focused on me. “I was fifteen. But that doesn’t excuse anything. You know how old I was when I finally left Cedar Orlogand his stupid cult? I was an adult, Cal. Even if we’re being generous, the excuse that I was young and impressionable stopped being valid as soon as I hit twenty. That’s seven whole years where I was manipulating people and messing with their heads and the Herald—Cedar Orlog—was profiting from it.”
Micah links their fingers together and I take a hesitant step forward, reaching out as if to cup Sin’s cheek with my enormous paw. I don’t quite make contact before drawing my hand back to my side.
“If you’re trying to convince us you’re a bad person, you’re not gonna succeed,” I tell her.
I knew from our second interaction that Sin has a good heart, one she keeps hidden a lot of the time.
“None of us are perfect, Sinjin.”
“I’ve met plenty of people with darkness in their hearts, Sin,” Micah says. “And I can feel how you react to things. How you feel a lot of things, even when that’s not shown on your face.”
I take a step closer. “You spent all night creating that cuff for Micah when you’d just met the guy. Why’d you do that, Sin?”
