Page 66

“Damn it, Micah.” I turn away from him.

He catches my wrist and pulls me around to him, throwing a punch that I dodge. I counter with my own, and he throws another one that lands in my palm. I find it remarkable that I’m capable of catching a blow as powerful as his. “Do you want to hit me?” I demand. “Is that what this is?”

“I wanted to know if you could stop me.”

I glower at him. “And if I couldn’t?”

“But you did.”

I growl low in my chest and try to knee him, but he captures my leg and then sweeps my calf, and I tumble hard and fast. Self-preservation kicks in, and somehow, I rift before I fall, landing in the center of the ledge overlooking the water. I’ve barely set foot on the ground, still wrapping my head around what I’ve done, when Micah appears in front of me, his fist rocketing toward me. I rift again, but he anticipates my move, and he’s in front of me the instant I reappear a few feet away.

He grabs me, and his legs tangle with mine. I land hard on the ground with him on top of me, gasping at the dagger that appears in his hand, his fingers wrapped snugly around the hilt. Adrenaline surges through me, a tornado roaring from my depths, and I can feel some unknown part of me come to life, primal and fierce.

He intends to kill me, and I will not die.

As if in confirmation, the blade slices through the air, and with a strength I didn’t know I possess, I shove him away. He lands on the rock and layer of dirt beneath us, rolling away from me, but the moment he’s on his back, I act. I’m on top of him in a flash, straddling him, but in the next moment, he’s flipped me over, and his big body slants over mine, pressing my back to the hard ground, and just that fast, the blade swipes through the air.

I gasp as he slams it into the ground next to my head, and either the dirt is thick and deep, or he’s strong enough to plant it in stone. “What did you see?” he demands.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I shove at his chest, and when I start to rift away, he captures my wrist and demands, “Don’t rift, or I swear I’ll bind your damn powers, which I can do in Elysium. What did you see?”

He means my familiar, the one beat up and destroyed by the serpent inside me, and realization washes over me, much like a cool wave burning away the heat on the sandy beach. “I didn’t see it,” I whisper. “I felt it.”

There’s the tiniest hint of what I think is relief in his eyes, gone before I can be certain. “What did you feel?” he presses.

“A white wolf. I don’t know how I know it’s white, since I didn’t see it, but…oh my God, Micah, I felt a wolf.” I laugh with joy—happiness and relief bubbling from deep inside me, a cavern of fear burning away. “I felt a wolf. I was right. The serpent was binding my familiar. I think…I think it was killing it. It’s weak. I’m weak right now.”

“Thank fuck,” he breathes out, the words vibrating from his lips, almost an eruption of relief as his body relaxes against mine.

In that moment, I know the truth of this day, of this moment. He’d bet I wouldn’t leave this island alive, that he couldn’t let me leave alive, but now, the tide has turned, and the future that was darkness is now alight with possibilities. I don’t like that he would have killed me, but I feel the genuine relief in him that tells me how much my death would have been his duty to mankind and Nephilim, not his choice.

It means he’s a good man, and I hope the wolf means I’m at least a little closer to good than bad.

He brushes my hair from my face, his touch tender, and I’m suddenly acutely aware of him on top of me, of his hard body intimately aligned with mine. He leans in closer, his breath a warm fan against my cheek. “A white wolf represents courage, strength, and wisdom. It fits you.”

“I don’t feel wise right now.”

“Wiser than you know, sweetheart,” he says, his voice rough as sandpaper, and yet I’m soft all over, warm all over, suddenly intensely aware of my attraction to this man, of his body next to mine and pressing into me. “Why do you feel familiar, Micah? Way more than the wolf? What aren’t you telling me?”

He grits his teeth and cuts his gaze, torment in the act that tells me this feeling is not my imagination, nor is it nothing, not even close to nothing. He’s not telling me everything, and my nerves are frazzled and worn, anger and desperation, both worthless and ineffective emotions, simmering beneath my surface. “Micah, please—”

He yanks the blade from the ground and pushes off me, and I gasp with the shock of him pulling away, only to have him capture my hand and pull me up with him. Once we’re firmly on our feet, he presents me with the blade, flattening it onto his palm. A crystal blue stone glistens from the center of the hilt, a magical quality to the stone I feel in the air and taste on my tongue.

“This is the enchanted blade of Elysium,” he says, “magical and powerful, and one of a kind. It’s yours. It’ll protect you, and it will guide you and teach you. It’ll make you a deadly warrior long before your training would allow such skills, and you, in turn, will make it shine as the magnificent weapon it is and has always been. We’ll go to the forest and test your skills after lunch.” He slides it into a sheath that is now strapped to my leg. “My gift to you,” he says softly, his voice unreadable, but his eyes are warm, and I have this strong impression this gift means more to him than I can possibly understand. “Why would you give me such a precious blade?”

“Because I believe you and your wolf are special, Ember.” There’s that rough quality to his voice again, but I can’t read him, not really, and in this moment, the secrets he keeps from me are driving me wild.

“For the wrong reasons,” I say, reaching for the blade. “Take it back.”

His hand comes down over mine, and he steps into me, his body hard, heat radiating off of him into me, and I can’t help but remember what it felt like to lie beneath him. “It’s yours,” he insists. “If you would have read further into the book, you’d know this. The day you find your wolf—”

I blanch. “Wait, what?”

“You asked me why I’m familiar. I don’t fully know that answer, Ember, but I know that we share a bond with this place. It knows you the way it knew me the minute I stepped onto this land. We’re connected to it.”

My fingers curl on his chest, and I can feel my body lean into his. “What does that even mean? How am I connected?”

“The book references a place where the Aza is free of the darkness, where you can find your true self. A place called Vales. Elysium was once called Vales, named after the first Seer to claim this land, that is, until he changed its name. When I became king of this land and inherited the library, I also inherited a private collection of books with secrets inside them meant for my eyes only. Which is why I’ve always known that the day would come when the Aza would stand in my path. And I knew when I met you that you were the Aza.”