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Disappointment knifes through me. “In other words, the serpent waits eagerly on my return to the human realm. He’ll kill Sara, Micah, and then what will that make me?”
His brows lift. “Sara?”
“I had an imaginary friend when I was a kid named Sara. She was my wolf. I don’t want her to die, or maybe I shouldn’t want her to live and turn into a rabid demon with me.”
“I told you—”
“Believe. Be strong. I know all of this. That doesn’t erase moments like this one, not for me. Maybe I’m still too human to just stand on the mountain and scream a victory I have not earned.”
He surprises me then, reaching up and stroking my hair behind my ear, a shiver rushing through me with the tenderness of his touch. “That human side of you is a strength, not a weakness. We’ll find the answers we need,” he promises. “Right now, I just want you to see that you’re not alone.”
Unbidden, the words stir memories of the absolute betrayal of two people playing the role of my parents while serving a demon. I haven’t thought of them. I don’t want to think of them. And I’m not sure what I’d do if I saw them now. But considering who and what they are, it would not go well for them.
Micah leans on the island next to me, his shoulder pressing to my shoulder, and there’s a pinch in my chest at his attentiveness. “What just happened?” he asks softly, ensuring his voice remains only between us.
I’m aware of the others at the table. I can feel a few wandering eyes, and we rotate to face each other again. “Trust is, in fact, more important than what I left behind.”
His knuckles caress my cheek, tenderness in his touch. “That’s right, but too many open doors make the past hard to leave behind. We’ll close a few. Soon. I promise.”
“Once we kill Jeremy,” I say. “That’s what matters right now.”
“Agreed. Are you hungry?”
“I am. Yes. Of course, I am. What can I say around your people?”
“Our people, and anything. You can trust them. Give them a chance to prove that.” He catches my hand again, pulls me around, and guides me to the table. I can trust them, but they can’t trust me until I’ve rid myself of the serpent. Everything about that very premise is a deadly contradiction.
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
And then the Aza arrived, and the world was never the same, a cry going out to all of our kind, warning of the coming.
Chapter thirty-nine
The table is round as the moon and almost as large and rather spectacular, with a tarnished white and gray finish that glints silver in the nooks and crannies. It seats twelve, and the group scatters about, leaving two open seats side by side for me and Micah. I’m with Micah. They all know, and I doubt any of them are overly comfortable with the idea that the Armageddon is sharing a meal with them, let alone cozying up to their boss. And yet, I don’t shy away from Micah, hiding in the shelter of his existence with this new group of people, these warriors, who see me as both the salvation and destruction of all they know and love.
They welcome me and fear me, and there is nothing comfortable in any of this for anyone here.
Micah holds my chair out for me and treats me like a delicate lady when only an hour before I was in the underbelly of a giant crab, shoving a knife into its flesh.
Yet another contradiction, it seems.
Silas picks up his burger and eyes me. “If you want to fit in, Ember, you need to get in here and grind out a burger. We eat like it’s our last meal around here.”
Gabriella, who sits to his right with no chair between them, snorts. “If you didn’t piss everyone off, you wouldn’t have to take that statement quite so seriously.”
“Bite me, Gabriella,” he snaps, but he wiggles his eyebrows. “I promise I’m down for it.”
“You’re gross, Silas,” she replies, but there’s a hint of something in her eyes that has me questioning the dynamic between the two of them. Do they have a past that went badly? Or maybe that’s too simple in a group such as this one.
“Slaying giant crabs takes energy,” Zeke observes. “Why don’t you eat before you run off and try to get yourself killed again?”
“Had Micah told me the beach was so unlike that of the human beaches, I would not have gone.” I offer Micah a blistering look.
“Instead, I offered you a warm fire and a library filled with knowledge.”
“And I followed that knowledge to the beach.”
“You should have followed it to me.”
