Iridescent (Ember 2) (16 page)

“What exactly?” Sebastian asked innocently.

He saw a flash of brown below her thick eyelashes, although she didn’t lift her eyes. “I need to get this done, and you are not conducive to study.”

“Do you want help?”

“It would be great if you could. I think I would possibly be the only student turning in a paper with genuine source material.” She paused and sighed before she closed the book and tossed it aside. It landed on the wooden floor with a hollow-sounding thump. “Remind me again why I’m doing this? Nothing about what they’re teaching us is what really happened, and learning a messed-up version of history won’t benefit any of us now.”

Candra crawled up the bed, shoved him over onto his back, and lay down on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, reminding himself, as always, that he didn’t have to feel guilty.
She picked me
, he told himself and chased away those insecurities that constantly haunted him. Despite what Ambriel had said that day in the park, Candra didn’t have to be with him—she had a choice, and she chose to be with him. She chose it every single day.

“You want a normal life, remember?”

“Maybe normal is overrated. Look where normal got all of you. What if all I’m doing is building myself up to a huge disappointment?”

Sebastian placed his index finger under her chin and forced her eyes up to meet his. He was glad to know there was no defeat there. Nevertheless, he could see the pale purple shadows of sleepless nights and nightmares evident below her eyes.

“This isn’t over. Nothing will take me away from you. I promise.”

Candra ducked her head toward his neck too quickly for him to read her expression and kissed the pulse point just below his ear. She didn’t need to say it out loud for Sebastian to hazard a guess at her thoughts: she didn’t believe him.

Right from the moment they’d realized their feeling for each other and had known they wanted to be together, they’d fought against fate or destiny. Even without any other consideration, without Lilith showing up or Draven holding onto his desire to be with Candra, they both knew she was aging as a human. The unspoken question still lingered like a bad smell in the room. Something would win out and eventually separate them.

Candra’s hand trailed up Sebastian’s side, raising a line of goose bumps. He shivered. Such a human reaction, he observed and wondered when he had begun to be more human than angel? Had it always been that way and he simply hadn’t noticed? Candra’s lips grazed over his ear, and her warm breath caressed his skin. His heart pounded, and the question knocked around inside his skull…the one Ambriel had asked him: What was he prepared to give up for her? They both knew what she meant, but it wasn’t that simple.

Candra’s hands roamed over his body, shooting intense fiery tingles across his skin. “Since you are distracting me anyway, I hope you are planning to make it worth my while.”

In a flash, he reversed their position, pressing her into the bed with the weight of his body, and kissed her. Her hands ghosted down his back and slipped innocently between their crushed bodies, dragging upward over his hipbones. Candra squirmed below him and looped her ankle around his calf as he worked up to backing off.

His guy card was well and truly revoked at this point. Caring about someone too much was never a situation Sebastian had contemplated finding himself in. Yet here he was, impossibly turned on and madly in love, but holding out like a virgin before prom. Honestly, he’d had no idea before about the magnitude of
not
having sex. Every nerve inside him was ten times more attuned to the slightest movement of her body. His ears picked out even the tiniest hitch in her breath. Kissing her was like two clouds crashing before a thunderstorm. Everything she did utterly fascinated him, from the way she scooped hair behind her ear to the muscles in her throat working when she swallowed. Candra’s passion was a raging hurricane, and he longed to dance in the rain. Touching her was a sublime torment, one he subjected himself to of his own accord, albeit fleetingly, over and over. He didn’t regret being with her, but Sebastian had known sex without love for far too long. The idea of getting this wrong and falling off a ledge into an abyss, where the tentative control he still clung onto was lost, terrified him.

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

“N
ATHANIEL
, I W
ONDERED
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 neighborhood. 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.”