Ember (21 page)

Brie shuffled the envelope under the table, hesitating, but not refusing the instruction.

“If you don’t tell her, Sebastian will. I believe he is feeling quite ruthless at the moment,” she finished darkly. It was suddenly like all the golden sunlight that had been flooding in from the windows was sucked from the room, leaving a dark gloomy shadow hanging over them.

Brie took the envelope out and placed it on the table, keeping her fingers lightly pressed to it. The two deep frown lines had returned over the bridge of her nose. She looked around guardedly, which in turn made Candra glance around the room too, as if someone would pounce out of one of the cupboards and snatch it from her hand. Candra shrugged Lofi’s hand away and gingerly approached the innocuous looking and obviously offensive envelope, sliding it out from under Brie’s grasp. Her stepmother stood immediately, her eyes damp from the tears she was holding back, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Candra’s ear.

“You know, I don’t know where the years have gone. I feel like I’ve been barely awake and time has drifted away from me.” She smiled with trembling lips.

Candra narrowed her eyes, confused. “What is this?” she asked, shaking it lightly. The paper was thick and clearly expensive. The heavy fibers of the bleached white envelope were rough against her skin.

“It’s an invitation to a ball,” Lofi offered from behind them.

“I really don’t understand.” Candra pulled out the white beveled card from inside and ran her fingers lightly over the embossed writing inviting her to the main hall. She presumed that was the ballroom she had been in the day before.

“It came with a letter from Draven explaining his offer,” Brie said in a hushed voice.

“Oh.” Candra shrugged, turning it over. “I guess Draven wants to show me off…but then you knew that would happen, didn’t you?”

Lofi and Brie exchanged a concerned glance but said nothing. Candra tossed the card on the table. She felt strong for the first time, knowledgeable. She knew what was expected of her, and now she had a date, so she knew when too.
Knowledge is power…right?
She had four weeks, four more weeks of her life belonging to her.

“I get it. Some of it at least. You thought no one would ever have to know. You thought in the same place where it all began was the last place they would look for me. I get that Draven is the type of
guy—”
Candra used her fingers to make quotation marks and ignored Lofi. She rolled her eyes when Lofi chuckled. “—being…whatever, who likes to think he had one over on everyone else. But this is my life…
my life.
No more lies, no more half-truths. I decide. From now on, I decide. So tell me, what else don’t I know?”

Brie rolled her shoulders back and sniffled away the almost-shed tears. “Nothing. There is nothing. Everything I know, you know.” She lifted her hand and rubbed Candra’s arm up and down roughly before Candra leaned forward, pulling her into a hug.

“I love you, and I’m grateful for everything you have done, but this is my path to follow. You have to let me follow it.”

She felt Brie nod against her cheek and hugged her tighter. Her heart faltered. “Anything you would like to add, Lofi?” Candra lowered the tone of her voice minutely, just to let Lofi know she meant business.

“There is something I think you should know. I can talk to you on the way to our first lecture.”

Candra pulled back from Brie and looked to Lofi casually leaning against the door frame. “Uh uh…not anymore. No one will touch me…right? At least for now?” Lofi nodded. “Then you can go back to doing whatever it is you did before, because I don’t need shadows anymore.”

Lofi looked down and shook her head, glancing back up to Candra from under thick eyelashes. “How about today you indulge me. We need to talk.”

Finally Candra was getting somewhere. She couldn’t actually jump for joy about the information she was acquiring, but at least it was something—at least it was the truth. Lofi told her about Sebastian and his plan. Candra wasn’t angry or, surprisingly, even shocked that Sebastian would try to keep her away from Draven any way he could, even going to the extremes of being nice to her…of “turning her head” as Lofi put it so eloquently. They were basically the same animal—Draven and Sebastian—both believing so violently that their way was the only way and that their solution was the only one.

Any hope she had that Draven would simply get bored of her and move on were dashed to smithereens by Lofi. Draven had apparently never taken a partner before, which Candra found hard to believe. The fact that he had chosen her, coupled with the finality of her life, Lofi assured her, meant he would keep her with him to her dying breath.

Candra didn’t want Lofi to tell Sebastian she knew what he was up to. It served no purpose. Sebastian would still try to convince her, and she would still only have a month…four weeks, twenty eight days…hardly a wrinkle in time to him, but to Candra, it was an eternity. At least this way he would be nice to her for the duration, she consoled herself. She couldn’t deny that her fascination with understanding him still festered like a scab she couldn’t help picking at, even though she knew it would hurt in the end. She felt entitled to a peek inside his head, since he had been in her life for six months without her knowledge. She was just beginning to get to know him. She didn’t want to stop, and she was sure, even though she didn’t tell Lofi, that at least some of his feelings for her were real. They had to be. Deep down, where his heart resided, strangled up in thorny vines of guilt, anger, fear, and longing, there lay something deeper in him, something that he couldn’t see but she could. Candra suspected he couldn’t admit he liked her because he didn’t believe he deserved it.

Sebastian was the wallflower at a party, believing he didn’t truly belong there, that his presence was never entirely welcome. He watched from a distance and petulantly refused to admit that he yearned to join in…yearned to be expected or wanted.

Chapter Twelve

“No, thank you. I told you, I am never touching that stuff again,” Candra said, politely declining Draven’s offer of a drink. He was pouring from a bottle this time, the same amber liquid but retrieved from the fridge in the kitchen of his apartment.

“You said ‘something strong,’” he teased with the same sexy smirk he turned on her every time he offered. This wasn’t a meeting, like the first time they met. It was a date of sorts, or what passed for a date during the last few weeks, given their strange set of circumstances.

“Strong, not hallucinogenic.”

He chuckled, spinning the cap back onto the bottle and replacing it in the fridge. Draven kept an apartment in the building where the ball would be held. In fact, all the apartments and offices in the immense building belonged to him. Most of them were occupied, especially now when the number of Watchers in Acheron was still growing.

Candra still didn’t remember her first journey here, but it was different now. Apparently Draven had trust issues about where he stayed. Who could blame him after the way Sebastian stormed in when he found out where they were? The building was located in an affluent part of the city occupied by business types and the wealthier end of society.

Draven’s apartment was large and decorated in a modern, tasteful way with floor-to-ceiling windows in every room, looking out over the city. In a way, it reminded Candra of a king surveying his territory, a little conceited. It was not overly ostentatious, apart from his kitchen, which had been designed for a person who liked to cook, as Draven obviously did. There were masses of storage and glass-fronted cabinets where his ingredients and equipment were readily visible.

She was chopping tomatoes for a salad after watching him expertly prepare lasagna. She narrowly missed her finger with the sharp blade because she found it hard not to look at his tightly rounded, denim-clad ass as he bent to take fresh crusty bread from the oven. Like before, he was barefoot.

“Draven,” she called to attract his attention as he placed the tray of baguettes on the counter island. “I’m enjoying this whole romantic set up thing you have going on here.” He flashed a gleaming smile, and she swallowed, taking a sip from her glass of cola to wet her suddenly dry lips. “We both know you have me.” He frowned, taking off his oven gloves. “Whatever you want to call it, you’ve won. Why do you care if I like you?”

He sauntered toward Candra and stopped the opposite on side of the counter she was working on, popping a piece of tomato into his mouth and chewing. Candra widened her eyes to indicate his lopsided grin wasn’t enough of an answer.

“I haven’t won anything, Candra. When you accompany me to the ball and promise your loyalty, it will be the happiest night of my life. You can’t blame me for wanting you to be at least a little happy too. I don’t want you to be with me under duress.”

Candra sighed heavily and scooped the tomatoes up in her palms, scattering them in the bowl. “I hate to break it to you, but telling me you’ll allow your people to unleash Armageddon on the city unless I play house
is
duress. You’re not a bad person, Draven; I know there is more to what is going on here than you are telling me.”

He shrugged, picking up a mushroom and chewing it. “I hope that when the time comes for you to choose, you will at least like me. I think if you give me the chance, you will.”

“I’ve chosen.”

“No, you haven’t. You only think you have.” He grinned. “But you will.”

She grimaced disapprovingly and carried the bowl of salad over to the island where the bread was and where they would be eating. “Always so cryptic, Draven.”

He chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair, the action pulling his worn white T-shirt up, revealing the sprinkling of dark hair across his stomach. “Always so inquisitive, Candra.” He followed her over and took the stool beside her before he commenced slicing up the lasagna which, she had to grudgingly admit, smelled divine.

“So what do you do, Draven? How have you spent all your time when you aren’t trying to get me drunk and seduce me? I imagine living forever gets boring,” Candra asked curiously.

He grimaced and rolled his eyes at her directness. “As boring or as exciting as you want it to be, and you know we don’t live forever,” he retorted, shoveling a mound of the deliriously fragrant cheesy mass onto her plate.

“Forever, unless you are mortally wounded?”

He nodded. “I’ve been a lot of things in my life, a scholar, an artist, a doctor…a priest,” he finished with an amused expression. Candra presumed he was trying to goad a reaction from her.

She was surprised, but beginning to understand that they infiltrated all walks of life, even religious.

“Right now, I’m involved in a trust that is financially responsible for many charitable causes.”

“Why?” Candra pushed, putting her napkin up to her mouth because she forgot she shouldn’t talk with her mouth full. Chewing cow wasn’t a good look.

“Why what?”

“Why help humanity if you think so little of it being destroyed in your war that you would risk me refusing you?”

“I never said I think little of it. I think of little else.” There was an undercurrent of restrained anger in his tone, and she wondered if he was trying to hide it from her.

“You will live as long as your body doesn’t get damaged. I have that much right at least?”

“Pretty much, but of course there are the stones. We can’t heal ourselves properly though.” His shoulders settled. It seemed to her she had easily managed to distract him from his brief moment of annoyance.

“But another Watcher could use their stone on you? Or if you have a minor injury, then you could heal yourself?”

Draven nodded, and Candra didn’t add that she had already managed to use her father’s stone. It somehow still felt like a private moment between Sebastian and her, something she shouldn’t share. She even felt a little strange that she had blurted it out in front of Brie and Lofi. It was like the feeling of dreaming that you are walking on a busy street and looking down to realize you were naked. They didn’t know why or how she could do it, and she felt she had unwittingly exposed something she should have kept to herself.

“Is that what Ananchel was doing the day I fell, testing a theory…seeing if I carried angel’s blood?”

Draven grimaced and pursed his lips as if he was considering something, then took a long sip of his brandy. The silence sounded distinctly like a blaring white noise…a stall, and so instead of waiting for him to answer, Candra returned to her food.

She was actually enjoying it a great deal. Draven knew his way around a kitchen. Although it was probably easy to be good at everything given enough time and practice. The thought made her cheeks flood with heat as she wondered what else Draven was well-practiced in. Even if he hadn’t had a mate, she was sure there must have been women in his life. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his smug grin; he missed nothing.

“Ananchel was only playing that day.”

“Really?” Candra raised her eyebrows, roughly tearing off a piece of the still-warm bread to sop up the tomato sauce.

“Yes, really,” Draven responded firmly, pushing his plate away, appearing to lose interest after only a few bites of food. “Please believe me, Candra, we are not murderers. Ananchel is a law unto herself at times, but I know her. She was just playing with you—she does it to everyone. I know she respects you for standing up to her. I think she even likes you, actually. She can’t have any effect on those who aren’t open to her. She would have healed you herself if the others hadn’t come along.”

Candra hummed dubiously. “I’ve seen what she can do. I’ve felt it…and at the party…what she did to Sebastian…” She shuddered at the memory.

He chuckled, shaking his head, and she looked back down to her plate. She didn’t enjoy being mocked.

“You are young. Your body is full of hormones, and you are excited easily. Maybe already a little excited from an earlier encounter that evening?”

Again, the slow blush was rising from her chest.
I really wish he would stop that.

“Now you know her limitations: she can’t touch you. Sebastian, on the other hand…it seems he isn’t entirely finished enjoying Ananchel—”

“You call that enjoying?” She cut him off briskly.

“I call that ex-sex.”

Candra opened her mouth to say something but was struck dumb when it hit her like a barrel to the chest.
Ananchel and Sebastian.
Her stomach twisted, and she thought she might be sick…
Sebastian and Ananchel
.

Clearly judging by her shocked expression, Draven knew she wasn’t going to speak and went on. “Some physical connections can be quite intense and hard to let go of. For years, Sebastian told her every time was the last time and then came back for more. Ananchel won’t bother him again, now she knows he really doesn’t want it.”

Lofi had told her Ananchel didn’t hold back; she hadn’t told her it was because it was some depraved game of cat and mouse between the two of them, that he wanted Ananchel to do it to him. Candra wanted to make some sharp retort to show Draven that she didn’t care, that it didn’t bother her in the slightest, but absolutely nothing came to mind, and she did care. In fact she cared a great deal, because it was Sebastian, and he belonged with her…except she knew he didn’t, and she intended to promise to be with Draven.

“How close are you?” Candra probed bitterly, beginning to get the impression that any man interested in her had already experienced Ananchel in full, glorious Technicolor.

In a flash, Draven turned her seat to face him, gripping it on either side of her hips with his legs trapping hers. She gasped in a breath in shock at his unexpected movements. His wide, dark eyes shone with speckles of gold, and Candra was so close she could clearly make out the blood pounding under the tanned skin of his throat below his ear. His piercing gaze darted to her lips and back to her eyes. Candra could feel the energy sizzle between them. Draven smirked devilishly.

“Are you jealous?”

Candra attempted to swivel her seat away from him, trying her utmost to appear unaffected by his nearness, but it was difficult. She was affected…again. Every drop of fiery blood coursing through her body to gather in the pit of her stomach told her so. She gulped loudly and felt the hairs on the backs of her arms bristle; she wasn’t jealous, at least not for the reasons she presumed Draven would want to believe. She was jealous of Ananchel because when Ananchel wanted something she went after it. She was fearless with men. Unlike Candra.

With Draven, there was an animal attraction between them, a deep basic instinct to fulfill the desire Candra felt for him physically. With Sebastian, there was also a strong physical attraction, coupled with the emotional connection that was growing between them unbounded. Yet, she stood between them, confused and scared to act on either.

Draven moved closer, shifting forward until her knees brushed the inseam of his jeans. If she didn’t stop him, he would kiss her. She hated that one part of her was so curious to know what it would feel like, but that there was the other part that knew it wasn’t Draven that she really wanted to kiss. Candra lifted her hand quickly, blocking him by pressing her hand into his solid chest, and at the same time she leaned away from him.

“Wait.”

He hesitated and leaned away, in the process loosening his grip on her stool.

“Are you doing this? Is it real?”

He looked deeply offended—wounded even—and moved back to his previous position at the counter. “I crossed my heart, didn’t I? I’m not sure what other assurance I can offer. I’ve already said I wouldn’t use my persuasion on you.” He proceeded to take an exaggerated swig from his glass, and another puzzle piece shifted into place for Candra.

Draven wasn’t used to hearing no.

“I’m sorry,” she defended sternly. “It’s just…not only am I not sure who I can trust, now I’m also afraid to trust my own feelings, or my own body, for that matter.”

He looked at her sideways, all the fire obliterated from his eyes, leaving them looking like black ice in an ocean of navy. “Why? Because you want to kiss me? It may surprise you to know that plenty of women do want to kiss me of their own volition.” He got up and grabbed his plate, taking it to the sink.

“Maybe that’s what’s confusing then,” Candra offered, frowning.

He spun on the balls of his feet and raised his eyebrows, looking confused.

“You’re rich, attractive—” Candra stopped when he scowled at her choice of words, like a little kid being refused ice-cream. She smiled. “Okay, you are
very
attractive…better?” He nodded, pacified, and she continued. “You’ve been around forever, so you’ve had plenty of time to experience life and to learn about…well, basically everything. I don’t—and I say this, not putting myself down in the slightest, because let’s face it, I’m fairly fabulous—”

Draven crossed his arms over his chest and pressed his lips together to stifle a chuckle, making Candra’s smile wider.

“Why, out of all the women who must hurl themselves at you on a daily basis, would you choose me, someone who’s indifferent to you, someone who is only with you because you aren’t giving me any other choice?”