Ember (24 page)

He turned then to see she was staring straight ahead, looking at his chest instead of his face. He had the urge to lift her chin and make her look at him, but he resisted. Candra wasn’t shy, and if she wasn’t looking at him, it was intentional.

“You make me furious too, you know?” Candra admitted honestly.

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

She smirked and looked up at him, tilting her head to the side. “I liked you just fine the way you were.”

Sebastian didn’t resist the smug grin fighting to get through because Candra wasn’t angry; she didn’t even seem upset to know he’d been playing nice to distract her…and she liked him, which surprised him.

“Well, once I got used to your…” She pressed her lips together like she was searching for the right word to use. “Well, just you. Once I got used to you. You were pretty hard going at first.” She looked down again briefly and then looked up. “Are we friends now?”

“I think we are.” That took Sebastian right back to wondering if friends was the right definition of what they were.

“Can I ask you to do something?” She sucked in a quick breath. “As a friend,” she tagged on at the end, hesitantly.

“What?” he asked dubiously. What exactly was the limit on what one friend could ask another to do?

“Lofi told me you are leaving soon. This isn’t exactly easy, standing with Draven…officially, and I’m going to need my
friends
to be there for me. Can you do that for me?”

“You mean the ball?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t recall getting an invitation,” Sebastian replied wryly.

“I’ll make sure you receive one, post haste,” she said.

“Do I have to keep being nice?” he asked in an attempt to distract himself from the fact he wanted to break Draven’s neck for putting this on her, and that he wanted to break her neck for expecting him to let Draven have her.

“No.” She smiled. “You can go back to being a pain in the ass, if that makes you feel better.”

“Hmmm, I do look good in a tux. I suppose if that’s what friends do, then I can do it.” Sebastian wasn’t sure he could. It wasn’t in his nature to give up and walk away, but he could tell it was the answer she needed to hear.

She smiled again, bumping his upper arm with her shoulder.

“But I think maybe I’ll at least try to keep being nice to you,” Sebastian added, grimacing as if it would be an effort.

“Don’t strain anything important while doing it,” she joked.

They came to the top of a short sloping hill, and Candra paused, looking over it and then looking back to Sebastian. It was times like this he truly wished he could have some sort of insight into what she was thinking.

“What’s wrong?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“I had a dream about my dad. I was frightened of the guards around the city, and he told me they were there to protect me,” she told him wistfully, staring into space ahead of her. “Do you think that means I could see them, even when I was hidden? I feel almost like he’s trying to tell me something.”

“No, if you could see them, they would have been able to see you. It was just a dream. Payne is gone,” Sebastian answered, although he was curious about where she was headed with this and what she thought Payne was trying to tell her.

“I used to come here with my dad. We would roll down this hill until we were too dizzy to climb back up it again.” She smiled sadly at the memory and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The gentle wind blew strands of hair across her face, and Sebastian stood there watching, once again wanting to reach out and touch her and not fully understanding why.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what would make a difference to her melancholy . He didn’t like this, feeling out of control the way he did since he crashed into her life. Candra moved to the edge of the slope, and without a word she sat down.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to roll down,” she answered as if it should be perfectly obvious why any young woman would sit down on muddy grass.

“Why?” Sebastian asked confused, moving closer to her.

She tugged on the leg of his jeans, urging him to sit with her. “Because I can, because I want to remember what it felt like, because it’s fun.” She tugged again more harshly and grimaced at his lack of enthusiasm.

“It’s been raining, if you haven’t noticed. Getting covered in mud and grass is fun?” He raised his eyebrows, wondering if she had finally lost her senses.

Candra rolled her eyes and smirked before lying down and launching herself down the hill sideways. It took a matter of moments, but her laughter filtered through the air until she stopped after a few more rolls at the bottom. She stood up a little shakily with mud and grass smeared over her clothes and her hair an untamed mess, but she was smiling and then rushed back up the hills again.

“Your turn,” she informed Sebastian brightly. It was almost completely dark because of the thick cloud cover, despite the fact it wasn’t night yet.

“My turn?” he parroted, wondering if she was actually expecting him to roll down a hill.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Your turn.”

“Look, if you want to revert to your chil—”

“Oh, just roll down the hill, Sebastian,” she cut him off, exasperated.

Sebastian stared at her wide-eyed. She was audacious and courageous in everything she did, be it rolling down a grassy knoll or facing up to decisions he didn’t want to. Before her, his life had become monotonous and unsatisfying. In essence, for a long time he had stopped living. He merely existed. Yet here was Candra, so full of life and wanting to share this moment with him, and he was stuck, reluctant and a sorry excuse for a friend.

She was still watching and waiting defiantly, unwilling to give up on him.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” he grumbled, slumping to the ground.

Candra giggled, clapping her hands together.

With a last glance, Sebastian lay down, closed his eyes, and rolled. It was over in a flash, but he could see how Candra would find it invigorating. He had been so obsessed lately with manipulating everything going on around him. But in those brief moments rolling down the hill, the feeling of being out of control was dominant. It was freeing to know that even with closed eyes and no control, the world was spinning past, it kept turning with or without him. It wasn’t flying, but he could see the attraction. Sebastian stood up, pulling back down his T-shirt that had ridden up, and rejoined Candra.

“Fun, right?” She beamed.

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged, and she swiftly lay down to go again.

Except this time she didn’t reach the end laughing. She let out a sharp gasp, accompanied by the sound of ripping fabric, about two-thirds of the way down the hill, and she stopped at the bottom but didn’t stand. Instead she curled up clutching her leg.

Sebastian ran down after her and spotted the stone he hadn’t noticed before jutting out of the ground, now traced with Candra’s blood. He knelt down beside her.

“Crap, what did you do?” he asked.

“I would think it was perfectly obvious,” she said, pouting, tentatively exploring the small cut through the jagged rip in her jeans. Her cheeks were ruddy from exertion, and her eyes were damp. The sudden pain had caught her off guard.

“Let me see.”

“No.” She swatted his hands away stubbornly.

Sebastian sat back on his heels, placing his hand on his thighs. “So it’s like that, is it?”

“Like what?” Candra didn’t look up. She pulled at the jeans and poked her finger through, hissing when she touched what was a small but deep cut on her shin.

“You get to help me, but I can’t help you.” Sebastian reminded her of her own words.

Candra peeked up at him, scowling. “I don’t want you to heal me.”

Sebastian was sure he would never understand females of any kind.
What in the Arch’s name was she thinking?
The question must have been written on his face.

“It makes me not human.”

“But you
are
human, and you’re in pain,” he argued, reaching into his pocket to draw out his stone, running his thumb over the surface.

“You were the one who told me I wasn’t human, and I’m not. Not that part of me, not the part that can be healed. That makes me one of you.”

“Being one of us is bad?” Sebastian asked, feeling a stab of bitterness toward himself. He was probably adding to her confusion all along by trying to label her neatly, when in reality Candra was so unique she couldn’t be labeled. She was part-human, part-angel, a Nephil with a soul, not light or dark but somewhere in between. She didn’t fit anywhere because she was part of all of them, and he had made her feel bad for it.

A tingling sensation started in the center of his chest and spread out through his body. It felt like a jolt, an abrupt eureka moment. He was sure it was something he should understand, something he already knew but had kept hidden. Emotions he had never felt before were fighting their way through his subconscious. He was suddenly wide awake and buzzed, giddy just to be in Candra’s presence.

“What, are you going to sing me the joys of being an angel?” She laughed miserably, snapping his attention back to her, and winced again.

“It has its advantages,” he said excitedly. His heart quickened, and he wanted to share the feeling with her, except he couldn’t put his finger on what the feeling was, but he knew the next best thing.

“Oh yeah, like what?” she asked.

“Let me heal you, and I’ll show you,” Sebastian offered. He considered it a fair compromise for what he was offering.

“Show me, and I’ll let you heal me,” Candra countered. She was just a stubborn as he was.

“Fine,” he agreed. “But we should at least get you home and cleaned up first.”

“Are we going somewhere formal?” she asked with a hint of a teasing smile.

He sighed heavily and got to his feet, putting the curleax away. “No, but I don’t think dripping blood is a good look for you.”

Chapter Fourteen

Candra knew she was being childish, preferring to suffer than allow Sebastian to heal her, but she had only days left feeling human, feeling somewhat like she had felt her whole life up to now. Then she would find herself submerged into their world. She didn’t know where she would be living or studying. She had no idea what would be expected of her apart from being by Draven’s side. That was something that she resolved to clear up as soon as possible.

She didn’t think it was asking too much to bleed a little…okay, it wasn’t exactly a little; there was a small, disgusting flap of skin about an inch wide pulled back on her shin, and the blood was oozing out in a constant flow. It hurt, but she was sure her jeans took the brunt of the damage. She was just a little annoyed at, yet again, something going wrong for her.

However, since Sebastian wanted to show her something, she was a little more than curious to see what it was. So much so that she didn’t want to waste time going home to clean up her leg, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to concede to allowing him to heal her first. He was being the nice guy now. She wasn’t sure if it was still a façade, and she didn’t really care, but she still couldn’t bring herself to just give in.

Sebastian stood over her, his hand outstretched to help her up. Candra ignored it and grabbed a hold of the edge of her shirt—she knew it would rip easily because the fabric was flimsy—and tore off a strip from the end.

“Okay,” Sebastian chuckled, taking his hand back to scratch the back of his neck.

“I’m just doing what I was told to do and cleaning up,” Candra responded softly, wincing when she accidently brushed the cut as she pulled the leg of her jeans up to her knee. “This will do until you heal me,” she told him, wincing again as she positioned the small flap of skin and tied the strip of cloth around it. It looked like someone with a knife had taken a small slice of her. She must have hit a sharp rock at a wrong angle rolling down, but it really wasn’t too bad.

“It will get infected,” Sebastian warned.

Candra looked up to his concerned face. Actual genuine concern, she noted. He wasn’t happy about her makeshift bandage at all.

“If you’re going to heal me anyway, it won’t matter. Or I could just heal it myself.” She pushed her hands to the ground to stand. Sebastian rushed to help, standing her up with little effort.

“You passed out the last time. Maybe you should just leave the healing to me for now, okay?” he reminded her. “Besides it wouldn’t heal properly doing it yourself.”

“But you were trying to heal your own wing.”

“I’m a stubborn ass. I would have had to ask someone for help eventually,” Sebastian conceded.

Candra nodded, and he released her arm with a smile that reached his eyes for once. Her insides fluttered.

“So?” she prompted.

He smiled again and glanced around them sheepishly like a kid up to mischief. Sebastian looked young when he wasn’t sullen. Looking back to Candra again, he crossed his arms and grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, pulling it up and over his head.

Candra had seen him bare-chested already, but it never failed to hold her interest. She watched in utter female fascination as the defined sinewy muscles of his abdomen corded, stretched, and flexed with the movement, the way the golden skin of his stomach pulled in over the waistband of the jeans that always sat so enticingly low on his hip bones—not to mention the splattering of hair that disappeared south in a fine line. She suddenly felt the air become much warmer.

“You’re kind of making me feel objectified here.” Sebastian chuckled, snapping Candra back to reality.

She appeared to be staring at his crotch. Her face flamed because she wasn’t—she was staring at his waistband. But judging by his comment, it appeared she was staring lower down. Candra was mortified, and her cheeks burned almost as much as her leg. Of course it was like telling someone not to think about pink elephants or chocolate ice cream or hot guys. The moment she thought about the fact she wasn’t checking out what was going on below his belt, her eyes were automatically drawn there, which brought about Round Two of laughter from him.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Candra barked through her embarrassment. “I was just thinking if you going to take those off, I’m leaving.” She pointed to his jeans, totally aware he wouldn’t believe her for one second.

Sebastian hummed conceitedly, stuffing one end of his mud-stained T-shirt securely into the pocket of his jeans. “I like this shirt; I’d like to keep it.” With that, the golden mist that signaled the appearance of his wings rolled down his back, and they unfurled, flexing outward and flapping twice as if he was stretching them for use.

Oh, my—
Candra wasn’t coherent enough to complete the sentence in her head.

Sebastian approached her, grinning, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Don’t worry. Humans won’t be able to see either of us once we’re up.”

“Up?” she echoed as a combination of excitement and nervousness began to pump adrenaline through her body, making her heart race.

Sebastian pursed his lips, still smiling, and pressed his body against Candra’s firmly so she could feel the hardness of his chest and his heat invading the air around her. Butterflies went wild in her stomach as she suddenly realized that they
could
fly and Sebastian was about to take her up with him. She wasn’t sure she was ready, but then, how does someone prepare to fly with an angel?

“You’ll need to put your arms around my neck and hold on tight.”

She complied eagerly, reaching up on her toes, which made her leg throb and sting, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t think of any place she would rather be in that moment than flying in the safety of Sebastian’s arms.

“It would be easier if you put your legs around my waist too.”

Candra looked up at him, surprised to see the wicked glint in his eyes, and she couldn’t figure out if he was flirting with her or teasing her. “Let’s just see how this goes,” she replied wryly.

“Suit yourself.” Sebastian scanned the area once more.

“You have done this before? Taken someone with you?” she wondered aloud as he tightened his grip on her waist.

“No, never.”

“Wha—” Candra hadn’t got the whole word out before his powerful wings flapped, pushing them off from the ground. They shot up, spinning into the air, leaving her stomach floating somewhere down nearer the ground.

Up and up they went, with Sebastian’s face lifted to the sky above them, but she could see he was smiling widely, each whoosh of his huge wings pushing them higher and higher. This was his rolling down a hill, she realized. This was where he felt free, and he was sharing it with her. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t. She looked over his arm, past their dangling legs to see the ground getting further away, vanishing further into the clouds with each passing second. She wasn’t scared; it was fascinating, thrilling. Her heart felt as if it would burst with elation, and she could feel Sebastian’s heart thunder along with hers.

The air around them grew dark and hazy, like a thick wet fog. The dampness settled on their skin, cooling it and soaking their clothes and hair. Sebastian pulled Candra up his chest, and without thinking about it, she lifted one leg and then the other, hooking them around his body.

Candra was able to shift herself further up, clinging to him and forgetting about the pain in her shin, until their faces were almost level. The only thing preventing it was that Sebastian was still looking up.

All of a sudden the cloud mist began to clear, and Sebastian slowed as they came out into the clear sky. His gently moving wings created a breeze that wrapped around them, and Candra’s eyes widened. Sebastian finally looked at her. She could see him in her peripheral vision and feel his penetrating gaze on her, but Candra was looking away in compete awe at the breathtaking view around them.

The sun was setting. It had almost disappeared over the horizon, and the sky that hadn’t been visible through the cloud cover was now revealed in shades of gold, magenta, red, and blue, fading and mingling like a painted rainbow that had been smudged and blended perfectly. Sebastian turned slowly, treading air as one might tread water, as the shadow of the crescent moon appeared in the darkening sky—translucent, barely there, like a phantom creeping into being. It was surrounded by a few dim stars that were nothing more than pinpricks through the dazzling canvas of the burgeoning twilight.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. His warm breath combined with the coolness of Candra’s damp skin tickled her.

She turned her face to him and could see his trepidation. His eyes caught the dying light, reflecting the shimming rose color of the slowly waning day.

“It’s so beautiful,” she sighed.

Sebastian let out a long steady breath. It had the strangest effect on Candra, making the hairs rise on her arms and her nerves vibrate below her skin. Every fiber of her being seemed to reach out to draw him closer.

“Hey, I can breathe just fine.” It hit her that they were very high up and the air must be thinner, yet she had no problem breathing. She should be feeling cold too, but she didn’t.

He smirked, one side of his lips pulling up more than the other. “See, I told you it wasn’t all bad. It’s the angel blood inside you that allows you to do this.”

“But if there was no one else like me, how did you know?”

“I took a calculated guess that if you could heal, you could do this too.”

“You guessed?” Candra couldn’t keep the accusation from her tone.

“You are in no danger with me, Candra—ever. I can feel your breath and heartbeat; I can feel your blood moving under your skin and the temperature of your body. I would have stopped if you were in danger. My only concern is that you don’t want to be this close to me.”

Candra searched his expression for any hint that he was playing with her again, but there was none. They turned in slow circles, and her grip on his neck loosened a little. Her hands skimmed the silky hair at the nape of his neck to behind his ear. Sebastian closed his eyes again, leaning into her touch. She loved how his hair felt against her skin. Even damp, it felt like fine, smooth threads. She looked down, watching the top of his chest rise and fall, knowing there was nowhere for either of them to run, but also knowing she didn’t want to. That was the hardest part of all: knowing as the stars multiplied, the sky turned velvet, and the moon cast them in silver light, that she didn’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone else. The distant sounds of the city blurred to nothing, leaving only the calming swish of Sebastian’s wings.

Candra closed her eyes as tears burned and trickled over. This moment was perfect. It couldn’t be any more perfect, and yet she knew it was just that—it was only a moment. It was a dream, and dreams were only the imagining of a fanciful mind; they weren’t reality.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured into her hair when she released a quiet sob and leaned her face against his shoulder. “Don’t cry. I really can’t handle that female stuff. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Candra couldn’t help smiling through the tears and looked back up to him. “I’m sorry. I guess you’ve really swept me off my feet.” She laughed sadly, unable to wipe the tears away.

“Literally,” he quipped, to make her laugh, she knew. His arms tightened around her again. “I really don’t want to let you go,” he said, all the lightness gone from his tone. His eyes darkened with intensity in the way that made her feel he was connecting into her soul.

It was the first time that Candra allowed herself to believe, if only for that moment, that what Draven said was true and maybe Sebastian’s feelings for her ran deeper than either of them wanted to admit out loud.

Just as Candra thought it, she realized what she had been denying to herself and everyone else. She had been falling in love with Sebastian this whole time, and she didn’t know until that moment, because she had nothing to compare it to. Her insides clenched tightly, and her heart felt as if someone had it in a tight grasp, strangling the life out of her. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. She didn’t want to cry or show her weakness, although that was exactly what she was doing.

For some reason the words of the dream she had about this park came back to her, the younger her on the swing.
I want to fly,
she had said to her father, and he’d warned her even then.

But what if you fall?

I’m not afraid,
Candra had told him in the dream. But she was afraid. Every barrier she had kept up against the emotions she felt for Sebastian shattered, and the fledging love for him flooded through, overwhelming her.

“Don’t,” Sebastian pleaded in a strained sigh, watching her tears as if they were daggers stabbing at him.

Candra closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She couldn’t bear to, because this was all they had. In three days, it would all be over, and she was expected to walk away. Sebastian would walk away. He had promised to be there for her at the ball, but Candra was sure he would never be able to keep that promise. If his feelings were even a fraction of what she felt, how would he ever watch her go to Draven? Her fingers tightened, gripping his hair until she was sure it must have hurt, but he barely seemed to register it.