Page 52 of Ember and Ash

Micah’s lips press together. “He either believed him to be a stupid human that might be useful in the future, or he’s working with Jeremy.”

“I don’t think he’s working with them, but will they…could they use him against me?”

“I already have someone looking after him.” With that, he starts walking again, and his energy is as wicked as lightning ripping through a vicious thunderstorm.

I double-step and fall into pace with him. “I went on a date with him one time. It went horribly, and we had no chemistry at all.”

“I don’t need to know this, Ember.”

“I want to tell you, though, if you’d just jump in my head and find out for yourself, all the distrust between us would slide away.” I pause for his input, but he says nothing, and I continue onward. “Oliver has an arrogance problem—a bit like someone else I know. He took me on a date and didn’t ask what I like or don’t like. It was seafood—fish with the head on and eyes intact. He’s lucky I even allowed a friendship to form after that. And, come to think of it, I’m not sure my extreme negative reaction says much about where my hunting skills are headed.” Mountain terrain begins to take form, and as my gaze lifts to the horizon, I note the summer green peaks and valleys before us that I would not call welcoming. “Where exactly are we going?”

“To my home,” he replies. “Why did you?”

“Your home? And why did I what?”

“Allow him to become your friend,” he says, ignoring my question about this being his home. I open my mouth to say as much, but considering I’ve taken us to a double-whammy topic of Oliver and demons, I decide better. This is perhaps more of a tit-for-tat situation.

In other words, me first, offering up my position on Oliver. “He was persistent, and he has kind eyes that, thankfully, are not yellow. And as it was, he turned out to be a loyal person as well. Honestly, it seems he might be the only loyal person in my life. It would destroy me to find out otherwise.”

He once again says nothing. Not one single word, and at this point, I’m distracted by the climb up a mountainside, and if I weren’t huffing and puffing so much, I’d ask him about Celine. Apparently, I’m too busy proving I need the exercise I swore I didn’t need to find out about his ex-love interest, and I doubt he’d tell me about her anyway, at least not in his present state of grumpiness.

We halt at a wild running stream that glows blue, the water rough, soundlessly crashing off the rocks east and west, bubbling with the force. I turn toward Micah to ask how we cross, and he fades and reappears on the other side, motioning to me with the fingers of one hand.

“Come to me.”

My heart races wildly with the idea that I’m over here and he’s over there, and the only way to remedy the problem is magic I don’t even believe I wield, at least not with the powers he thinks I hold. “Micah, please—”

“Behind you!” he shouts, and with a leap of my pulse, I whirl around to find what looks like a giant white beast charging at me.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

Fate is a fickle beast you must learn never to trust. Fate requires you change nothing and do nothing that the universe has not ordained you act upon. Free thinkers are rarely predictable, and therefore your fate may change with one small shift left or right, forward or backward. Fate has an agenda, ensure it’s also yours.

Chapter twenty-six

Time stands still as the giant white beast continues to charge at me.

For a moment, I’m transfixed by the unbelievable creature, long fangs snarling beneath black lips and its featherless wings spread wide and tall, black veins zigzagging through their several-foot expanse. He’s too close, I think. My eyes lift to that of the beast, and his intent is clear. He’s coming for me.

“Ember!” Micah shouts at me, and he does it from the other side of the river—the bastard—but my anger at him is the jolt I need, and not a moment too soon. I roll out of the path of the beast, and when it meets empty space, its head tilts skyward as a furious roar escapes its lips.

I don’t dare take my eyes off of it as I scream across the raging water, “Are you kidding me, Micah? I don’t even have a weapon.”

“Use your magic. And keep moving. It’s slow, and it lacks agility.”

Easy for him to say when he didn’t just dodge the thing, I think, but at this point it’s rotated my direction again, and I don’t wait for it to lunge. With my heart racing and adrenaline almost too intense to manage, I haul it toward the woods, a plan forming in my mind. It’s big. I’m not. That wingspan alone has limitations, and if I can just find a cluster of trees that are close together, it will never get to me. Slow and lacking agility, I repeat in my mind, but as I glance over my shoulder, the damn thing is almost on top of me. Apparently, I’m slow and lacking agility. No. Just slow. I can shift directions much faster than the beast.

Empowered by how this helps me, I’ve reached the line of trees again, and I enter the forest, cutting right into the thick of it and running as fast as I can. The silent screams start again, mingling with muffled voices, somehow everywhere and nowhere, cluttering my mind and confusing me, and I suddenly wonder if the beast is one with them. The creature grunts, and I turn around just in time to see it tuck its wings, and when it does, it’s half its size. No. No. No. This plan is not working as well as I’d hoped. I whip around and dig my feet in, racing forward and dodging left, right, left, right through the trees and forming a figure eight. And I don’t stop until I’m finally in the center of a cluster of trees so tightly aligned that I barely fit, and even then, I go deeper and deeper, only to find the trees seem to be spreading out. It’s as if they are literally moving.

I whip around to find the beast almost upon me again, and it’s clear I can’t run. I have to fight, and I have no weapon. I’ll go for its wings, I think, if I can get him to open them again. I start searching for anything I can use as a weapon and realize that rocks cluster around the bottom of the trees. I step to the edge of a tree with a hefty supply, only to have the tree move further away. I try again. Same result. I manage to grab two rocks, and not a second too soon, considering I can see the damn thing’s fangs again.

I throw the rock at his mouth, and it zips past his teeth to, I assume, his tongue or throat. Yes, I really did throw it that well, when I normally can’t even hit a trashcan. He shakes his head and opens his mouth wider, the black flesh inside positively disgusting, but I take advantage of the larger target, and I chuck another rock. This time, I miss and hit him in the jaw.

The beast spits out the rock from the previous hit and roars furiously, so clearly, I haven’t succeeded in choking him to death with a rock. His wings shoot out to his sides, but any win I’ve achieved is lost when the trees close in on me, imprisoning me. I swear the beast smiles, actually smiles, and starts stomping toward me, as if he knows what I do not, only I think I do. The trees are going to hand me over to him. I’m about to be beast soup, and my heart pounds with such fierceness that I think it might burst out of my chest.

That thing, whatever it is, stomps another two steps closer, and I’m freaking out. Micah! I scream, and I think it’s out loud, but it’s not. It’s in my mind. I feel the moment we connect, the fireflies sparking my path, and then I’m rocked to that reality, to his mind. Did you just bring me here to kill me? Help me!

The beast is less than a foot in front of me, and I’m desperately reaching for that mental link to Micah again. Micah. Please!