Page 63 of Ember and Ash

“You can spellcast your own cup of coffee or rift to the kitchen. That’s the point. It wants you to use your magic.”

“It, or you?”

“Both,” he says easily.

“Well, ‘the house’ is acting like an overbearing parent.”

“I suppose ‘the house’ sees itself just that way, but I am far from parental where you’re concerned.”

I halt and turn toward him, and he’s already facing me, the words already on the tip of my tongue and impossible to pull back. “If not parental, Micah, then what? How do you see yourself with me?”

“How do you see me, Ember?”

“Overbearingly arrogant and stubborn.” It’s as honest an answer as I’m willing to give him right now, and even admit to myself.

“I’m protective, but for the record, confidence is not arrogance, and it’s something you need to learn.”

“I was confident as a human. I’m a baby Nephilim. And you’re protective because you think I’m the Aza, and there’s a reason some of your own kind want to kill me.”

“Our own kind,” he replies, his voice a low rasp. “You’re like me, Ember.”

“Am I, though? I don’t think you believe that any more than I do.”

“That’s not true. You can feel that connection,” he says, and I suck in a breath as he adds, “our connection.”

I have no idea why, but my heart is racing, and I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff about to fall, and he’s all that holds me in place. “What does that mean, Micah? Tell me what all of this means.”

He cuts his eyes, and I have this sense of him battling within himself, and I don’t believe he’s a man who hesitates or questions himself much. But he’s struggling over me, and I can’t conclude that’s a good thing. “Micah—”

“This is your room,” he says, facing forward, and I blanch as I realize the walkway has ended and we haven’t moved. We’re standing in front of two side-by-side heavy arched wooden doors.

He reaches for the shiny gold handle, and with a moan, the wood slides open, and Micah is motioning me inside. My pulse leaps at the idea of being alone with him in my bedroom, but as I step under the archway, when I’m parallel to him, he says, “Sleep well, Ember.”

I whip around to face him, but he’s gone, only the remnants of magic and the earthy scent of him lingering in the air, but I can still feel him. He is everywhere in this place, except right here with me, and I don’t even know how to reach him if I need him.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

The Nephilim are descendants of angels, sent to do good for the mighty creator. It was abuse of that role that left our kind eternally living amongst humans, paying for those sins of our elders, but to discount what a gift this punishment is, is fool’s blood. Our destruction could just as easily come from demons as it could the greed corrupting our own kind.

Chapter thirty-one

The room is something out of a period piece and worthy of a queen, a spectacular showing of intricate trim work, a wood-beamed ceiling, and elaborate draperies framing both the towering windows to my right and the etched pillars around the king-sized bed. The fireplace to my left is encased in ceramic, angel winds etched in its surface, while flames of orange and blue burn beneath its belly, licking at the air, and I wonder if Micah lit it for me. I decide it’s a gift from the house.

My gaze catches on a small round stone table framed by two high-back chairs where a stack of books and a steaming cup of coffee await me. Micah, I think with a pinch in my chest of some unnamed emotion. I walk that direction and find a note lying next to the cup. I pick it up and flip it open to read:

Wish for it, and it will be yours. Use your assets to create your own coffee in the morning, or, if you prefer, come next door to my room.

—Micah

Warmth spreads through me, a fan of heat that settles low in my belly. Now I know how to reach him. Now I have an invitation to his room. I inhale on a sudden push into my mind as Micah orders, Sit. Get to turning those pages.

I have no idea how it happens, but I answer him as easily as he’s spoken to me. You’re extremely bossy.

Don’t forget arrogant. Be up early. We start training tomorrow. Goodnight, Ember. Sleep well.

The warmth in my belly is officially spreading across my chest, and a part of me wonders if he can feel it through the connection. Goodnight, I reply and then spontaneously add, Thank you, Micah.

For what?