Page 67 of Ember and Ash

All of this is too much, it cuts me until I bleed, it burns me until I scream inside, and there is no escape. “I don’t want to be the Aza, Micah,” I say, my voice lifting with my urgency. “I don’t want any of this.”

His hand slides under my hair, long fingers curving around my neck as he tilts my gaze to his. “You’re special, sweetheart. Deep down, you know this.”

“Special enough to make a demon hunt me, stalk me, and try to possess me?”

“Exactly. As the saying goes, if the devil is after you, you’re doing something right. If he’s not after you, you’re already one of his. You aren’t going to let him have you. And neither am I.” His mouth inches closer to mine, and I crave the touch of his lips. I so want to know what this man tastes like, but I’m just as desperate to protect him, and my fingers splay on his chest, my elbow straightening a degree. “No,” I whisper, pressing against him. “I’m dangerous to you, Micah. I know you know this.”

“I’m dangerous to you, too, Ember, but in a wicked twist of the universe, we’re stronger together.” His mouth closes over mine, and the first lick of his tongue is surely the bittersweet death of us both.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

The truth is reality, but whose truth is the question. While humans want to believe there is only one right answer, only one destiny, there is always a second path, another way to get to the other side. A Nephilim must always seek the Source.

Chapter thirty-three

The kiss is sweet honey in the hot Texas sun, and yet still as dark and lawless as the forbidden fruit I know I am to him. He’s not supposed to kiss me. He’s supposed to kill me, and the very idea should terrify me, and this kiss should read like manipulation, like the danger I know him to be to me, but the idea that he wants me despite the risk drives me wild. I moan with the silk of his tongue, with his touch sliding possessively over my body. I tug at his shirt, my palm seeking the taut muscle and skin, heat spreading up my arm, but only then do I realize that I’m pressed against the lighthouse.

We moved.

He rifted us.

Maybe I rifted us?

It's just enough of a jolt for me to press my hands to his hard, warm chest and issue a warning. “This is dangerous.” But I don’t push him away. And I don’t want him to push me away. Somehow, if I’m safe enough for him, I’m safe enough for the world, which is validation I shouldn’t need. I know who I am, who I’ve always been. I know I will protect the innocent, not kill them. No fortune teller or book will tell me otherwise.

His fingers press to my neck as he drags my mouth close. “What if I like to live dangerously?”

The question is a blade slicing through me, drawing blood. This is not the response I want from him, not even close. In fact, it’s almost validation of the darkness inside me, almost a declaration that I cannot be fixed. I want a better answer. I demand a better answer, and I push for it. “What if people die because you’re distracted from your duty?”

“I don’t see it that way at all. And neither would you if you read the damn book.”

His words hit me all kinds of wrong all over again—I’m not the sum of pages in a book—but damn it, he’s kissing me, distracting me, his mouth slanting over mine, his tongue a silky whip of demand. I moan with the impact, but my mind is working in overdrive. Are we following a playbook? Is he supposed to kiss me? Does he want to kiss me?

That’s it. I’m done.

I shove him away with a fierceness he cannot ignore. He draws back, his eyes sharp when they meet mine, a question in their depths that I don’t allow him the chance to voice. “Is there a timeline for a second kiss I should read in the book? Are you doing what it tells you to do?”

“The book doesn’t say anything about kissing you, Ember.”

“Just killing me, right?”

“Stop,” he breathes out, a command in the depths of his voice. “Stop doing that to us. Stop doing it to yourself.”

“Tell me what the book says.”

His lips press together. “I can only tell you how it reads to me.”

“Then tell me already. How is it bad for me to hear it from someone who understands this war far more than I can at this point? How?”

“Fine then,” he says tightly. “It doesn’t give two shits about me. It’s all about you. You’re the beginning or the end, Ember. I’m just a soldier in an age-old war of good versus evil.”

“Destined to kill me.”

“No,” he says firmly. “It doesn’t say that.”

“And yet, we’re connected by this place.”

“Yes. We are.”