Page 68 of Ember and Ash

“What does that mean to you?”

“I don’t know what it means. I only know how fucking much I want you, and that’s not complicated. It’s raw and primal, flesh and blood, me and you. That’s all.”

“What if this place is like the Garden of Eden, and you’re Adam and I’m Eve?”

“I’m not tempted by a damn apple.”

“What if I’m the apple?”

“Adam was warned not to eat the apple. No one, and no book, has told me not to touch you.”

“Maybe you’re supposed to use common sense.”

He cups my face, and his fingers against my skin are somehow gentle and firm at the same time. “Maybe I’m supposed to be the man who’s ready to save you while you save the world.”

This prickles like a brush with a cactus, needling at me with its inference that I’m in trouble, that I’m weak, and that’s why the serpent holds on to me. I’m not weak. “And if I don’t need saving?” I challenge.

“You won’t for long. You’ll be stronger than you ever imagined possible.”

His answer softens me with its assumption of my success, but I don’t see how it’s possible he’s that sure of me, not when he’s kept me at arm’s length until we arrived in Elysium. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

“You don’t scare me, Ember,” he says, and finally it’s the answer I want, even need, and he counters with, “Do I scare you?”

“No,” I say, “but that doesn’t mean I fully trust you.”

“I have nothing to hide from you, Ember.”

“Don’t you?” I challenge.

“No secrets,” he says, “just information I know that you don’t yet, but you will. And me wanting to kiss you again really fucking badly.”

My fingers curl on his chest while heat settles low in my belly. “I’m not sure angels are supposed to talk like that.”

“I’m not an angel, sweetheart, and neither are you.”

No, he’s not, and maybe that’s exactly why when he caresses my hair from my face, his touch is fire, his body against mine is everything. It’s terrifying considering I really don’t know his agenda. I don’t know him at all.

It doesn’t seem to matter, though. I still want his mouth and his hands. I still want his body. “You aren’t kissing me,” I murmur, feeling as if I might combust.

His lips curve, and his breath is warm against my lips, and it radiates through me like sunshine splaying simmering heat from above. “I’m making sure you know I can resist temptation. I just don’t want to.” His mouth closes down over mine, and I pant with the intimacy, beyond holding back with Micah. He saved me, and while he may not be a hero, I feel the life he breathes into me—feel it as surely as the breath that fills my lungs.

I push off the wall and press myself against him, and when his tongue strokes long and deep, I tremble from head to toe. “Micah,” I whisper, and I swear his name on my lips lifts in the wind and echoes in the crash of ocean waves.

He folds me closer, his hands gliding up and down my back, molding me snugly against him, my breasts pressed to his chest, and it’s bittersweet bliss until everything goes to hell.

There’s a charge of energy, and I’m instantly certain we’re not alone. Micah must feel it, too, as he releases me, and as if it’s a part of me, I’ve already drawn my new blade and turned toward the source of the energy. A man is standing right in front of us.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

In a battle of good and evil, look to who is in power, who is in control. Never forget that these things are addictive, and those who have them will do anything to keep them.

Chapter thirty-four

His eyes are blue, not yellow, and that’s the only reason my blade isn’t in his chest right now.

The man is tall and broad, dressed in jeans and a snug, long-sleeved T-shirt, his blond hair to his shoulders, his widow’s peak accenting a strong forehead complemented by a strong jawline. “You must be Ember,” he says, amusement dancing in his eyes as he flicks a look at my hand where it wraps the base of my blade. “Is killing me really the best way to greet me? A handshake works pretty well for the humans, and I hear you’ve been living as one of them. And as a plus, when you touch me, my eyes won’t turn yellow.” He grins and offers me his hand. “Promise.”

I don’t even think about touching him. “Who are you?” I demand, comforted by the magic radiating off the hilt of the blade of Elysium. “Why are you here?”