Page 78 of Ember and Ash

“The crab was an obvious threat. Everyone who steps in your path will not be.”

“I’m being trained by a man destined to kill me, Micah, so I’m aware of the threats around me. And yet, I kissed you and called you for help. Maybe you’re right. I need to be more careful. So, thank you. I also need to be reminded of the façade of safety you’ve managed to give me when you plan to kill me.”

“That is not my plan.” There’s a rough, tormented quality to his voice I feel to my soul. Whatever this is between us, neither of us wants it to be death.

“But you will if I become like him. And it’s the right thing. I want you to kill me if that’s what I become, but crazy as it sounds, I still hate you for it.”

He drags me to him, his hard body flush with my softer one. The scent of him, the heat of him, the rush of power and magic that is him, weakens my knees, if not my anger. “I do not want you to hate me, Ember. Hate is not what is between us.”

“And yet, we both radiate there, to the hate, for one reason,” I say, my fingers curling on his chest. “It would be easier for you to kill me that way.”

“That’s not how you end. And that’s not where we end. You will defeat the serpent.”

“Yes,” I declare. “Yes, I will. And when I do, will you stop being an asshole?”

He laughs, low and rough, and his hand slides over my hair. “Doubtful, but I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” His thumb strokes over my lower lip. “I’m going to kiss you now. Don’t stab me like you did the crab.”

“Don’t make me want to,” I whisper, and I’ve barely spoken the challenge before his mouth is on my mouth, and he’s tasting me with unrestrained, burning passion. And for this splinter of time, he is mine and I am his. There is no serpent, no army of demons, no war beyond the seductive play of our tongues, and I moan with the intensity of what I feel in him, what he unleashes in me.

He kisses me like I’m the last breath he’ll ever draw into his lungs, the last drop of water left in the vast oceans of the world. He kisses me as if I’m a part of him he cannot lose, and for the first time in my life, I am lost and found in a man. I wrap my arms around him and press into him, needing to feel him closer. I need and need and need some more where Micah is concerned. He will surely be the death of me, but in this moment, I don’t even care. His palm caresses up my spine, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades, and I’m already there with him, arching into him, my breasts pressed to his chest.

We walk backwards, and I end up pressed to a rock, resting against it, him draped over me, his hand covering my breast, mine stroking the hard ridge of his shaft. He groans and captures my wrists with one powerful hand, pressing them over my head as if he needs to control me to control himself. His free hand presses under my shirt, peeling back my bra, fingers curling roughly around my nipple.

I pant with the pinch of pain and pleasure and arch into the touch, my sex clenching, aching. “Micah,” I whisper, a plea in his name. “I want—”

His mouth crashes over mine again, as rough as his fingers, his hip grinding against mine, and when he tears his lips away and buries his face in my neck, one hand on my head, he murmurs, “You have no idea how I want to fuck you right here on this beach.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes.”

But no sooner do I make that declaration than there’s a shift around us. The wind whistles furiously, a gust brushing roughly over our bodies. My arms wrap Micah’s neck. “What is happening?”

“A cluster storm. They come on suddenly.” He lifts off the rock and takes me with him, and the wind dies. “It’ll start again,” he explains. “That’s how these storms work. There are blasts of weather energy that repeat, then the floodgates are open.”

His mood has shifted, the passion of moments before not only gone, it hangs in a cloud of his regret. “A little like us, I guess.”

Micah runs a rough hand over his head, and his hands settle on his hips. “I shouldn’t have—”

Of course not. I am, after all, possessed by Jeremy’s pet serpent. Who knows what I could do to him if he actually got close enough to let it happen? I need to walk. I need out of here.

He steps closer and settles his hands on my shoulders. “I told you. I can’t kiss you and think clearly. That means I can’t keep any of us safe.”

“Safe from me, right?”

“You are not my enemy, Ember. I am not yours.”

“Yet.”

“Never.” He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “Never.”

It’s almost a lie. Only time will tell.

The wind whistles furiously, biting at my skin as if angry at our connection, and a moment later, Micah has rifted to the front door of the house. But as I turn and watch the sky erupt, it feels like an omen of what’s to come. “This isn’t the real storm,” I say softly.

“No,” Micah agrees, stepping beside me, and I can still feel his hands on my body. I can still taste him on my lips. There’s a thread of life between us, tugging us closer in ways beyond the physical.

The droplets of rain transform into ice and pound to the ground in a vicious formation, the way I could easily transform from angel to demon. I don’t want that to happen. I can’t let it happen. I rotate to face Micah. I don’t shy away from touching him, my palms settling on the hard wall of his chest, the thunder of his heart the life I need to fight the death in my future. “What happens if I just stay here? What if I never leave?”

“That’s a complicated question and answer with the others waiting on us, but you have to remember, you are part of a bigger war between good and evil. Without you on our side, the demons win. Humans and Nephilim will die. The only way to stop those things from happening is for you to claim your rightful place in the light.”