Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I crave the comfort he’s offering me in every fiber of my being, but I don’t dare accept his words on surface merit. “Are you sure about that? Maybe I’m not like you, Micah.”
“This is a good thing, Ember. I did what you tried to do with your blood spell. I separated you from it. It may well be that your familiar is bound, just like your powers. Give it time to wake up.” He pushes off of me and stands, offering me his hand and taking me with him.
Again, he’s managed to grab the blade, and he holds it between us.
He pauses a moment. “I have a better blade for you waiting at our destination. And a sheath to carry it.”
“Are you going to throw me to another beast on the way?”
“No more beasts,” he says, sliding the blade back into his own sheath at his thigh.
“Are you that sure? Do you rule these beasts? And how many are—”
His arm slides around me, and he folds me close, his body warm, mine far more yielding than I intend, my hand settling flat on his chest. “Yes. I command the beasts, of which there are many, but enough of them and the whispering forest, at least for now. Let’s go home.”
I blink and this time, when he rifts us, I see everything around me and nothing at all and this newfound awareness would freak me out, Micah is still holding me and somehow that’s steady and safe. His fate is my fate, and I think that might be his entire motivation for bringing me to this place. For some reason, my fate really is his fate.
At least as long as I’m alive.
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
By decree, Earth is the Nephilim prison and the demons’ playground, and by way of your ancestors’ punishment comes human salvation. A cage is only a cage when one tries to escape, and once you realize this, you will see the glory of your destiny.
Chapter twenty-seven
We reappear on a cliff next to a lighthouse, overlooking a crystal ocean, Micah still holding me close, and when he releases me, I want to pull him back, to feel his warmth and forget demons and monsters for just a little longer. But it’s too late. He’s stepped back and placed what I find to be unwanted space between us when I suspect he’s eager for it. Because no matter what I am here in this place, I think we’ve proven the serpent is a part of me outside of here. I saw the dire look in his eyes when I told him there was no familiar that replaced the serpent.
The wind whips around us, salt licking at my lips, and I rotate to find the sun setting a golden yellow halo across the horizon. I scan from the sea to the lighthouse and then to a white two-story house to our right before finding Micah again. “What is this place?”
“Home,” he says. “My home. My escape. Yours, too, if you want it to be. Nothing can touch you here.” His eyes twinkle in that mischievous way I’m coming to favor as he adds, “Except me.”
It’s him flirting, I think, but instead it’s sobering. “It’s a test, right? If I can’t rid myself of the serpent, if I don’t pass that test, I don’t ever leave this place, and I spend an eternity fighting Chupas and avoiding that whispering forest.”
“That Chupa is nothing to you. The real you, the Crystal Seer, could defeat it with the same fear I instill in it. And no, this isn’t a test. It’s a chance for you to get to know that real you without the rest of the world looking, without the pressure of being hunted. The last thing you want is to face a demon in battle who knows more about you than you do about yourself. Now, let’s go inside. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” He motions with his head toward the house.
My reply is a tight nod that is anything but simple or accepting. He studies me several beats, and I can almost taste the words on his lips he wishes to say to me, but he must think differently as he starts walking. I glance at the lighthouse, towering high in the sky with the cliff as its pedestal. It’s bright red, untarnished by sea and salt, and I swear for just a moment, it fades into the wind and reappears. I blink, wondering if I’m seeing things or simply back to losing my mind.
I jerk my gaze toward Micah to find him far too distant and not at all concerned about leaving me behind, while I’m not at all convinced there aren’t a variety of beasts in this place. With a spike of adrenaline shooting through me, I dart toward him, huffing a breath as I fall into step with him, almost as if I belong here now when it may well be the furthest from the truth and the closest to a reality that feels moderately comfortable. My feet crunch on jagged-edged rocks beneath my boots, salt slick on my tongue, a rumble in my belly. I’m hungry, too, and at least food is a common ground we seem to always agree on. It’s the basest of human—or, should I say, Crystal Seer—needs, as is perhaps the magnetic pull between us that I doubt even he would deny.