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)
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.”
“Why me?”
The front door opens. “Dinner is ready, you two.”
It’s Silas, and Micah raises a hand. “We’re coming inside.” And then to me. “Because you are good and kind and strong enough to defeat great evil, Ember Thorne.”
“How do you know I’m good?”
“It took a lot for me to even get you to kill the creatures in the forest who wanted to eat you.”
“Because they only wanted to eat me because we were picking on them.”
He captures my arms and steps closer. “Your heart is pure, and in twenty-seven years, no human, the Corrupted, or a demon himself changed you. I believe it takes that kind of good, your kind of good, to fight the darkness and find the light. You will win this war, Ember Thorne. And it will be my greatest honor to fight by your side.”
I reach up and press my hand to his face. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“I’ll try really hard not to attempt to corrupt you on the beach again, but I can’t promise. I am trying to do what’s right by you, Ember.”
“Maybe you try too hard.” I rotate in his arms to check on the storm and suck in a breath as I discover the hail is gone, and the rain has turned to blood.
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
Blood will flow in rivers and oceans. Blood will run in the streets. Your friends will become your enemies. Your enemies, your friends. Behold the war that both celebrates and fights the coming of the Aza.
Chapter thirty-eight
Istare out into the bloody raindrops, and I have no idea why it comes to mind, but I whisper, “The crab didn’t bleed.”
“They’re magical creatures. They have no blood,” Micah replies, but he says nothing of the downpour stained in what I can only call death. Why isn’t he mentioning it?