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)
“You forget your place, Celine,” he replies. “She’s welcome wherever I say she’s welcome.” His voice is steel authority.
“She’s the enemy,” Celine declares vehemently, hatred in her voice, and she doesn’t even know me. Doesn’t even look at me.
“She is not the enemy,” he says, and then speaks to me. “Walk down by my side,” he instructs in a low voice, for my ears only. “Do not look at any of them. Do not invite confrontation.”
“Just get me off this damn truck,” I say, not sure why he would think I, of all people, after today’s events, would seek a confrontation, especially not with a crowd ready to jump on me.
Micah saunters forward, and I fall into step with him, water sloshing from my sneakers with every heavy step we travel down the steel path. Celine doesn’t move, standing her ground. “She was with Jeremy,” she hisses, her gaze meeting mine, a spark of fire, not ice, between us, but I notice her eyes. They’re green, not blue. You will be challenged, Micah had warned. Crystal Seers are leaders, he’s also said. She is not a Crystal Seer. I am. This is going to get dicey.
“Your eyes,” she murmurs, her chin jerking toward Micah. “She really is a Crystal Seer.”
He doesn’t so much as blink at her. “And under my charge and protection.”
“I run this facility,” she declares defiantly.
“Because I let you, and that might change any second now.” His voice is still low, but it cuts like a lethal blade, a sudden sharp charge in the air with his words that I know instinctively is magical, beyond this world. It’s coming from him. It’s because of him. “Stand down,” he warns, “or I’ll make you stand down.” There’s a crackle of energy in the air, radiating from Micah.
She shuts her eyes, her expression pained. “You bastard,” she whispers, and while I have no real idea what just happened, I know that he’s attacked her in some way. “I can’t believe you just did that to me,” she adds, her lashes lifting, a raw vulnerability in her face that speaks volumes of who she is to Micah. They’re lovers. No—ex-lovers.
“Are we still doing this?” Micah asks, his tone lower and softer now, and without question, there’s a hint of the personal between them.
“No,” she says tightly. “We are not still doing this.” She breathes out and then abruptly turns and walks toward the line of people in front of us, creating a separation as she disappears beyond her followers. His followers. The line to our right parts expectantly, and Micah motions me in that direction. We pass through the opening left for us and travel through a warehouse while I consider the important lesson I’ve learned in my career. Those who love you are most likely to kill you or kill for you. Maybe that’s the attorney in me thinking, or maybe it’s this Seer side of me that I have yet to understand that senses the truth: Celine loves power. She also loves Micah. She’d kill for both.
The challenge has already come for me.
If I cross Celine, she’d most definitely kill me.
Or at least try.
The Sacred Book of Nephilim
Gold purges impurities and shelters the warriors who battle the minions of the Dark Knight. Treat it as a valuable resource, use it with grace but not without fury at those who wish to destroy what you protect.
Chapter thirteen
We walk through a giant warehouse in silence, enter an elevator, and begin a path to a basement level, but I don’t ask about Celine or anyone else for that matter. The walls might have ears and eyes, and I have a survival instinct that says to keep our conversations of consequence private. “Where in Denver are we?”
“Downtown,” he says, offering nothing more, which may or may not be a way of telling me I’m right. Someone might be eavesdropping.
“Underground,” I say, stating the obvious but digging for whatever information he will offer.
“You always go underground when you hide from demons,” he explains, “but that’s not enough. You seal the area with gold and magic.”
“Gold is a tickle to Jeremy,” I say, repeating his words.
His lips quirk with what might be amusement. “A powerful spellcasting is not.”
I don’t even try to process the whole spellcast comment. I focus on what I know and understand. “But you’re trapped underground,” I argue, disliking this idea. “You’re in a tomb where you could die.”
He arches a brow. “Tomb?”
“Tomb,” I repeat, thinking of Celine, who reads as insecure, power hungry, and threatened. And I do not want to get cornered by her down there, not when those instincts Micah says I have for other Seers are screaming with warning. I have no doubt she’s the reason Micah told me to stay close to him.
“Try a shelter you survive inside,” Micah replies, snapping me out of the Celine headspace. “Get used to it. This is your world now.”