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)
My heart leaps and my voice lifts. “I can’t just magic Jeremy away?”
“I wish it were that easy,” he says grimly, “especially since you’re catching on to spellcasting easier than expected.”
“But I’m different, right? Maybe I can.”
“Are you willing to gamble on that?” he asks, his tone as hard as it is dark. “Because I am not.”
He doesn’t believe I can fight off Jeremy, and it hits me then that if I don’t convince him otherwise, I’m dead. I will never leave Elysium—that is, unless he can find another way to rid me of the serpent. “What did Silas find out?”
“Why don’t we go ask him together?”
“Where is he?”
“Inside the lighthouse. This is where my men stay when they’re here. And you can bet he’s in the kitchen. He’s a garbage disposal.”
He’s reaching for a lighter mood, but the theme of save me or kill me is hard to get by. “Does he believe I’m the Aza?”
“Do you?” he counters.
“I don’t know,” I say, but it feels like a lie. He believes I’m the Aza, and the argument to that fact would sway a jury toward his version of truth. “And it doesn’t matter what I think anyway,” I add quickly. “It matters what he thinks and how that might translate to him trying to kill me.”
“He won’t do that. Not when you’re under my protection.”
“Can you say the same of Celine?”
“Yes, I can. Celine is many things, but foolish isn’t one of them.”
“I disagree, not on her foolishness, but on her willingness to come at me. I’m good at reading people, Micah. She wants you. She hates me. No, she sees me as an existential threat to her place in your world.”
“She’s Nephilim. You don’t know our kind. Not yet.”
“I don’t need to have lived as a Nephilim to know her kind,” I assure him, thinking of the many people I’ve dealt with through my legal career. “She’d cut me if she got the chance, and she’s not a good selling point for Silas.”
“Silas can make his own case. He’s good at that.” He tugs me closer, and I hate how easily the touch rages like a wild river through me. “Just don’t kill him before he gets the chance,” he orders softly.
He issues commands too easily, I think. I’m not one of his followers, and something inside me warns me to never allow myself to be submissive. “What makes you think I can kill someone like Silas?”
“Your hand sure went to that blade quickly.”
This takes me aback, and rather than punching with a rebuttal, my brows dip. “It did, didn’t it?” My mind replays the moment I reached for the weapon, and understanding washes over me. “The blade. It feels—”
“Protective of you? A part of you? Because it’s a part of this land, made from its elements. And the land is connected to you.”
Are you? I want to push again, but it feels like it’s been asked and answered and yet somehow left without closure, at least in my mind. And he doesn’t allow me the chance anyway. As if he senses where I’m going, as if he already knows just how to silence me, he steps into me, his hand pressing to my waist, fingers splaying on my midsection, his touch muting everything else. His lips brush mine, the delicate slide of his tongue shivers through me, and I decide he tastes as forbidden as the question.
He curses softly—I seem to have this effect on him—and then his hand presses to the back of my head and his mouth slants over mine. I moan with the passion on his tongue bleeding onto mine, leaning into him, my arms wrapping around his neck.
He presses me against the wall, presses against me, into me, hard all over, and I’m melting as if the sun were scorching and he’s my sweet tea, but the thirst is never-ending. The heat is combustible. He drags his mouth from mine and murmurs, “Fuck, fuck. If we don’t stop, I won’t stop.”
“Seducing me by a lighthouse?” I laugh, a tug on the corners of my mouth.
“And yet, I let you sleep in my bed alone.”
That statement is all it takes to jolt me back to reality, my hand flattening firmly on his chest. “Because of the serpent. Right?”
His jaw sets to stone, his eyes burning into mine, but he doesn’t deny the truth—he doesn’t say a word. He takes a wide step, offering me space I do not want, but in contrast, he offers me the same hand that was just in my hair and on my body. I don’t touch him for fear I’ll lose all logic again and do something stupid. “Let’s go talk to Silas.”
“I’ll rift,” I say, holding up my hand. “I need to practice, right?”
His eyes narrow on me, something sharp and hungry in their depths as he steps into me and kisses me with such intensity that I’m panting when he pulls back and says, “Don’t do that. Don’t make me a bastard for making sure I know you before I let down my guard.”