Chapter Seventeen
CANDRA FOUND SEBASTIAN LOUNGING against the wall at the side of the school building, a place he never waited for her. Normally, Sebastian waited across the street. However, here he was, his knee bent, his foot to the wall and tapping a slow rhythmic beat. The back of his head rested against the brickwork. Candra shivered when his Adam’s apple moved, drawing her gaze to the pale golden flesh of his long throat under his sharp jawline. She wanted to feel his skin under her fingers. She even considered reaching out briefly as she stood, quietly watching him. Candra couldn’t shift the feeling this could be her last chance.
Something had dramatically shifted between them, and she didn’t know how to repair it. Did he know she’d lied? If he did, why didn’t he just say so? Why the silent treatment? Still, she thought of running her fingers from the soft hairless flesh behind his ear, along the roughness of his jaw, and down his neck to the hollow of his throat. A chill rushed across her skin, and her heartbeat increased exponentially. She’d missed him over the previous few days, and the apparent fracture in their relationship had never been so obvious as it was standing so close to him.
His eyes remained closed as if he didn’t hear her approach, and it struck Candra as unusual, since he was always on high alert lately. Sebastian took another long draw on his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs before blowing it upward, while humming to himself.
He seemed more peaceful than she had seen since the night of the ball. The night the relief of knowing they could be together seemed to float in a cushion of happiness around them.
He was a beautiful sight, one Candra didn’t want to disturb, especially since it had the curious effect of calming her. She could have stood listening to his voice forever…but that would’ve defeated the purpose of meeting.
Candra took another step closer; immediately his frame became rigid and the melody ceased. Although he didn’t open his eyes, tension appeared to rocket through his body at warp speed, and he gulped audibly. She took another step toward the wall, keeping a distance between them. His reactions made every muscle in her body ready to fight or flee, and adrenaline rushed into her blood stream. It was as though she was approaching a stranger.
He turned his head a little without shifting from the wall and peeked out of one eye before he closed it again, returning to his previous position. She recognized the action as a pretense of looking casual when his shoulder flinched as if an invisible hand shoved him roughly. Candra had spent enough time with Sebastian to sense when he was lying, and his entire body screamed it at her right now.
He took another drag and flicked the tip of his cigarette to knock some ash from the end. If not for the fact that he’d looked directly at her, she wouldn’t have been sure he’d seen her at all. A few students passed through the quiet side street and huddled together in whispered conversations. No doubt wondering about the guy they had seen waiting for Candra so many times but never so close, never right beside the building. She found herself blushing with sheer frustration, suspecting the students may be thinking they had come across a lovers’ quarrel. Candra’s heart thumped faster, annoyed at herself for caring what any of them thought.
A few minutes passed, and aside from finishing his cigarette, Sebastian didn’t move. His demeanor eased marginally, and it surprised Candra, given her annoyance, to feel her own responses mimic his. His scent hung thick in the cool air, and she tasted it with every breath, recalling the unanswered texts and the ignored calls. She’d even stopped by the brownstone twice. Both times, he was out.
She leaned against the wall at his side, watching him openly, studying his strong profile and the way his hair was just a little too long and beginning to curl toward the ends of the golden strands. His long, dark eyelashes settled against a clear golden complexion any model would envy. Sebastian wasn’t the type of person who needed to work to look good. It was part of who he was. He never combed his hair with anything other than his fingers, and Candra wondered if he even owned a comb. She had a sudden flash of a memory: Sebastian holding her against the wall in the ballroom. He’d kissed her without any reservation, adoring her with his soft mouth while her fingers clutched his hair, pulling him closer, wanting him to devour her.
A flush heated her skin. She took a deep breath. Her desire for Sebastian was sometimes overwhelming, but their relationship was so much more than that. It had grown from a necessity to a tentative friendship and, finally, to a love neither of them could deny any longer.
Lilith had really done a number on her. She had shaken her faith in her ability to judge people. Despite everything, Candra didn’t want to lose her faith in Sebastian, and she hoped she hadn’t broken his faith in her. Watchers all knew her origin; they had witnessed what the Nephilim were capable of. Maybe he’s realized I’m not inherently good in the way he wants me to be.
She took a deep breath, preparing to speak.
“Stop it.” His tone was thick with an air of finality, and he remained perfectly still.
“Stop what?” she asked, recognizing the whining tone in her voice. Why did he have to revert to that personality today?
“You’re staring at me. Stop it. I’m not a movie of the week. You’re watching me as if you’ll get to see what happens next played out on my face.”
“Who says I care what happens next?” she retorted, crossing her arms and averting her gaze to the ground instead of him. She wasn’t staring…at least she wasn’t staring without purpose. She was trying to work out what had triggered his mood swing. Not that Sebastian wasn’t prone to them, just not to the extremes of ignoring her for days…and nights on end.
“I do,” he stated blankly.
Candra huffed indignantly, prompting him to chuckle.
“Quit being an ass.” She peeked up at him. “Are you going to tell me what the silent treatment has been about?”
His eyes tightened slightly. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You should ask your friend, Lilith.”
“Is that what this is about, because I talked to Lilith?” she asked, aware her frustration was beginning to show through the tone of her voice. She didn’t want to push Sebastian too far, since she wasn’t entirely sure what his reaction would be and she really needed to not fight right now. Whatever was bothering him couldn’t be just about her conversation with Lilith. He had already been in a weird mood even before he’d found out about that.
Candra peered at him from under her eyelashes, not wanting to get caught staring again. Not only was he not looking at her, his eyes remained shut tight.
“No,” he shot back coldly.
He was talking in damned riddles.
Sebastian sighed, pushed away from the wall, and finally opened his fierce eyes to her. Candra stood her ground despite the intense foreign desire to step back from him. Even worse was the desire to move closer and use her feminine wiles to rush some sort of reconciliation. She refused to resolve whatever was going on between them by glossing over it with another make-out session. The winter sun began to dip low in the sky, lengthening the shadows in the side street.
“What do you want from me, Candra?” One tensed hand reached into his pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes. “You’ve been calling and texting. I’m here now, so spit it out,” he said somewhat reluctantly.
“Answers,” she replied. “Be straight with me for once. Don’t treat me like some treasure you are being forced to protect. Treat me like your girlfriend—your equal.”
“My girlfriend.” Sebastian pulled out a cigarette, placed the white stick between his lips, and was about to return the pack to his pocket, when he stalled. After a moment’s hesitation, he lifted the pack and offered it to Candra.
The gesture shocked her. Candra knew Sebastian smoked occasionally, especially when he allowed things to get on top of him, but she had never seen it with her own eyes. He’d certainly never offered her a pack before. He didn’t move any closer, nor did she. In fact, she didn’t move at all.
Forget the staring. She gaped in surprise. His eyes blazed with so many emotions, she couldn’t begin to work them out, but the overriding one seemed to be, yet again, much to her alarm and disappointment, anger. When Candra didn’t speak, he jiggled the pack to emphasize his offer.
“Thank you, but you know I don’t smoke.” She gave him a small smile.
His hand didn’t move. His jaw tightened and flexed, and he jiggled the pack again. “It’s just one cigarette, Candra.” His eyebrow raised in question, almost like he was taunting her.
She briefly wondered if that was the point. Was he drawing attention to the difference between them, how her part-human body somehow lacked in what it could do compared to his? Or was it more blatant, testing how easily she could be corrupted? A sting of pain jabbed in her chest. Something about the way he’d spoken the word girlfriend hurt her deeply, as if it was attached to a foul stench.
He was still waiting, one eyebrow raised, with a smirk, like this was some type of victory for him, like he had proved his point.
Candra took a step forward and reached out, taking a cigarette from the pack before stepping back again. He returned the pack to his pocket and took out a lighter, the kind that flicked open and closed with a click. Sebastian took the few steps to stand directly in front of her. He was so close that the toe of his boot settled between her shoes. The scent of spices and heat was so strong, she registered nothing else in the air but him. Her heart picked up pace a little, and Sebastian’s warmth seemed to radiate across the narrow space between them. Candra swallowed, twisting herself away so her back hit the wall. Sebastian moved too, so his stance was the same again.
Her stomach began to coil with fear and longing. Time stood still. He held the lighter up with one hand. The small orange flame flickered in his eyes and caught the gold shimmer. Candra put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled when he touched the flame to the dried leaves and paper. The amber glow of the tip brightened and then faded as she pulled it away from her lips. Still, Sebastian didn’t move. He appeared to be waiting for something, but she had no idea what. Something was so different about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
He carried himself with an air of resentment she had only seen once before—the day she told him she had chosen Draven. His lips pressed tightly together when he swallowed. Candra couldn’t help but think he had something he wanted to say. His body and mind seemed to be at war.
Any one of the lecturers or priests from Saint Francis could round the corner and find her standing with a lit cigarette in her hand. Smoking was instant behavioral probation. She’d end up having to volunteer in one of the school’s area clean-up programs or posting flyers warning against the danger of moral degradation to earn back credits for her college references.
The taste of the smoke inside her lungs was disgusting and burned with an acrid, bitter flavor, nothing like she recognized on Sebastian. She exhaled slowly; the smoke rose in ribbons around his face while he watched her intently. Sebastian’s eyes darted to her lips, and he blinked as if snapping out of a daze. He flicked the lighter shut and turned, his body brushing against the fabric of her jacket.
Sebastian’s abrupt movement startled Candra, and she forced the remainder of the smoke from her lungs in a quick spurt of coughing. He returned to a safe distance, keeping his back to her. She heard the lighter work and the sizzle of the paper as it took. Sebastian sucked in one long breath and raked his fingers through his hair in obvious frustration.
“I told you—”
“You can’t protect me if I run off…I get it. So this is about Lilith.” She cut him off, snapping his own words back at him. “Except I didn’t run off this time; she came to me. What was I meant to do? Ignore her? Ignore what’s going on because you don’t want to talk to me?”
Sebastian turned back to her, spinning quickly on his heels, and she jumped. The look in his eyes was predatory, and there was a slight glow of red to his cheeks.
“I won’t let you get yourself killed. You are too important to all of us.” He flung the hardly touched, burning cigarette to the ground, and his fingers twitched menacingly by his side.
Candra’s back was as far to the wall as she could get without climbing into the cracks of the brickwork. She crossed her arms and huffed loudly to stop herself from reaching out to him. She had the sudden urge to reassure herself that he was really Sebastian standing in front of her glowering, and this wasn’t some mind trick of Lilith’s. How could she know the extent of Lilith’s power? The intensity of his gaze made shivers vibrate through every nerve ending in her body.
“To all of you. Not you. I’m not important to you?” Did I really just say that? Candra wanted to slap herself for being so dramatic. They were having a fight, that was all. Obviously she was still important to Sebastian, she told herself.
He laughed darkly and rubbed the palms of his hands roughly over his face. He was laughing at her, teasing her. It felt like a test to see if she was worthy of whatever secrets he kept locked away. Maybe he wanted to see if she kept her cool under pressure, if she could have met with Lilith and revealed nothing of importance. She was failing miserably. I didn’t ask for any of this. I never asked him to enter my life, and I won’t be mocked or ridiculed.
“Fine, don’t tell me what’s going on with you. I don’t even care anymore,” she spat furiously. Warmth spread inside her body as her temper swelled, almost as if she blushed from the inside out. “You’re being an arrogant ass, obnoxious…and your hair is too long. Since when do you smoke around me?”
Her hands seemed to be waving around of their own volition as she continued her rant. She threw the cigarette on the ground. Her eyes darted to it, as if the burning tobacco and paper would jump back up and bite her. “You forced me to smoke,” she shouted incredulously. Candra paused, knowing there was more, but it wasn’t coming to mind, and she felt like a petulant child, stamping her feet.
Sebastian dropped his hand and stared at her with a blank expression, as if he’d never seen her before.
“And I hate you right now. I don’t even want to be around you when you are like this.” She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her like she never existed. Even more than her anger at Sebastian, she was angry at herself for losing her control and voicing things she didn’t mean and would have to take back later. She had lost the high moral ground the instant those words had spewed from her lips. What am I? Twelve and crying in the playground?
“You’re being irrational. I can’t talk to you when you’re behaving like a…” He began his accusation empathically and trailed off to nothing, clearly unable to say the word he was thinking.
The tips of Candra’s fingers began to quiver with exasperation. She couldn’t get through to him when he was being like this. Why did he have to be such a pig?
“Wh-What?” she stuttered. “I…I don’t…”
“Spit it out, Candra,” he ordered brashly.
Candra glared at him, irate. “Like one of the Nephilim, Sebastian? Is that what you wanted to say? There’s no reasoning with me because I’m like them?”
His jaw flexed, and his eyes widened almost so quickly, she would have missed it if she’d blinked. “No. Like a kid. You are behaving like a kid.”
Candra didn’t believe his lame excuse for a second. He was infuriating, yet she couldn’t make herself walk away. Nor could she escape the niggling doubt inside her heart that as quickly as everything came together, it was all falling apart again. A few of the girls who had passed them earlier made their way back through the alley toward the main school. Candra didn’t meet their eyes or check her watch. She knew she would have to make her way back in at any time, drawing her conversation with Sebastian to an untimely end. He still hadn’t said whatever he came here to tell her.
“Who the hell shoved a giant stick up your ass?” She almost laughed. Everything felt so, different, so not them, yet it was what they always did, standing their ground and talking in circles.
Sebastian forced out a deep breath, not offering an answer and evoking a nervous, highly ill-timed giggle from Candra. She had no idea why she’d laughed or what made this argument different compared to the others. His head shot up, and he looked at her with narrowed eyes. A deep groan rattled in his chest, reminding Candra of the sound an animal makes before finally giving up their fight for life. Then he just walked away, leaving her staring wide-eyed after him.
“Where are you going?” she called out, even though the answer was perfectly obvious—away from the hysterical female.
“Away from here.”
Away from me. Candra didn’t like Sebastian much when he was being this way, putting her back into the box he marked little girl. He could be cruel and hurtful, treating her as if he couldn’t explain what was wrong because she wouldn’t be able to wrap her head around it. He could also be sweet, kind, and generous with his affection. She wished he could always be sweet. She wished it could that easy, or she could only love one half of him.
Thinking that way was useless, but it didn’t prevent her from doing it. She couldn’t give up on him as soon as the waters they had dived into together got rocky. Candra loved every part of him, even the parts that allowed him to convince himself to give up…if that was what he was doing.
She watched Sebastian walk away, leaving her with no answers. A strange tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach dragged her forward, the invisible bond that made them want to be together despite everything. He’d touched her hand the first night he slept on the floor in her room, and she’d felt their connection like energy shooting up her arm. She hadn’t understood at the time, but after her conversation with Lilith, the tingles made sense. Something greater and more powerful than both of them bound Sebastian to her, and maybe that day, the bond had taken root in her too.
He stopped abruptly and turned his head enough so his face was in profile over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”
Candra panicked. Is this it? Should she go somewhere alone with Sebastian and allow him to crack her heart open in private, or stay right here and ignore the enormous pink elephants doing a rumba between them.
“Well?” he pushed impatiently.
Candra moved without thinking to catch up to him, making every effort to keep her pace casual. He stormed toward the opposite end of the side street, coming out at the rear of Saint Francis’s. A gleaming, sleek black sedan which was parked illegally at the edge of the pavement beeped to life, flashing yellow lights like some kind of creature blinking. Sebastian snatched a ticket from the windscreen, crumpled it in his fist, and tossed it to the ground. He paused and sighed heavily with his hand on the door handle before walking around to the passenger side to hold the door open for Candra.
It surprised her, given the circumstances, that Sebastian would be polite while in the middle of ripping her heart out. She cut herself off because her thoughts were getting away from her. She didn’t know the reason for Sebastian’s behavior, even if the gnawing pain in her gut hinted to her.
“In or out, Candra?”
She froze with her hand on the doorframe, gazing up into his eyes. As always, they were mesmerizing and tightened as if he expended great effort to not turn away. Candra shook her head and got in, immediately hit with the strong fragrance unique to him, the smoky aroma, combined with spices and heat. The car clearly belonged to Sebastian, even though she had never seen it before. She knew so little about him and his life before the last few months. His scent enveloped her in a familiar comfort, which amazingly managed to relax her muscles enough she could sink into the plush leather.
Both their lives had been in constant flux lately, and Candra wondered if he had finally begun to resent her for it. Her heart thumped heavily until she forced herself to calm down and not read into things.
Sebastian got in the other side and took off like a bolt of lightning to a chorus of bleating horns.
“I didn’t know you had a car,” Candra observed, hoping to cut the atmosphere.
“I have four.” He glanced at Candra out of the corner of his eye and, with a trembling hand, turned on the radio.
She took it as a direction to remain quiet. That was a bad idea. Staying quiet meant thinking, and thinking meant reading into every nuance of Sebastian’s behavior, from the hand that gripped the steering wheel far too tightly to his rigidly set shoulders. Candra curled her fingers into a fist and bit the inside of her lip. Whatever he did or said, she promised herself, he wouldn’t see her shed one tear.
He drove fast, effortlessly taking curves in the road and anticipating the actions of other drivers. They were way over the speed limit by the time they reached the city limits and continued north up the coast, heading a good distance inland.
“Don’t you think you should slow down?” Candra clung onto the handle over the door with one hand and gripped the side of her seat with the other.
“No.” He grunted. His fingers tightened around the wheel, bleaching the skin on his knuckles as their speed increased.
Candra grimaced, pursing her lips and doubting Sebastian cared for her opinion on anything right now. It seemed clear that he’d taken her meeting with Lilith as a personal affront, even though she’d done it to help him. Was that all it took to tear them apart?
He veered off the road eventually to a dirt track. The sedan wasn’t made for off-road, and each tiny bump rattled her bones. Sebastian stopped when their path was cut off by a steep rock face. Scatterings of dark green moss speckled layer after layer of slate gray rock. Candra didn’t recognize the place, but then, she had hardly ever left the city.
The silence between them continued, and Candra wordlessly followed when Sebastian climbed out, slamming the door after him.
He was already making his way toward an old dirt path smoothed into the grassy surface by use. If he wanted to take a walk, he could have just said so. Candra slammed the door just as hard as he had, gaining no reaction from Sebastian at all. She’d expected a flinch or at the very least a scowl at her treatment of his property, but he simply stood waiting for her. The car seemed as unimportant to him as she did.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Sebastian turned to her, his chest rising and falling sharply with a deep breath. Her heart pounded harder. She didn’t move from the car; suddenly, she felt like a condemned prisoner with nowhere to run.
“Up,” he responded robotically, darting his eyes upward to the gray cotton ball cloud cover. It was completely dense with no sun breaking through at all and made it seem much later in the day than it was.
A shiver of excitement made the hairs on her arm stand. The last time she had been up with Sebastian was the night he’d told her in his own indirect, messed-up way that he loved her. It had also been the night of their first kiss. She consoled herself with the assurance that this must be a tantrum. He wouldn’t take her flying otherwise, would he? He hadn’t gotten his own way when she went to speak to Lilith, and now he was sulking in typical Sebastian fashion.
He walked toward her, shrugging his jacket off as he did, and every tensed muscle in her body relaxed. Sebastian nudged her aside gently with the back of his arm, opened the door, and threw the jacket into the front seat. Not the leather jacket he usually wore, she noticed. She’d been too distracted before.
“Ready?” he asked, the edge gone from his voice.
“Are you going to take your shirt off?”
“Not today.”
Candra nodded and stepped forward to slide her hands around the back of his neck, feeling his skin against her palm and his pulse through the artery below his ear before threading her fingers up through the silken hair at the nape of his neck. His body was still stiff, but familiar…and warm. Candra pulled closer. His strong arms wrapped around her securely, and his breath grazed her cheek when his fingers clawed into the back of her jacket. His head dipped for a brief moment toward her shoulder before he pulled back and looked upward. At last, his hand settled at her lower spine. Something about his touch felt desperate, almost like it pained him. She stroked the back of his neck in what she hoped he’d understand was meant as a comforting gesture.
A soft whoosh accompanied the sound of ripping, and his wings unfurled as flawless and majestic as ever. Less than a heartbeat later, Sebastian and Candra shot upward into the sky. The cold wind was no match for the powerful expanse of plumage and muscle that made up Sebastian’s wings. He adjusted Candra in his arms, shifting her up a little so she could wrap her legs around his hips. She stared in admiration at the wide expanse of white, tipped at the very edges with a golden hue, stretching out from his back proudly. Their immense strength and grace as he swept her higher into the sky was breathtakingly beautiful.
Although colder than the last time, Candra recalled the same sensation of dampness settling on her skin and hair as they broke through the cloud cover into the sunlit sky. She blinked, adjusting to the sudden brightness, and pressed her face in Sebastian’s shoulder. All it achieved was to cause stars to flash in front of her eyes. Gradually, the sensation of lifting eased, and Candra’s stomach settled. Strangely, considering she was floating in mid-air with nothing to break her fall, it was the safest and most secure Candra had felt all day. Sebastian’s heart thumped heavily, finding time with hers. The entire world fell away, leaving only the two of them with endless blue sky above and nothing below but bilious, frothy clouds. Alone.
“Are you okay?” His voice was soft, as if he might scare her. His wings beat sporadically to keep them in the air.
“As long as I have you.” Candra looked up in time to see Sebastian’s lip twitch at the corner. It didn’t reach a smile. “Talk to me, please. If you’re mad, let’s just get it over with. I hate it when you brood. Anyway, I have every right to be mad too.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond, looking past her to something in the distance instead.
Candra squinted against the glaring sun blinding her every few seconds. She closed her eyes and settled her cheek against his shoulder. “I had to talk to her. I couldn’t just pretend I don’t play a part in this. Like it or not, it’s possible I am here because of Lilith—”
“I don’t want to talk about Lilith,” Sebastian broke in.
Candra pulled back to look at him, but his face was cast in a shadow of blackness, making it totally unreadable. Keeping one hand firmly on his neck, Candra stroked the back of her fingers along his lightly stubbled jawline and pushed wet strands of hair away from his forehead. Sebastian was usually clean-shaven.
“Why are we here?”
“Put your legs down,” he instructed her, ignoring the question. “There’s something I want you to see.”
He didn’t sound as harsh, although Candra knew him well enough to know that there was something seriously bothering him. She wanted…needed to know what it was, so she did as he asked. Her breathing picked up, and nervous energy made her stomach bubble. Sebastian’s right hand glided up her back and along her arm to the hand holding onto his neck. Candra resisted his efforts to loosen her grip. It was one thing to trust Sebastian; it was quite another to hang in the air with nothing holding her apart from one hand still pressed against her back.
“I can’t do this if you don’t let me go. I need you to let go,” he breathed against her ear. His voice held an underlying strain, and his lips brushed the shell of her ear. Her skin tingled.
“I really don’t want to,” she insisted, clinging tighter into the front of his T-shirt with her other hand.
“Please.”
Candra’s death grip slowly waned as her drumming heart clattered against her ribcage. Sebastian pulled her hand away. In a blur of movement so fast, Candra almost didn’t feel it, he twisted her around so her back pressed to his chest and her legs dangled below her. Candra kept her eyes shut, terrified to look down. Even though she did trust that she was safe with Sebastian, her human instincts kicked in, overpowering her rational side. Sebastian’s arms wrapped around her. One hand splayed wide over her lower abdomen, and his other forearm settled below her breasts with his long fingers against her side.
She held on to his arms tightly, taking deep breaths in an effort to compose herself. It wasn’t uncomfortably cold, which Candra put down to adrenaline coursing through her system and the proximity of Sebastian’s body to hers.
His warm lips pressed hard against her damp hair and remained for a few moments. His lungs expanded and contracted against her with each deep breath. Still, she kept her eyes closed.
“You’ve shown me things about myself that I could never see before. I wanted to show you something that you can’t see.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes and look.”
Candra heard a smile in his voice, and his lips moved against her hair. The gesture proved comforting enough to settle her a little, enough that she could relax and open her scrunched-up eyelids.
