My gaze turned down to stare at the teacup resting in my hands. I wasn't sure about carrying the enemy, but I sure felt like there were plenty of demons to battle in all aspects of my life. It had only taken a matter of weeks to watch everyone around me get tossed into the sea of nightmares, and now I was scrambling to save them all.
Looking back up to Ari, I pulled out the memories of what happened the moment we met.
"Excuse me?"
I sat up in bed, staring at the guy across from me in the door frame. War? Nephilim?
In a single take of breath it all came flooding back. Chase and Cassie. Demons and angels. Fire and wings. Jayson and Mother. My whole world unraveled in a period of weeks, burned to the ground before my very eyes.
Oh, right.
The guy with the impeccable blonde hair, Ari was his name, leaned off of the frame in a smooth move I would have expected a real angel to do. His eyes carefully searched mine before looking over my exposed skin, settling on the dark streaks just under the surface. His hands were covered with white leather gloves and tucked just inside the pockets of his jeans. "You still have some of the poison inside of you."
"Gee, captain obvious, did you figure that one out all on your own?" I snapped, making sure to shove any showing skin under the folds of cream blankets. His gaze made me instantly feel uncomfortable, as if he was undressing every thought in my head. Like he knew me before we had even met. It was a tender gaze, breaking inside of my crumbling heart.
He stepped a little closer. "Demon poison is guaranteed to kill. The only way to save yourself from it is to cut off the limb where the poison was inserted." His teal eyes were piercing, questions jumping all around inside of them. "How on Earth did you survive?"
"That's enough," Kayden stepped in, jaw set. In a single stride he stood chest-to-chest with Ari, eyes blazing. "She's alive, that's all that needs to be said. You said so yourself. If you accelerate her heart there's a chance it'll trigger the venom to spread back into her body."
Ari's eyes narrowed to thin slits. His hands began to move from his pockets, only to stop as a small smile appeared on his lips. "I can see the scars, you know. She might not have the guts to kill you, but I'll set you on fire and watch you melt into nothing without a second thought." He craned his neck to look over Kayden's shoulder, eyes resting on me. "When you're ready to find me and know more than this shrub can teach you, you'll know where to look, Essallie."
Kayden stood rigid until Ari turned around and walked out, clicking the door shut softly behind him. I counted off twenty heartbeats before he spoke. "Did he just call me a shrub?"
I couldn't help it, the sarcastic remark slipping off my lips. "Well, you are the perfect kindling for a half-angel's fire." My head rested back onto the pillow behind me, closing my eyes. I didn't have time to be thinking of some renegade who came storming into my room, claiming to be the very thing I wished I wasn't. I yanked the bed sheets closer to my body, shivering involuntarily.
"Essallie?"
I jumped in my seat, Ari's voice pulling me from the depths of my memory.
I gave my heart a moment to settle before speaking softly. "You were right."
Ari tilted his head to the side curiously. "About what?"
"I knew just where to go looking for you."
There was a short pause before he started to laugh. "Hate to burst your bubble, darling, but Serena here found me looking for you." He ran a hand through his hair before settling back on me with his startling eyes. "You're not that easy to track. Lilix almost had a heart attack when she said she'd lost you at the pub."
The pretty blonde with icy blue eyes instantly came to mind. "She works with you?"
Ari nodded and gestured to Serena, who had been watching our conversation silently. "Serena sent her my way shortly after I came to Charon. I bet you know exactly why, too."
Sneaking a sip of tea before answering, the response nearly tumbled from my lips. "Because no one trusts Nephilim."
"Or anyone associated with them, as I'm sure you've experienced too."
The memory of the apothecary couple surfaced, and I nodded. "More than I'd care to know."
"Good, that means we're on the same page." Clasping his hand together on his lap, he leaned closer to me. "Now that I've finally found you, we can finally work on finding your Watcher."
Finishing the last bit of tea, I carefully set the cup onto the tray before rising up from my chair. "And that's where you're wrong. There is no Watcher for me in this world. Now, I have a brother to go home and protect while I still can, excuse me."
I walked past an open-mouthed Serena, who looked from me to Ari in shock. Descending up the steps, I ignored the terse whispers coming from the living room, urging Ari to follow me.
My hand had just begun to swing the bedroom door shut when something blocked it. I stared down to see a broken-in cowboy boot wedged between the door and its frame.
"Essallie, hear me out," Ari pleaded softly.
"There's nothing to hear out," I said, releasing the door and crossing the room to stop alongside the bed. "I'm thankful Serena brought you to me, really I am, but you're wasting your time."
"Are you so sure of that?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then why did you come here?" Ari came closer. "Why return to a place that labels you an outcast?"
"I... I don't know." My fingertips brushed over the crumbled sheets. I couldn't look him in the eyes, for the truth was even I didn't know exactly why I'd come here. "Serena just seemed like the only person who could help me at the time."
"From what?"
"From everything! Anywhere I turn I'm joined at the hip with demons trying to kill me. Demons killing my family and leaving me to pick up the bloody mess. So pardon me, but I need to get home to the last family member that means something to me, before another creature tries to leave me a corpse in place of someone I love."
"Is he really your brother?"
I paused. "Oh yes, thank you for reminding me of my Mother's discrepancy. Brother or half-brother, it doesn't matter. He's all I have left."
Something in my desperate stare must have triggered a thought in Ari's mind. "So your Watcher means nothing to you?"
"I already told you, I don't have one," I snapped.
His eyebrows bunched in confusion. "Then you've already ascended?"
I shook my head, and Ari looked even more confused than before. My chest rose and fell in a long, desperately needed sigh, my body collapsing in a crumbled heap onto the bed. "He died before we could bond. A demon killed him."
A flicker of emotions crossed his face, finally settling for a mix between pain and sympathy. Crossing the room, he settled alongside me. "I'm sorry."
"So am I." I chewed on my upper lip, anything to stop the burning sensation of tears collecting in my eyes. "He was the one who showed me this place, this world, not once with an ulterior motive at hand. He was a gentleman, and will forever be missed."
"If he's as good as you say he is, then I'm betting he died doing the noble thing." Ari reached forward to take my hand, using his free one to swipe just under my eyes. "He wouldn't want you to cry."
I hiccuped and stared at Ari, numbly nodding my head. He had a point; if Leo saw me like this, blubbering every time he was mentioned, I had no doubt he would have teased me. But it was so much more than Leo now- my grandparents, Kayden, Abigail, Jayson- so many people had been dragged under my wings, and I was supposed to protect and appease them when I could barely protect myself.
"There was an instant connection between us, like two magnets clicking together. I had never felt such a thing. I'm certain he was my Watcher."
"Wait," Ari started, his face turning into a puzzling mask of confusion yet again. "You aren't certain he was yours?"
"Not officially, no-" I said warily.
He pulled back from me, eyebrows as high as his hair line. "Essallie, are you telling me you've been throwing your life away on an
assumption
that this one person, out of
eight billion
, was the magical one for you? Did you not consult the scriptures?"
His question was sharp, like a smack to the bare skin during a blizzard in the North Pole. "I'm almost positive he was mine! No one else connected with me on such an immediate level."
"So what? If I connect with a puppy in the pound, does that mean I have to take it home, even if I'm certain to be allergic?" Ari rolled his eyes to the heavens, muttering in a language I didn't understand. His glowering eyes came back to rest on me. "There are ways to make sure you have the right person, Essallie. A list is complied and updated any time a new child of Nephilim comes into birth."
"It doesn't matter!" I stood up, throwing my hand skyward. "You're missing the point. I have the last important part of my family back home, no doubt going mad from the cryptic way I ended things yesterday because I thought I was going to die. The game has changed, and Jayson needs me. I can't imagine him defending himself against a bloodthirsty demon following my scent, much like I couldn't imagine my grandparents doing so before they died."
"You should listen to yourself," Ari scolded me, and I couldn't contain my shock. "You're surrendering your life on the basis of a circumstantial feeling! Even if this person was your Watcher and he is dead-"
"He's most definitely dead."
"-you can't just give up and quit life. That's not how living works, sorry to piss on your pity party. When a cancer patient gets a diagnosis, they don't simply just stop living life. They fight, Essallie, fight like hell against every mutant cell in their body. From the moment I met you I knew you were a fighter, now I'm not so sure someone so weak and pitiful could have ever been a fighter."
"You," I jabbed a finger at his face, vivid. "You know
nothing
about me. You don't know the level of pain and misery I have had to endure my entire life! You weren't there the nights my Mother would chase me throughout the house, trying to kill me because she knew I was a poison that had infiltrated her home." Fire sparked, engulfing my knuckles in a bright display of blue hues. "You weren't there the day I watched my first love try to sell me to a demon for eternal youth. You weren't there, slipping and sliding in the puddles of blood, finding my my two lifelong guardians gutted like wild game for dinner. So take your assumptions of me not being able to fight and shove it right up your ass!"
I waited for him to jump back at me, to rebut my snarky defense and belittle me further. Instead, he gave a small and soft clap, his eyes a smoldering aquamarine. "Now that," he said. "Is the Essallie I met. About time, too. I was beginning to lose hope."
My jaw dropped. I had walked right into his trap and bit the bait; he had been antagonizing me, waiting for the fury to ignite from within. As much as I wanted to be infuriated with him, I had to give him a hand in his undermining behavior.
Extinguishing the flames from my hands, I crossed them over my chest, feet still firmly planted on the floor. "This changes nothing. I'm still going home to my brother."
"Do you think he's in immediate danger?"
"Yes."
"And do you think he'd be okay with you coming home to protect him, if he knew you would be sacrificing your life in the process?"
I hesitated. "Yes."
"Essallie."
"Okay, okay," I bitterly replied, narrowing my eyes. "No, he wouldn't."
"Good," he nodded. "We're clear of one lie, now let's clear the other. Is he in immediate danger?"
I started to say yes again, only to stop. In our last phone conversation, I had instructed him to go straight to Abigail and to stay near her. No explanation why, just to do it. And deep down I knew, even though he was a stubborn boy, he would have listened and gone to her. Abigail would have instantly understood why, and probably would have told Kayden too. Despite Abigail's lack of sensibility, I knew she'd have Jayson's best interest at heart and protect him until I would return.
Sighing, I said, "No."
A triumphant smile spread over Ari's lips. "Excellent. Then I'm sure he won't mind you gone for a few days while we find out about your Watcher." He rose off the bed, coming to stand directly in front of me, both hands gently placed on my shoulders. "And if this person really was yours, then we'll figure things out from there."
Against the burning urge to sneer at him, I gave a small smile and relaxed the tension in my shoulders. A glimmer of hope, like a diamond among the rough, seemed to peek out from under the surface of my daunting nightmare for a life. Maybe there was a chance that, against all odds, something good could come from my odd and undesired existence.
And if not, I could always watch them all burn.
CHAPTER SIX
BEAT IN YOUR HEART
"This looks absolutely ridiculous."
I was standing in the middle of the sunken living room, arms crossed in resistance over my chest. Long, spinning twists of navy fabric covered every inch of my body in an elegant high-collared robe. It instantly reminded me of something a witch or sorceress would wear while hovering over a book of incantations, weaving a spell of eternal love between herself and a ravishing stable boy.
Serena glared at me under her beautiful black lashes. She had been crouched low, doing her best to hem the robe without butchering it.
I turned my head to look at the clock on the mantle. Ari had taken off for a little, promising to be back within the hour, and it had already been over an hour and a half. Where in the hell could he be?
I started to shift my weight when I felt a sharp tap sting my leg. "Do you ever stand still?" Serena grumbled under her breath.
"Hey, I'm not the one that decided new clothes were in order," I coolly remarked, making faces at her. "My shirt and pants were perfectly fine."