Ethan set his mouth in a thin line. “No, I haven’t. Do you think the stranger your grandmother mentioned in her journal saw it? Did she ever figure out who he was?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just know that he gave her the necklace and then just walked away. A tall blond man did the same thing to Freddie. He approached and handed him that book about ravens.” I pointed to the blue book on my bed. “He told Freddie to keep it safe and he’d know what to do with it when the time came.”
I shifted my gaze back to Ethan. “The point to all of this is…you and I can see things other people can’t.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “We’re not the same. Our powers are different.”
“But we
are
connected, not just by what we can see, but through the ravens.”
“There’s so much more going on here,” he murmured, his brow creasing in bewilderment as he squeezed his hand in a fist on his knee.
I stepped closer. “Where did you get a sword that looks just like the one on your back? How did you know it would turn Drake to dust? And where did you learn to fight like that?”
He started to speak, then tension edged his face and he bent his head once more. His shoulders slumped as he slid shaky hands through his hair. “I don’t deserve you, Nara. God knows I don’t.” Grasping his hair in tight fists, he continued, “The best thing for you would be for me to walk away…”
No, Ethan
! My heart stopped and I took another step, ready to reach for him.
“But I can’t let you go. I love you too much,” he finished, totally wrecked.
He was torturing himself for no reason. He seemed reluctant to tell me more, as if he thought I’d push him away. Yes, I had questions, tons of questions, but I loved him. I would always love him. “Oh Ethan…” As I reached for his hand, something in alternating colors of red and black slipped out of his black shirt’s cuff with his movements, drawing my attention.
He’d twisted the red ribbon and black rubber band that he’d taken from my hair that day we’d spent at the lake and wrapped them around each other, creating a bracelet. The red satin ribbon no longer shined. It looked worn and faded, as if he’d never taken it off. This whole time, he’d kept something of me with him while he was away. The knowledge melted my heart and was exactly what I needed to stave off my questions until later.
I slid my hand on top of the fist in his hair and laced our fingers together. “Why can’t you believe that you’re worthy of love? You are, you know. Worthy. In so many ways. I love you, Ethan. I’ll always love you…’til the wheels fall off.”
Ethan exhaled a ragged breath, then wrapped his arms around the back of my thighs and pressed his forehead to my belly.
As soon as I slid my fingers into his thick locks, he looked up and slowly stood until he towered above me. Cupping my jaw, he slid his thumb along it, then pressed a tender kiss to my lips, murmuring against my mouth, “You’ll always be my Sunshine.”
My heart full of love, I turned my back to him and glanced over my shoulder to my zipper, saying, “This is my choice, Ethan. Real and in person.”
Chapter Thirty
Ethan rested his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs sliding along the back of my neck as love and desire reflected in his hooded gaze. Leaning close, he whispered in my ear, “Imagining can’t touch real. Ever.”
I learned
that
lesson in the basketball coach’s closet, I thought, shivering. Ethan had made me feel a hundred different emotions at once with his intimate kisses, and he was doing it again now. “I know.”
I was surprised when he didn’t move to unzip my dress. Instead a gentle tug tickled my scalp as he pulled a hairpin out. I bit my lip as the pin dropped to the floor. He reached for the one curl that had fallen, then slowly wound the end around his finger and lifted it to his nose. “Sunshine and floral shampoo. I’ve missed your sweet smell.”
I smiled and fell in love with him just a little bit more.
One by one, he pulled my hairpins out until my hair flowed around my shoulders in a cascade of blonde ringlets. When he brushed my hair over my left shoulder, I closed my eyes in anticipation. I was so wound up, my heart thrumming at a humming bird’s pace, I couldn’t think straight.
The sensation of his fingers brushing against the side of my face surprised me even more. I swallowed an intake of breath as he slid my earring out of my right ear. After he’d done the same with the other earring, I’d held back my rampant breathing so long, I thought for sure I was going to pass out.
It took me a second to register that his fingers were touching my zipper. “Are you sure, Nara?” he asked in a rough rasp, sounding just as tortured and revved as I felt.
I held the front of my dress and waited. “More than anything.”
He started to slowly unzip the material, but then he pulled the zipper down in a fast rip, gritting out, “Where the hell did all these bruises and scrapes come from?”
Crap
! I’d completely forgotten about the intense training I’d done with Drystan this week. My spine and lower back were pretty beat up. “It’s not what you think…” I began and started to turn, but he grabbed my shoulders in a tight grip and held me in place as his fierce gaze swept over my back. “I’ve just been training with Drystan.”
His fingers dug into my shoulders. “What kind of training?”
I shrugged. “After everything that’s happened, he thought it was a good idea if I learned self-defense.”
Ethan skimmed his fingers along my spine, then snapped his angry gaze back to my face. “And he did this by beating the hell out of you?” With a hissing intake of breath, his eyes swirled bluish black. “I’m going to kick that bastard’s ass for hurting you like this.”
I covered his hand on my shoulder with one of mine. “Ethan, Drystan didn’t do this. The ground and pavement did. I was learning to jump from high places onto hard surfaces by doing safe landing rolls.”
Ethan gave a fierce scowl. “How is
that
self-defense?”
“It’s not. It’s a parkour move, but in learning the moves, it’ll give me the advantage and a much greater chance of getting away safely, hence needing to ‘perfect’ a good landing roll.”
Ethan cupped his other hand on my shoulder too, anger and guilt dueling in his gaze. “If I’d been around, you wouldn’t have had to worry about defending yourself, Nara.”
I smiled and squeezed his hand. “You can’t be everywhere at once. Learning self-defense is good for me.”
His dark gaze drilled into me. “Then I’ll teach you.”
I was only a week into my “month of training” promise to Drystan. I didn’t want to discuss self-defense any more. I turned around and I let my dress slither down my legs. Once it reached my ankles, I put a shaky hand on Ethan’s shoulder so I could step out of it.
Ethan had grasped my other hand to hold me steady, but the heated look in his gaze as it slid over my strapless lacy white bra and matching underwear only jacked my nerves higher. A hot flush of embarrassed heat, mixed with raging longing for him, spread across my skin.
As I kicked my dress away, the anger slipped from his face and he wrapped his hands around my waist to slowly pull me close. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his voice husky with want. “I wish I could draw you like this.”
I grasped his shoulders and gasped. “Don’t you ever!” All I could think about was how that guy at school had grabbed Ethan’s notebook full of drawings and flipped through it while Ethan was in the bathroom.
Ethan let out a low chuckle, his fingers tightening on my skin as he bent to nuzzle my neck. “This would be for my eyes only, Sunshine.” He lifted his head and continued in a rough, dangerous rumble, “But you’re right, I don’t want anyone but me to see you like this. Ever.”
I smiled shyly up at him as I unbuttoned his black shirt with trembling fingers all the way to his belt. Once I’d tugged it from his pants, I pushed the shirt past his thick shoulders, and the soft material slid out of my fingers to the floor, revealing his broader chest.
I trailed my hands along his skin. “I know you and your dad were doing a lot of sports stuff, but God, Ethan…you’re beyond ripped!” He’d been fit before he left, but he no longer had an ounce of body fat left on him. As my fingers moved down his six-pack abs, I smiled when I heard his sharp intake of breath. He was just as affected by my touch.
When I reached for the button on his pants, Ethan swept me up in his arms and stepped toward my bed. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pouted. “Not fair, Ethan!”
But his lips landed on mine, cutting off my protest. As he laid me back against my comforter and staked his claim on my heart all over again, I sighed blissfully against his mouth. I gripped his warm, hard shoulders and pulled him against me, claiming him back with equal intensity.
Sliding his hands along my waist, Ethan surprised me when he broke our kiss to roll me over on my belly.
“What are you doing?” I began, then gasped in excitement when he pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
“Saying I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he rasped right before he moved to kiss the center of my back.
As he slid lower, I squirmed with anticipation under his hold, while my heart constricted at the realization he planned to kiss every last one of my bruises and scrapes.
Ethan cupped my hipbone in a firm grip, then slid his thumb gingerly over a scrape curving along it. Warm breath hovered over the wound and he murmured, “You’re mine to protect, from Fate and everything else.”
He pressed his mouth to my wound with such heart-wrenching tenderness, strong emotions rushed hard and fast, capturing my breath and then whooshing it out of me in shallow gusts. I loved him so much. “I like your kind of apology.” I sounded breathless, but I didn’t care. I moved so he could easily find the next bruise. “I think you missed a few.”
* * *
My heart pounds as I run through the endless forest, full of dark shadows and looming trees. I zip my leather coat closed to stave off the cold, scanning the trees for shadows left and right, then spin in a circle. Where’s the black amorphous figure? How long will it take for him to appear and form into the semblance of a human shape, even though he’s far from human? He has no conscience, no feelings…only vast power, which he wields with Machiavellian viciousness
.
Even though I’m asleep beside Ethan, I hadn’t slipped on my crystal necklace to purposely seek Fate out in my dreams the way I’d done in the past. Yet Fate has somehow managed to zap me into the woods anyway. Did he bring me here so he can fulfill his promise of retribution?
Anger ripples through me and I stop running. I’m done looking over my shoulder, working myself into a freaked-out frenzy. I pant and turn in a full circle, screaming out, “Show yourself. I know you’re here!”
“Welcome back!” Fate says from behind me in a gleeful voice.
I whip around, arms raised, fists in full-on defense mode.
“Puh-leeze!” Fate snorts in arrogant derision. He crosses his shadowy arms in a relaxed stance, then pretends to lean his nebulous body against a tree, his bottomless eye sockets staring at me with dark intensity. “I see you solicited your Corvus friend’s help once more.” A pleased smile replaces the downturned slit of a mouth on his dark face. “Didn’t I tell you that you’d seek me out again?”
“I didn’t—” I pause and lower my fists slightly. “You called him Corvus. What do you know about him?”
Fate shrugs. “He’s none of my concern.”
I frown. “Is that what you meant when you said you don’t know his fate? How can you not know it?” I curl my lip, annoyed to admit it. “Everyone has a fate.”
“Now
you acknowledge me?” Fate snorts, then waves his hand dismissively. “Correction, every
being
has a destiny, a purpose, if you will.” He points to his chest, puffing it up. “Consider me the journeyman, helping those in your realm along their path, keeping them on the straight and narrow. Fate—which
you
ignore ad nauseam—leads them to their ultimate destiny. Your friend doesn’t fall under my purview. He exists outside my realm
.”
Ethan was right. Fate can’t see him. Is that why Ethan has never been in my dreams? How can he exist outside of my realm? That didn’t make sense. Ethan is a person, just like me.
“What is Corvus?”
Fate’s brow puckers in an are-you-really-that-stupid look. “It’s a raven. Technically, the term is Corvus corax.”
I glare at him. “I know that! I’m asking about the Corvus that exists outside of your realm.”
He exhales heavily, his patience growing thin. “The Corvus maintain balance in your realm. Think of them as ‘equalizer’ enforcers.”
Them? Enforcers? Equalizer? Is that what the yin-yang raven symbol on the tattoo sword on Ethan’s back represents, balance? What does he enforce?
I open my mouth to ask the questions pinging in my head, but Fate yawns and holds up his hand. “Ask the Order if you want to know more. This subject bores me.”
Order?
Another term I don’t know. He might as well be speaking a different language.
“Who’s the Order?”
Fate snaps his fingers and makes an annoyed
whilst
sound. “Why did you seek me?”
He hadn’t attacked me yet, which means he’s either toying with me or he’s waiting for me to ask him something. I shake my head. “You pulled me here somehow. I’m not here of my own
free will
.”
When Fate’s bottomless, empty eye sockets move in an impression of a human eye roll, an eerie shiver slides through me.
He leans forward and lets out a slow, teeth-grinding chuckle. “You changed the rules, Nara, which means your ‘free will’ won’t save you this time.”
Dread knots my stomach. Fate hadn’t attacked me, because he knows that I can’t use the same tactic I had before to protect myself from him. He knows he has all the time in the world.