Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire, #1)(8)

The fire in my veins reacted to the threat in his voice, and a fever raced over my skin. The air around me grew thick with heat, and a visible haze surrounded my hands. Clay stepped closer to me. One of his hands hovered near his waist, and I was certain he was reaching for a weapon. I prepared to defend myself. There was no way I would go down without a fight.

He raised his hands in surrender as he closed the distance between us. At the sight, the heat in my limbs dissipated a little. For a moment, he stood almost motionless.

“But I couldn’t,” he continued, his voice so soft that he sounded almost completely defeated. “Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t kill you.”

His fingers clenched and unclenched, his muscles twitched and shook, and his chest heaved as he worked to bring his breathing under control. He narrowed his eyes and frowned. The sorrow in the depths of his gaze made my fingers twitch with the need to comfort him. Once more I had to battle against the desire to forgive everything that had happened. To take him in my arms and kiss his perfect pout.

“Goddamn it, Evie,” he muttered as he reached for the brown curls of my wig and pulled it from my head. He tossed the hairpiece to one side of the small room. Then his fingers curled around the tie in my hair and pulled it out, releasing the strands from the braid I’d set them in and allowing it to frame my face in flame-like tendrils. His eyes trailed from my eyes to my hair. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since you left. At first I thought it was just because I didn’t get closure when you disappeared so suddenly, but I don’t think that’s it.”

He met my eyes before his gaze trailed down to my mouth. His tongue slid forward to slick his lips with moisture as his gaze lingered on me. After a heartbeat, he lifted his eyes back up to mine again, scorching me with their brutal intensity. His lips parted, and his breathing sped. The heat in his eyes made my stomach flutter and my heart clench. Ever so slowly, he lifted his hand back to my face and brushed the back of his hand over my cheek. Then he curled his palm around the curve of my jaw as his fingers played with my hair.

“I care about you, Evie. I know that I shouldn’t, but I do.”

Between the look he gave me and the sweetness in his words, I decided I owed him a confession of my own. It was as close to an apology as I would give him after the hurt he’d caused me. “I never lied to you,” I whispered. It was important for him to know that. “Back in school, I never lied about what I was. I just didn’t know. You have to believe that.”

He studied me for a moment, his eyes focused steadily back and forth between each of mine as he weighed my words. “I do.”

I closed my eyes to protect my heart from the potential for agony that his intense gaze hinted at. It was all too easy to fall for him just as I had in high school. Something told me that it was not going to end well for either of us—I was still a monster in his eyes, and he was still Rain—but I couldn’t find it in myself to care when he looked at me like that. A heat that had nothing to do with fear or anger burned through my body.

“You obviously know what you are now though.”

I nodded.

“A phoenix?” he asked, whispering the last word as if to protect me from the weight of it.

“It doesn’t make me a bad person though,” I said. “I’m not evil.”

“I really hope you’re right about that. Part of me, a part I don’t like very much, still feels like I’m making a mistake.”

“Why did you come then?”

He breathed out a shaky sigh. “I had to see you. I . . . I don’t care who my family is, or what they stand for,” he said. “Not anymore.”

A smile formed on my lips as a warmth that had nothing to do with fear or anger crept through my limbs. “So what happens now?”

He rested his forehead against mine as he wrapped his arms around me. “That’s the million dollar question isn’t it?”

“And what’s the answer?”

He threaded his fingers into my hair and eyed my lips with a hungry stare. My skin burned hotter where he touched me, and I was certain it had to have been hurting him, but he didn’t let it show if it was. If anything, he gripped me tighter as he ducked his head forward and captured my lower lip between his before slicking the tip of his tongue across the surface. It was the smallest movement, but it echoed throughout my entire body. Every inch of my skin tingled in anticipation of his caress.

In the years since I’d run from his rancor in Ohio and fled the city with Dad, I’d been too busy trying to survive to feel desire or crave companionship with another, but Clay’s kiss made me desperate for his touch. Because of how tightly he held me, it was obvious he was just as affected by our union as I was. It made me crave things I’d never known I’d wanted. Touches I’d never experienced.

Too soon, he pulled away. I whimpered in response to the loss.

“Evie, I don’t want this,” he murmured.

“What?” I asked incredulously. He’d pursued me, kissed me twice, and now he was telling me he didn’t want me?

“What I mean is I don’t want this now, like this. I don’t want to be shaped by my mistakes. I want what we had in Ohio before I stupidly threw it all away.” He raised his hand and scrubbed the back of his neck.

“But you can’t turn back the clock.”