Chapter 4

At the top of the stairs, I halted in front of Ezra's door. A dim light shone through the gap underneath it. I tapped on the wood.

A muffled sound answered me, and I pushed the door open. Ezra was halfway between sitting on his bed and rising to his feet, and three things registered in my brain all at once: that muffled response hadn't been permission to enter, he was shirtless, and he was holding a tan folder.

He blinked at me, then sank back onto his bed. "Come in?"

Why, why was he so gorgeous? His bronze skin stretched taut over hard muscles—and my god, I needed to touch this man. His sweats clung to his hips, revealing the waistband of his boxers, and his shirt lay on the foot of the bed; he must've started to strip down for bed before getting distracted.

And now I was the one distracted.

Shaking myself, I offered a guilty smile. "Sorry, I thought that's what you said. Do you mind?"

"No, it's fine."

I shut the door, then crossed his room, glancing wistfully at his guitar on my way past. He'd only played for me once. Should I ask if he'd play for me again?

As I sat on the mattress beside him, I tried and failed not to glance curiously at the folder he'd tucked halfway out of sight on his other side—but, of course, he noticed. Sighing, he slid it onto his lap. His fingers disappeared inside, then he withdrew a photograph, marred by creases but still glossy.

Guilt stabbed me. It was the photo I'd found in his dresser eight months ago while searching for a t-shirt. Snoopy me had taken a good long look at the image of young Ezra and a blond girl before hiding the picture back in the folder.

"I told you about her," he murmured.

I studied the girl's beaming smile, full of joy. How long after this photo had she become a demon mage, spiraled into madness, and almost killed Ezra before being killed herself?

"This is the last photo I have of us before I became a demon mage …" His voice roughened. "I was excited. I'd been chosen. I felt so goddamn special."

He reached into the folder again, and this time, he handed me the photo—an even older one. An olive-skinned man and woman grinned at the camera, a laughing boy between them. Ezra took after his mother's side of the family; his father had a blocky face and heavy jaw, his head shaved. His eyes, however, were the same warm chocolate brown as Ezra's.

"I always liked this photo," he murmured, gazing at his parents. "Things were never easy for us, but my parents were just happy to be together. That changed after …"

I waited, then prompted gently, "After you became a demon mage?"

"No …" His hand curled into a fist. "After they joined the …group."

He tugged the photo of his parents from my fingers and returned both pictures to the folder. Before he could stand, I touched his arm.

"Will you tell me about it?" I asked softly.

The air rushed through his nose. He stared at the folder, avoiding my gaze.

"I hate thinking about it." His eyes closed, deep creases in his forehead. "I hate how na?ve they were. I shouldn't blame my parents, but sometimes I do. Especially now."

I slid my hand down his wrist and entwined our fingers.

His shoulders hunched. "I was seven when my parents met some new people. My parents were poor, unregistered mythics and didn't trust easily, but they spent more and more time talking to their new friends, and that summer, we moved. Our new home …" He shook his head. "I know now that it was a commune, but I was a kid. All I cared about was that there were a few other kids my age."

"A commune," I mumbled, my fingers tightening around his.

"My parents started attending … meetings every week with the other adults, and they …changed. And they wanted me to change too."

"They were being brainwashed?"

He stared at our entwined hands. "When you're a kid, your parents' approval is everything. And in that place, everything revolved around the leaders and their approval. I don't even remember if I resisted it. The leaders and my parents and the whole group said I should be honored to be chosen as a ‘protector,' so that's how I felt."

"A protector? Against what?"

He sighed bitterly. "I don't even want to tell you the twisted garbage they filled our heads with. I don't think my parents were stupid, but they fully bought into it—how we were special and enlightened, and how the outside world wanted to destroy us."

"Didn't your parents realize they wanted to turn you into a demon mage?"

"Oh, they knew. But I wasn't becoming a demon mage. I would be a ‘protector,' wielding a demon's magic like a weapon, empowered by the group's moral ideology. As long as I was strong in my faith, I would have unwavering power over the demon."

"What?" I exclaimed angrily. "They thought you could control a demon with faith? That's—"

"Bullshit. Yeah. But even once I became a ‘protector,' I could never admit that controlling my demon was difficult. They would've said the demon was testing my faith and if I was struggling, it's because I was weak. I believed that."

I gripped his hand so hard my fingers ached. I wanted to teleport back in time and punch every member of that group—especially their leaders.

"The group didn't even call them demons. They were Servi." He rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. "It's ironic, you know? I didn't doubt anything I'd been taught until Eterran started poking holes in my beliefs. He'd given up on forcing control by then and was trying to break me down in a different way."

"But you probably thought that was another ‘test,'" I guessed.

He nodded. "Everyone I knew and loved was part of the group. I couldn't imagine life outside it, so I refused to question anything."

"What about …" I hesitated. "…the girl?"

"Lexie," he revealed heavily. "She saved me, in a way. After they killed her, they said she'd failed because her faith had been weak. But I knew that wasn't true. I'd seen her struggle. She'd tried so hard. If they were wrong about Lexie, what else were they wrong about?"

I leaned against his shoulder, increasing the contact between us as old grief settled over him. "What did you do?"

"I ran away. I ended up in Portland. They were searching for me, and I wouldn't have lasted a day on my own, but …" His jaw clenched and unclenched. "Eterran also wanted answers. He helped me, and I was desperate enough to listen. We evaded the people searching for us and found other mythics, got in with them, asked careful questions …got the answers we needed.

"It took just over four weeks. I finally knew what I was and how they'd used me, and I went back. I was going to explain everything to my parents, and we would escape. Together, we'd find a way to get the demon out of me."

A heavy, ominous weight settled in my gut.

"I think it was my fault," he whispered. "The people searching for me weren't careful enough and they caught the attention of the Keys of Solomon. The guild followed the trail back to the commune, and …"

"Ezra, it wasn't—"

"I came back to ruins." He didn't seem to hear me. His voice was devoid of all emotion. "Everyone had been killed. Sixty-eight people. Only ten were demon mages. I was the eleventh. Lexie was supposed to be the twelfth, but she was already dead."

My lungs didn't want to inflate properly. "The Keys killed everyone? How—how was that allowed?"

"Harboring a demon mage is a capital crime. There should've been a trial, but what did the Keys care about that? They'd gotten the hunt of their lives."

I'd already hated the Keys of Solomon, but my hatred was rapidly transforming into white-hot loathing.

"Everyone I knew was dead," he mumbled. "I had nowhere to go, so I went back to Portland. I didn't know if the Keys realized they'd missed a demon mage. I couldn't trust anyone."

Only fifteen years old, with half his life spent isolated from society. Every mythic a potential enemy, and his worst enemy of all living inside him.

What depth of resilience did it take to lose everyone you loved in a single day and keep going? What kind of resolve did it take to suppress the demon inside you, day after day after day, and keep going? How much tenacity did it take to face a life of loneliness and secrets that would end in death and madness, and keep going?

"Those years were pretty terrible," he admitted matter-of-factly. "Then I ran into Aaron. Saved his idiot life, actually."

"You saved him?"

"And then he saved me. He dragged me home, made a place for me in his guild, and didn't let me run off—though I tried quite a few times that first year. He and Kai put up with a hell of a lot from me." Humor softened the hard lines of grief around his mouth. "I wasn't what you'd call socially adjusted. I broke Girard's nose once."

My eyes widened. "You did what?"

"He came up on my blind side when I wasn't paying attention." He grinned. "Luckily, I don't startle as easily nowadays."

"You are quite difficult to startle, but I've managed it a few times," I told him, puffing my chest out with pride.

He laughed quietly. "You're highly startling, Tori, in a lot of ways."

My amusement faltered as his gaze settled on mine. The air between us thickened, electric with things unsaid and feelings unacknowledged. My pulse drummed a slow, steady beat in my ears.

All of a sudden, I was intensely aware of his shirtless state, my arm still linked through his, our fingers tangled.

I won't lose you.I couldn't say the words. They would just hurt him.

I need you to survive.I couldn't say that either. More words that would wound him.

I almost lost you already and I can't bear it again.Still no.

Though I wasn't speaking the words, my thoughts must've touched my face, because his gaze dropped. He slipped his arm free and picked up the worn folder. Crossing to the dresser, he tucked the remnants of his past at the bottom of a drawer, slid it closed, and turned to me.

Sitting on the bed, I watched him approach, my mouth dry.

He stopped between my knees, staring down at me with an unreadable expression. Hands rising, he gently cupped my jaw and tilted my face up. There were so many things I wanted to say to him that I couldn't—and his eyes were full of unspoken words too.

He leaned down. Our lips brushed in a whisper-soft touch.

He inhaled. His mouth returned to mine. A brief, hungry press of his lips. He pulled back and breathed again as though debating, as though torn, drawn, doubting.

His mouth covered mine.

I grabbed his wrists and held on as he kissed me urgently. His mouth opened against mine, and I answered with parted lips. The hot slide of his tongue pierced me with heat, and air rushed from my lungs.

The bed dipped, his knee on the mattress between my thighs. My hands ran up his arms, fingertips dragging across taut muscles. Our mouths moved ceaselessly, lips and tongue, hard and insistent. Edged with need.

Edged with desperation.

I didn't know I'd tipped backward until my back hit the blankets. He followed me down, elbows braced beside me, hands in my hair, mouth locked on mine. His body covered me, strong and hot and irresistible—and god, I'd wanted this, wanted to be under him so badly for so long.

I raked my hands across his bare shoulders as I pulled myself up into him. My legs wrapped around him, stronger than my arms, squeezing our bodies together.

A near-soundless groan rasped in his throat, and his weight pressed me into the bed. As his mouth closed over my neck, wet and ravenous, his hips rocked against mine, igniting my core. I tore my mouth from his to bite my bottom lip, stifling a moan. Need had reached an inferno pitch inside me, months of buildup combined with days of fear and anguish and the desperate drive to have all of him before …in case …

I dragged his face back up and kissed him again. More fiercely. More urgently. The empty ache between my legs intensified, the hard press of him through our clothes not enough—not nearly enough.

Our frenzy of kissing and roaming hands slowed. Deepened. His mouth savoring. The grind of his hips sweet, slow torture.

"Ezra," I moaned in a faint, breathless whisper. "Can we …please?"

His lips softened, and he sucked gently on my lower lip before he lifted his head. "We …" His breath caught, voice hoarsening. "Not …not now. I can't …"

I didn't understand why he couldn't or what was holding him back, but I didn't argue. "Okay."

We stared at each other—and I couldn't stop myself from pulling his mouth back for one more inferno-stoking kiss. His weight came down on me in a fierce press of strength, muscle, and desire, and I locked my legs tighter around his hips, needing just a little more, a little more.

Braced against me, he pushed his face into my neck. "Shit, Tori."

I squeezed my eyes shut, panting for air. With effort, I unclamped my arms and legs. Letting him go felt all wrong.

He pushed off me, stared insatiably at my heaving chest, then turned away. Shoulders moving with his own deep breaths, he sank onto the floor. While he leaned back against the bed, I remained sprawled across the mattress. Minutes slid past as my heart rate gradually calmed, my lungs slowing their greedy panting.

When we'd both recovered, he stood up. I scooched over, making room as he flipped the blankets back and slid into bed. He settled his head on his pillow, and I stretched out beside him, on top of the blankets where I couldn't misbehave.

He'd left his sweatpants on. Pretty sure he didn't normally sleep in them, but I could guess why he wasn't removing them.

I swallowed hard, trying not to squirm against the slow heat rolling through me. I wouldn't press him for more, or for an explanation. He was the one going through hell right now, and I wasn't going to push his boundaries.

There were other things we needed to talk about—badly—but a soft silence that had fallen between us and I didn't want to disturb it. The things I needed to tell him wouldn't be fun, and I needed just a little longer.

Just a little longer before I faced the consequences of decisions I'd made weeks ago.