A few scratches later I found myself in a grove, the earth under my feet white sand, glittering in the light of the moonbeams.
I'd spent my whole life in this house, on this land. I knew every hiding place, every cave, every trail, every tree.
This grove had never been here before.
I looked for the girl and saw her running up a hill to the center of the grove.
Toward a silver tree. It stood like a beacon of light in darkness with bare branches swaying in the windless night.
And below the tree stood a man in black with dark wings stretched out behind his back.
He turned to me, his face pale, eyes blue, a man ethereally beautiful, and he smiled.
The man from my dreams.
The last Nephilim.
Chapter 14
The Last Nephilim
"It's you." I froze in my place, my mind trying to find some cohesiveness between this experience and reality, but it came up empty.
"Yes. But do you know who I am, Scarlett Night?" His voice, deep and rich, had a trace of an old accent—Russian maybe? I couldn't tell. It burrowed into me, that voice, and left me shaking.
"I know you're dangerous." My body vibrated with his nearness, with the chill in the air, with the otherworldly feel to everything around us.
His grey blue eyes were unreadable as he studied me. "And do you fear me, Scarlett?"
"No," I said, honestly. I knew I should, that he could hurt me in so many ways, but instead I was drawn to him like a moth to flame. "What happened to the girl?" I asked, looking around for the ghostly figure that had led me here.
"I can conjure memories, like the girl, like this tree," he said. "And sometimes, they can do my bidding. I used the girl to lure you here, because I needed to make sure we were alone. "
He took a step toward me and my body moved against my will to reach him, to be closer to him. We stood a few feet apart under the silver tree. I had to look up at him. He stood a good foot taller than me, his chest broad, body hard and full of muscle under his black jeans and shirt. Up close I could see the perfection of his face more clearly. There would never be any mistaking this man for mortal. Every inch of him screamed power, magic, danger.
When he held out his hand, I looked down at it in surprise. "My name is Zorin, Andriy Zorin, Count of Nightfall, and Left Hand of the Twilight Queen. I apologize for leaving you, but I had to draw our attackers away last night."
I took his hand and instead of shaking it he drew it to his lips and kissed my knuckles. "It is a pleasure to meet you," he said.
His skin was cold, smooth, his hand strong and large, swallowing my own. When he let go my hand fell to my side, like a cut kite. I was at a loss for words for a moment, lost in his unfathomable gaze.
But then his words registered in my mind. Our attackers. Last night. Was it really just last night that my whole world fell apart? "What happened last night?"
"What do you remember?"
"I…" I closed my eyes and thought back. "I remember falling, crashing into the crystal case, shot, bleeding, the pain exploding inside me. I had shot at the case. At you," I said, realizing that he'd been in the crystal, preserved there like a mummy. "I shot at you, thinking you were a weapon, thinking you could help me. But they… then they shot me and everything went dark."
"You died, your life's blood pooled into the crystal and fed me, awakening me. I brought you back from the land of the dead. I gave you the power of the Nephilim."
I knew that already, of course I did, but still, hearing him say it sent chills up my spine. "Why? Why did you save me?"
"Perhaps because you reminded me of someone I once knew," he said, his eyes far away and sad.
I choked on unshed tears. "Why didn't you save my parents?"
He reached for my hand, stroking it. "They were already gone. They had no spark of life left to reborn them. I'm sorry, Scarlett. I tried."
I wanted to hate him for saving me and not them, but I couldn't. I knew the truth of his words. Had felt that truth last night. "What about the other… Nephilim? The thing that killed them?"
He tilted his head, a dark strand of hair falling into his eyes. "That was no Nephilim, but an Old One. Your people call them Angels. They are our ancestors, and we their children along with humans. They are far more ancient and deadly than us. I killed the pawns of the Angel and then fought him in the sky. We injured each other gravely and I fell from the sky onto a mountain, hurt and dying. It was your blood inside me that saved me. I came to find you as soon as I awoke, healed enough to fly. What happened to me? Do you know? Why was I in that coffin?"
"You don't remember? About the war? Your capture?"
"I remember who I am," he said, "But not how I was captured and put to sleep."