Page 26 of Crucible
Growing bored now, I yawn but don’t chime in. If those two idiots want to piss off Thanatos, I won’t stand in their way. They’re Zeke’s friends, not mine.
“Is he Isaac?”
“Who?
“The so-called Savior,” Thorin chews out. I don’t think he’s buying her wide-eyed confusion for a second.
The sheep in Isaac’s cult would never dare call him or acknowledge his real name. I was one of those sheep. I didn’t care much for Ezekiel’s half-brother, nor did I buy what he was selling about living forever, but I did find the idea of dying rather satisfying.
“Uhhh, I don’t know who that is either. I’mAurelia,” she tells us again. “As in the singer? America’s sweetheart? The girl with the golden voice? I have twenty-three Grammys. Are you guys like…okay?”
Khalil steps forward, drawing her gaze. For the first time, she has the sense to look nervous as he curls his lip sarcastically. “You’re humble, too.”
Aurelia returns Khalil’s withering look. “Humble is for basic bitches who only have being liked going for them. I’m the shit, and I know it. Fuck you if that bothers you.”
Damn.
“Okay, Aurelia, the singer, why are you here?”
“I’m in need of assistance,” she says primly.
Something tells me she’s used to getting her way. I sneak a glance at Khalil and Thorin, who are both watching her like they can’t wait to tear her apart with their teeth.
I want the same but for different reasons.
Aurelia scares them, but she excites me. She makes me want to live, at least for a little while.
This Aurelia…something…I feel a bone-deep need to ravage her soul as well as her body.
“I own some property not far from here. I think. A ranch near some hovel called Hearth. I was flying there for a little R and R when my plane crashed on this mountain. I don’t remember most of it. Just the plane coming apart mid-air and then waking up in a tree.”
“Were there other survivors?”
She pauses and then shakes her head slowly, almost reluctantly. I get the sense that she’s neither being truthful nor deceptive. She doesn’t know that Khalil, Zeke, and Thorin have been tracking her since the crash.
“I tried,” she says brokenly but doesn’t explain further. What had she tried? To find them? To help them? “We—I, um, looked for the tail, hoping to find the emergency transmitter, but I ended up here instead.” Aurelia wrinkles her nose as if she finds the accommodations more inconvenient than the crash.
Of course, Thorin and Khalil don’t miss the slight and bristle at her impudence.
I snort, and the sound draws her attention. When I smile and wink, she looks me up and down and then dismisses me just as quickly.
My gaze drops, and I rub at the tight feeling in my chest. I’m no stranger to pain, but this kind is a novelty. It feels like my—Zeke’s—heart is breaking.
I wonder what they call it?
“So, you’re alone?” I ask.
She stares straight ahead but doesn’t look at me when she responds. “Yes.”
“That must have been scary.”
Aurelia gives me her attention once more, and this time, she doesn’t look away. “It was.”
“If you’re alone, then whose coat did we find upstairs by the fire?”
“Harrison’s.”
Harrison?My brows dip. And just who in the hell is he? Her boyfriend?
