Page 21 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

LETHE FOUND ANA watching the jagged rise and fall of the Dragon’s Spine in the distance. He paused there by the trees, pondering his approach.

He liked the view of her in front of those mountains. Their sharp tops and snow had a severity that drew him in. Seeing her admire them as he had in State time a century ago made him feel like a part of history.

Did she see their severity like he did, or something else?

He took patient steps toward her, watching as she glanced to her left, eyes centered on a single spot at the base of a tree.

Some small mushrooms were growing among the tree roots.

She watched them long enough that one might think she was admiring them, a foreign gentleness and openness in her eyes. He thought he almost saw a smile.

It won’t hurt to poke around, at least a little ,he thought. Ana was steady and tough. He liked that about her. He could be himself without doing any real damage. He understood restraint—respected it, but everyone needed the opportunity to push barriers now and again.

He lived for that.

He walked around to her other side, eyes moving up her spine. He could imagine running his hand up her neck, savoring the soft skin, freeing her dark hair—feeling it through his fingers. An impulse, one of many, but unlike the others, it lingered.

Sometimes he felt like his body was full of chaos, lightning in need of a conductor to channel him somewhere. But not everyone was a conductor. He’d destroyed a few people that way. They were people who reveled in mutual chaos, only to realize they couldn’t go as far as he would.

Ana turned.

Their eyes met, but she gave nothing away in her expression, her gaze certain, seemingly fearless.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he mimicked her dry greeting. He smiled at his own impulsive emotion—for a split second, she’d made him jealous of a mushroom. He didn’t want those stony eyes, the calm expression and steady presence that Jasper seemed to cherish.

He chuckled inwardly at the abrupt pace of his own feelings, reunited with sensations he hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe he had been the one avoiding her all along, unsure of the result of his own urges.

He wanted that fire he’d seen at the festival, hidden in those rocks somewhere, the warmth, the beating heart in the statue, peeled back and raw. More than that, he wanted to be that fire, lightning urging her into an awakened state.

Granted, most things that got struck by lightning were more dead than alive afterward. He hated how his brain kept circling back to that, but Lethe had his bets that Ana was more a conductor than a tree. Only one way to know for sure.

“So, you only have one year left on your Atlas,” he said, and knew he’d played the piece he wanted when he watched the shift of discomfort move through her, admiring the brief vibrancy with which her body reflected the state of her soul.

Just as quickly, she locked up again, facing forward, arms crossed across her chest, posture firm and aligned like a soldier.

“Cal?” she asked.

“Yes.” Lethe contemplated his next move. He couldn’t push her again. She was expecting that.

Pull this time.

“You like being in nature,” he observed softly, and she glanced over at him, but he was watching the mushrooms now.

She looked down at them, following his eyes.

“You have to have a big heart to care about something like this,” he said.

Push.

He looked over at her, mind filing through the clues, connecting the dots through instincts that he lived through.

“You’re a liar and a fake.”

The blow landed. He chased her shock, knowing she’d soon discover what he was doing.

“You want to die a fake, don’t you? Pulling Jasper along so you don’t have to be alone?”

There was the subtlest flicker in her eyes. It was a touch of feeling extending like a ripple through water. He saw what his words could do. As he watched her, he imagined what he could do with more than just words.

If she would let him, he could sculpt art.

He saw her recover, reigning in her own emotion as she glanced off back toward the mountains. No doubt she knew she was being vetted or manipulated, but she didn’t react with any anger or offense. She internalized it in a moment, sensing a crack in her armor and recoiling.

He felt elated at her withdrawal, confident he could crack her further and see what lay hidden beneath it all.

Like wings unfurling, her arms dropped by her side and she relaxed. Her tension completely dissolved. He checked her view of the mountains but saw nothing.

“I never should have been a soldier,” she replied painlessly, and just like that, he felt her slip through his fingers.

The woman he watched now seemed in some way beyond his reach.

“But it’s what I needed to do.”

“Just like that?” he asked, leaning back against the tree near him, unable to hide his disappointment.

She looked over at him, raising her eyebrows.

“I sabotaged Hailey’s plans at Dal Hull to recover an artifact from The Ocean’s War.

He found out. He’s sending me to hunt Ares.

Either way, he wins this in his own way, but so do I.

I’m dying soon. I could be happier with my life, but nothing is perfect.

I still get upset about it from time to time. I—”

Lethe groaned. “All right. Stop.”

“Not as fun when there aren’t any secrets you can exploit, is it?” she said. “Go back to camp and talk to Cal.” She crossed her arms, facing forward again. “I think he’ll be a lot more interesting to you.”

Lethe sank down against the tree, Ana glancing to his right.

He looked over to see he’d sat right next to the mushrooms. Strangely enough, he understood her focus about not killing things.

Of course, for her, he realized, it seemed like she actually liked plants.

For him, it was a good rule of thumb to practice being overly conscientious.

If he could avoid hurting plants, maybe he could be better about not hurting anything else.

At least, that’s what Manaj had hammered into him.

He removed his cigarettes, more out of habit than anything. They still had his knife that also served as his lighter.

“I’m enjoying the air,” she said.

“It’s like Manaj all over again,” he mumbled, putting them away. He tilted his head back against the tree as he yawned, sliding a leg out through the grass.

She watched his feet extend out behind her. He scanned the woods, ignoring the intensity of her stare.

“I’m sure you were enjoying your solitude too, but I want to stay here,” he said.

She glanced back at camp like she was considering leaving him there. As if thinking better of it, she faced forward again.

He stared up at the tree branches, bored that she was neither interested nor appalled by his meddling. He slid farther down the tree until he was lying flat-backed in the grass, crossing an ankle over his knee.

Ana glanced back at him a couple of times as he shifted around, clearly distracted by his movements behind her.

“I’m not going to stab you in the back,” he announced after a while.

He smiled at her as she glanced over her shoulder at him.

“You’re on edge about my conversation with Evira,” he pointed out. “Before we left on this trip.”

“Among other things,” she said, facing him now.

“An old nemesis isn’t much different than family,” he said, resting up on his elbows. “At the end of the day, there’s stuff I haven’t been able to talk about for a while, and it felt good talking about it with her. Is that a good enough answer?”

“You aren’t turning in a test.”

“I am. The only answer that matters is the one you like. What’s my prize?”

“I disagree,” she said.

He lifted his chin to her in a nod. “Of course, you do. You’re still riding the morality train.

Tell me, what did you do so wrong that you now have to do everything right just to make up for it?

” When she didn’t reply, he added, “Come down to my level for a bit.” He glanced down at her foot, and she drew it away from him.

Her brows furrowed as she inspected his hand and then his face. “Were you just planning to trip me?”

For a second, he’d wanted to. It would have certainly demonstrated his point. It had, however, earned him her surprise, and he could work with that.

Pull.

“I realize I come on a bit strong,” he said.

“A bit,” Ana replied.

Push.

“At least I come on at all. You’re like a walking tombstone. I have to put in so much effort just to get anything more than a name. You—”

He snatched her other foot and yanked it.

She fell back on her reflexes, rolling back as he released her leg. Sitting in the grass, it was clear her mind hadn’t caught up with her body.

She stared in disbelief.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said, raising her voice.

“There she is,” Lethe said, folding his fingers behind his head as he lay back in the grass again.

He looked over just as Jasper glanced up the pathway from camp, seeing he and Ana sitting together before withdrawing back toward camp. Lethe rolled his head in his hands, looking back over at Ana, who’d noticed it too, her eyes still set on the campsite.

“You want to go tell him everything’s okay? I won’t be offended. That way I can smoke.”

She exhaled through her nose, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her face.

“No,” she said. “Jasper knows me.” She remained seated, folding her knees under her as she sat straight, all stone again.

“Your tricks won’t work here, so unless you can start acting less like a war hero, you’ll realize very quickly you aren’t in good company.

Is that what you want? Because you’re stuck with us too. ”

“Can I have my knife back?” he asked.

“No.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, inspecting her as he evaluated her statement.She’d issued it like a machine.