Page 5 of Ashes

Nova nods and tucks her hair behind her ear. “He is,” she replies, smiling.

“The others?”

She frowns questioningly at me.

“Papa Bear. The Viking. The fire mage.”

A laugh tickles her throat. She shakes her head. “Excellent nicknames,” she says.

I raise my eyebrows, waiting for her to explain exactly what the other three men mean to her.

“It’s… complicated. Not with Luther. He can’t stand me. But with Mack and Kole.” She sucks in a deep breath. I feel like she’s about to tell me more. But she stops herself.

Trying to lighten my tone, I shrug. “You say Luther can’t stand you but, from where I’m sitting, all four of them give off serious over-protective vibes.”

“They just don’t know you yet, that’s all.” Nova nudges me with her elbow. The contact makes me flinch. I’m thinking about her. Her pale skin and shimmering hair. Large hands on her body. The Viking towering above her. Tanner kneeling in front of her.

I push the image from my mind. What the hell is happening to me? I’m usually good at this. I have very few talents but staying focused and distancing myself from the people I’m trying to deceive are two I can usually rely on.

“You don’t know me either,” I say quietly. “Not really.”

Her fingers move to the birthmark on my wrist. She releases a small sigh. “I do, though.” She looks at me and holds my gaze. “I’ve always known.”

I frown at her. She’s smart. Powerful. It shouldn’t have been this easy to fool her.

Taking her hand back, she scoots away from me and folds her arms in front of her stomach. “I used to watch you. On TV. All the time.”

I swallow hard. There’s a sincerity in her voice that’s unnerving me.

“I was drawn to you. I couldn’t help it. Even though my boyfriend—myex-boyfriend—hated supers. Even though it made him mad. I still wanted to watch you.” She angles herself toward me. “I thought it was a crush. I mean, you’reNico Varlac. Everyone has a crush on you.” She stops talking and frowns. “But I guess, if I did think of you that way, it would be kinda gross. Wouldn’t it?”

I’m still trying to interpret what she said about her ex-boyfriend. It made him mad when she watched me on TV? What kind of mad? My thoughts trip over one another. My heart thumps against my ribcage. “Gross?” I laugh and push my fingers through my hair. “No. I mean, we’re not blood relations. But what you were feeling… it was probably justfamiliarity.”

Nova’s eyes graze my face. “You’re right. We share a past.” She unfolds her arms and reaches for my hand, slotting her fingers between mine. “We share memories. I’ve never had that before.”

Looking into Nova’s eyes, my stomach constricts. I stand up and brace my hands on the small of my back. It suddenly feels too hot in here. Too close. I point to the window. “Can we take a walk?”

Nova nods, hops down from the pool table, and leads the way to the front door. From there, we take the steps down to the gravel driveway and loop around to the back of the house. By the fountain, she stops. She leans forward and trails her finger in the water. Then she sits on the stone rim and looks up at me. “Do you remember them?”

I put my hands in my pockets and try to recall what Ragnor told me. “Not really.”

“But you remember me?”

“Yes.”

“Who told you I was dead?”

“I…”

“They told me at the hospital.” She’s speaking quickly now. Memories scratching at her throat. Desperate to connect with mine. “After the fire. But I didn’t remember until Kole…” She trails off.

Mother told me about Kole the Viking; a powerful seer who wormed his way into the League then betrayed her. But I’m not supposed to know that.

Nova shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m still trying to untangle all this. I’m not making much sense.”

I step forward, close enough that I’m almost pressing against her knees. “We’ve got plenty of time. There’s no rush.”

Her eyes are watery. The moisture is making the blue look bluer, and the brown look darker. The contrast is striking. She sniffs, then tries to smile and says, “You know what my favorite show of yours was?”

---