“Aydin…”

“Don’t move,” he chided again.

I closed my eyes, trapped. Feeling it there. Unable to run. Any sudden movement, and… God, get it off me. Please.

“It reminds you of him, doesn’t it?” Aydin asked. “Your brother.”

What?

“Waiting for the danger to hit,” he continued. “Knowing it was coming.”

I kept my eyes closed, trying to drown it out, but my knees started shaking, and I wanted to hit him. My arms were charged, the anger there, like before, but I couldn’t do anything with it. Not yet. I couldn’t move.

“Unable to live, damn near wetting your pants and waiting for the inevitable as it got closer and closer to you.”

Shut up. He didn’t know me.

“Would you get sick right before you knew he was coming home?” he asked. “Run to the bathroom and vomit, maybe?”

I opened my eyes, meeting his through the blur.

Needles pricked my throat, remembering. “The kitchen sink,” I told him. “It was closer than the bathroom. I was usually making dinner.”

He nodded, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

The snake’s head slid over my hand again, grinding the dirt into my skin.

“Is it poisonous?” I asked.

“Something is only poisonous if you eat it,” he retorted. “Organisms that bite and inject you with poison are described as venomous.”

Jesus, fuck. “Is it venomous, then?”

“They’re black racers,” he pointed out, as if that meant anything to me. “What if I said it’s venomous, but I have anti-venom?”

“Let me go.”

“What if I said it’s not venomous, but it can bite?”

I gritted my teeth, the snake’s head nudging between my fingers. What the fuck? Why wasn’t it moving on?

“What if I said it can’t bite, only constrict?” he asked instead.

“What are you doing?”

“Or maybe it’s not harmful at all,” he told me, “but I might put some in your bed tonight? Would you fear them any less?”

“Aydin…” I started to pull at my arms.

He barked, “If you move, she’ll strike.” He glared at me. “Own it, Emory. Own this moment.”

What? I shook my head, my thighs tense as I got ready to bolt and fight and run, but…

“Don’t run,” he told me, reading my mind. “Don’t cry. Don’t get angry. Just let go.”

N…no. What…? The dirt shifted a few feet away, and I whimpered. Was that another one?

But he yelled, “Let go!”

I startled, resisting the urge to curl my fingers into the dirt.

“Look at me,” he said. “Look into my eyes.”

I snapped my gaze to his. Please…

“Look at me,” he urged again. “Hold my eyes. Don’t fight. Don’t rage. Don’t scream. Don’t give him your fear.”

I panted, staring into his brown eyes, tunneling deeper into the flecks of honey and amber.

“I am here,” he recited. “This is it, and I am not scared.”

I exhaled, sucking in another breath but starting to calm.

“I am not scared,” he repeated. “I am the eye of the storm. The calm in the madness.”

I blew out a breath, drawing in another, slower.

“The quiet in the chaos. The patience for my moment.”

My hand started to melt into the dirt, the snake shrinking and my heart starting to slow down.

We didn’t blink.

“I am the eye of the storm,” he murmured, and I was transfixed. “He did not happen to you, Emory. You expected it. It was supposed to happen. It was all part of the plan. You knew it was coming.”

I gazed into his eyes, his voice surrounding me like music as cool calmness swept through my blood.

“Nothing is ever a surprise,” he said. “Always act as if you knew it was coming the whole time. Pretend it was part of the plan. You move with the storm, Emory. Calm, quiet, patient, and then… Then you happen to him.”

My chest rose and fell in steady breaths as I whispered, “I happen to him.”

“He may hit you again,” he breathed out, “but he will never hurt you. You will smile, and then…”

“I will happen to him,” I whispered.

Warmth coursed over my body, a curtain lifted, and my lungs opened, steel coating my skin and knives sprouting from my nails.

The racer slithered over my finger and up to the surface of the soil, moving away into the other plants, and I looked down, seeing my palms still buried, but Aydin was no longer holding me.

When had he let go?

Taking them out, I looked at him, seeing him give me a small smile. Then, he leaned over and grabbed the black snake, still fisting its body and staring at me as the reptile hissed, snapped back around, and struck the back of his hand, sinking its fangs into him.

Aydin released it, and I watched as he sucked the two red punctures into his mouth and spit the blood into the plant bed.

“Like nearly all suffering,” he told me, “it bites, but you live.”

Sweat cooled on my skin, and my head was in the clouds, a tremendous weight I thought I’d always feel suddenly gone.

Leaning in, Aydin kissed my temple, and I didn’t even consider pulling away. His lips were warm and gentle—almost like a…

Like a father.

“You’re Lilith,” he whispered against my skin. “You can’t be burned if you’re the flame.”

Pulling back, he looked down into my eyes, and I didn’t want to smile. He wasn’t off the hook for that scare, but I walked in here with something that I was going to leave without. Everything felt stronger and lighter.

How the hell did he do that?

Lilith... His words drifted through my head. Was he Jewish? She was in our folklore. Adam’s first wife and cast out of the Garden of Eden, because she refused to be subservient.

She was dark and light. She wasn’t afraid to fall or to burn too bright.

She was a flame.

Something shifted off to my right, and we both turned our heads, seeing Will standing just inside the room.

He wore gray sweatpants, hanging low on his hips, and nothing else as his hair stuck up all over the place in the most adorable way.

My heart instantly ached at the anger always in his eyes, but I was ready to do something about it now.

His gaze shot from Aydin to me in his lap, the sharpness in his scowl suddenly turning flat, like he didn’t care. He just stood there, unmoving, and I rose from the seat, remembering that night on the dance floor at Homecoming.

Everyone had stared at us because we didn’t belong together, but we felt nothing other than the ache of the agonizing inch between us, and suddenly Aydin wasn’t even in the room.

“Micah and Rory gone hunting?” Aydin asked, leaning back in his seat.

Will nodded, refusing to look at me now. “I told Taylor to go with them.”

Aydin chuckled under his breath, looking at Will over his shoulder. “Just the three of us, then,” he mused, glancing at me. “You kids want to play in the pool?”

I gazed at Will, ignoring Aydin’s thinly veiled request that I take off my clothes, but then Will spoke up.