I PACED THE corridors of my temporary home. The rest of the previous evening and a better part of the morning had passed without a single word from Evie. It was driving me crazy, but I’d told her how to find me. There was nothing I could do but wait. While I anticipated what might happen if she did come—hoping with everything in me that she would, if only to put me out of my misery—my body buzzed with an odd nervous energy.

What will she think of this place? I looked at the rusted side-rolling door. There were places where the metal was so worn, the sun poked through and lit the space with spears of light. It wasn’t exactly homely and probably wouldn’t inspire thoughts of being safe. She’ll be disgusted for sure.

I’d already tidied the office that I’d been using as a bedroom, repacked all of my clean clothes into my backpack, and then shifted the sleeping bag into one corner. I’d tried to organize the camping equipment, but without packing it all away entirely, it was impossible to arrange it neatly.

It’s not a date! I reminded myself for the fiftieth time as I left my waiting spot by the front roller door to return to the office and open the door once again to check that it was still as tidy as it could be. You don’t even know if she’s actually going to come.

There was little I could do but wait. I hated waiting. My family and I pursued the evil we hunted; we didn’t stand back and wait for it to come to us. I almost regretted that I’d left the choice in Evie’s hands, but it had to be her decision. She had to visit me of her own free will, or I would never know whether my passion was even partly shared or not. Not to mention what my fate might be if I tried to forcibly make her do anything she didn’t want to.

In order to feel like I had some control over my own life still, I decided that I would give her just three days. If she hadn’t come in that time, I would leave and try to shake her from my mind some other way. This time I knew it could take a few years to work through the memories—maybe even longer considering that I had an actual memory of the way her body curved against mine to carry with me into my dreams. I had no doubt my fantasies would be that more vivid, more realistic, and just downright better after that embrace.

An engine rumbled outside, too close to be a visitor to any of the other still-operational businesses along the road that lead to my ramshackle hideaway. After reminding myself of the danger she posed—and the fact that I was facing her alone—I pressed my hand against the gun resting in the holster at the base of my spine to reassure myself that it was still there.

I may have been hoping for the best, but I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t going into any meeting with a monster unprepared for the worst—just in case. She may have had fire, but I had firepower, and that worked from much farther away. At least, I hoped it would. I was charting new waters here and that thought turned me on as much as it terrified me. I wondered whether passion and fear would always dance around each other in my mind when it came to Evie.

I raced back to the roller door just as it shuddered into motion. My hand lingered by my thigh, ready to reach for the gun at the smallest indication she was about to attack. The sound of my heartbeat echoed in my own ears and I was certain she could hear it too as she stood assessing me with a nervous gaze. The moment I spotted the brown curls, I knew she wasn’t comfortable enough to come as herself—she was treating me with suspicion. I wasn’t sure I blamed her for that choice even though I hated it.

I made an effort to relax my hand, moving it as far away from the gun as I felt I safely could. “Thank you for coming.”

“I almost didn’t,” she admitted. “Why are we here?”

Her question confused me. I’d explained why I wanted to meet with her yesterday.

The memory of that kiss—the one that had invaded my dreams all night and made them more potent than ever before—permeated through my mind again. Just when I was about to ask for clarification, she spoke again.

“Couldn’t we have met somewhere a little more public?” she asked, distracting me from the sordid path my thoughts were taking.

Relief flooded through me that she had wanted to meet somewhere more public. Surely that meant she didn’t intend to hurt me. Did it mean that she thought I intended to hurt her though? Even after everything I’d said the day before, even though she had to realize I’d had plenty of opportunities to hurt her if that had been my intention.

“This is where I’m staying at the moment,” I said in the way of explaining our surroundings.

“You live here?”

My lips tipped up in response to her incredulous tone. I refused to believe that she hadn’t lived in similar places over the years whenever the need arose.

In response, I invited her into my space. When she followed, I led her through the corridors toward my inner-sanctum, hoping desperately that she wouldn’t use the information I was giving her against me. I was leading a monster right into the heart of my current home. It was dangerous, but I couldn’t imagine having the conversation we needed to have anywhere else. If anything went awry, I needed to be able to contain the situation.

“Welcome to my house,” I said, as I pushed the door open. My voice squeaked a little as my nerves tightened around my vocal cords. What are you, ten? Man up, loser.

“Why am I here, Clay?” Her voice was empty and resigned, almost as if she’d spent her lifetime quota of emotions already and was left without the ability to feel anything more. I wondered whether she was here purely because she had as little choice over coming to the meeting as I had for setting it.

“I told you. I wanted to apologize for the way I reacted.”

“With who your family is, could you have had any other reaction?”

I was surprised at her knowledge, but I shouldn’t have been. She and her father were obviously well enough versed in our world to stay off the radar for as long as they had. I was about to answer her question, when her gaze hardened and her lips pursed. I couldn’t understand how she’d swung from resignation to anger so quickly. At least until she spoke.

“Do you know who killed my mother?”

I understood her rage. She viewed us as the evil ones. The next generation of phoenix was created by the death of the previous one. I could still recall her reaction when I told her about the scent of magnolias on our first outing together—the one that had ended with me spitting a tirade of hatred at her. She had stopped and recognized, with a questioning lilt, that I hadn’t known my mother either. Her use of the word then had hinted at what I should have put together as soon as I’d suspected what she was.

I wanted to smack myself upside the head for my stupidity.

Had we killed her mother? I felt sorry for her, but I had no answer for her that would erase the pain on her face.

“It was the Rain though, wasn’t it?” she challenged.

My stomach twisted as I considered the likelihood. “It’s possible. If she was . . . like you, then she was dangerous.”

“Why? What made her dangerous?” Evie asked, her voice low and rumbling. The warmth around her spiked and matched the fire in her eyes. “Was it because she could do this too?”

She held out the card I’d given her. Her fingers caressed one side. Within seconds, flames licked along the edge and began to crawl over the penned address.

It was just the reminder I needed of how dangerous she was, but it also spoke to me of the reason I’d wanted to meet with her again. I swallowed heavily as I balanced the precarious line between desire and fear. She could kill me in an instant, but I’d probably die a happy man.

“You’re a killer,” she spat at me. “From a line of killers. Nothing will change that. Obviously, I made a mistake coming here today.”

Her words, and the hateful way she said them, confirmed that she didn’t understand.

I reached out to stop her from leaving, holding onto her inflamed skin. The Rain in me wanted to flinch away from the contact, but I realized if I did that she would be gone forever.

Still, I had to make her see. I wasn’t the evil one. Sure, I’d killed before. Of course I had. I’d lost count of the number of monsters I’d sliced, diced, and shot over the years.

But I’d saved lives by doing those things.

Countless people were alive because I’d taken the action that lesser people might not have.

“It’s not like that,” I said, “the work we do . . . that I did. It’s about the lives we are able to save, not the creatures we kill. That’s why we do it.”

I regretted my choice of words when she visibly flinched at the word creature.

That’s what she is though, the voice inside me that was still utterly loyal to the Rain taunted. You need to remember that.

I was quickly forgetting that fact as I grew mesmerized by her—everything about her screamed at me for attention, and I longed to reveal the true Evie beneath the disguise she showed the world.

“How can you justify murder?” Her eyes flashed and her voice grew thick, coated with layers of anger and fear. “Who gave you that right?”

I grew frustrated that she still didn’t understand. Couldn’t she see things the way they really were? Maybe she just didn’t know quite as much about it I’d thought she did.

“It started with Noah’s flood,” I started. In order to help her see why my family and I weren’t the evil ones, I recounted the history of the Rain; of how, many generations ago, a carefully selected group of warriors had been granted the holy task of keeping humanity safe.

They formed the Rain, whose rank and file destroyed all the threats that posed themselves daily all around the world—beings so dark and evil that they’d tear the world apart just for the kicks if people like me didn’t keep them in check.

“Since then we’ve been around to destroy the stray creatures that have wandered back out of the darkness,” I finished.

“I am not a creature,” she hissed at me.

It was too late to take back my choice of words, but I hated that they’d hurt her. “I’m sorry, Evie.”

“Sorry for what exactly?”

My hand found the nape of my neck, and I scrubbed it against the hair there. “I told you, for what happened that day. For who I am.”

I sighed, wishing I had some way to fix everything. To make her human or to take us back to high school so that we could do it all over again. To change what I was and take the danger my family posed out of the equation.

“I know you might not believe me,” I said. “But I never told my family about you.”

I’d expected her to show some relief over the fact that I hadn’t set my family on her tail, but instead the flame of anger that flickered through her as a near permanent undercurrent in all of our recent interactions roared brighter again. “Why not?”

I didn’t understand. Had she wanted me to admit to my family that I had feelings for a phoenix? It defied all logic. “Because they would have killed you if I did.”

Her top lip curled up into a sneer. “Don’t I deserve to die just because of what I am?”

And just like that, with one simple statement, she’d cut straight to the very root of the problem I’d been facing ever since I knew that I was going to be seeing her again.

Yes, yes she does.

“No . . .” I said aloud, contradicting the thoughts of the small voice. “I . . .” I sighed as the battle continued to rage in my head. “I don’t want that.” I willed every part of me to pay attention and believe it.

“Who cares what you want?” she snapped, taking me by surprise and sparking the part of me that was still 100 percent Rain into action. “What gives you the right to pick and choose who gets to live? Why do I get that honor but my mother didn’t? She didn’t get to live, even though she never hurt anyone.”

She shouted at me with a rage that cemented the threat she was. Added to the fact that I’d just witnessed her create fire out of nothing and then felt the rise in the room’s temperature that corresponded with her anger and she had the well-trained Rain part of me on edge. My hand crept closer to the gun. Would she attack? Should I fire first?

The smart thing to do was try to diffuse her anger and calm the situation, but the Rain in me had taken control of my body and was ready to fight against the danger she posed.

“I don’t think that I have any right,” I shouted back at her. “I was raised to believe that everything other deserves to die. There is a part of me that still thinks I made the biggest mistake of my life in not killing you on sight!”

As soon as the words were free, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe I’d actually voiced it to her. I was even more surprised I wasn’t buried under her flame already. Everything I’d said was true, it was the battle that had raged in me for two years—that was still raging. It was impossible to reconcile wanting to explore Evie’s body and soul with the knowledge that she was evil and needed to be destroyed.

The heat rolled off her in waves. We were close enough that I could feel the threat of it, and the warmth caused my own body to react with fear. My fingers twitched near my gun before I saw that the situation was fast becoming too dangerous for both of us. One of us had to diffuse it or it would become deadly.

I forced my hand away from my weapon and into the air, and then I stepped closer to her. This wasn’t what I wanted. Although I couldn’t say exactly what I wanted, I knew it wasn’t to fight with her. Realistically, I didn’t have any specific expectations when I’d made my plans to come to Charlotte.

If it had been any other monster in front of me though, my natural reaction would be to kill. Her reaction would be to fight back. One of us would die. The thought of it made my eyes squeeze tightly shut for a regret-filled moment. Everything cleared in that instant and I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, why I’d traveled so far.

Regardless of what I’d tried to convince myself of, I wasn’t in Charlotte to get her out of my head. No, I wanted to be with her. To taste and experience the things that I knew only she could give me. To have my heart beat faster and harder than I would have thought possible just because of a simple kiss. To follow whatever magic is was that called me back to her side.

“But I couldn’t,” I finished, defeated by my realization. The Rain in me was laid to waste, and I was nothing more than a boy confessing his desire for a woman. “Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t kill you! Goddamn it, Evie,” I muttered, reaching for the brown curls of her wig before pulling it from her head. I’d had enough of the bullshit and hiding. The lies and the half-truths. I tugged her hair loose of its bindings and watched it fall around her face. She was breathtaking and everything I’d longed for since the day I’d met her in the park in Ohio—just a few months after the first time I’d ever seen her.

“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since you left,” I continued. “At first I thought it was just because I didn’t get closure when you disappeared so suddenly, but I don’t think that’s it.” In fact, I was certain it was more than that. Having her in front of me cemented all of the crazy thoughts I’d been having and made them seem that much less insane. “I care about you. I know that I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“I never lied to you,” she whispered. “Back in school, I never lied about what I was. I just didn’t know. You have to believe that.”

“I do.” I watched her eyes closely, taking in the depth of the sorrow and longing that existed in them. “You obviously know what you are now though.”

She nodded.

“A phoenix?” It was almost impossible to squeeze out the last word because it was the one thing that had caused years of distress for me. If she’d just been a normal girl, we would have lived our lives on a different trajectory. Even as I thought it, I could see that world in front of me clear as day. She would have been mine from that day on, and we would have gone from sweethearts to lovers. I would have held her—desperate and wanting—in my arms before claiming her body and soul, over and over. It was a world where the feeling of bliss her tongue and lips could illicit over my body wasn’t limited to my imagination. Where every desire and dream I’d ever had was a reality.

“It doesn’t make me a bad person though,” she said, forcing my thoughts back to the now.

“I really hope you’re right about that. Part of me, a part I don’t like very much, still feels like I’m making a mistake.”

“Why did you come then?”

I’d come to Charlotte to clear her from my mind, and yet standing there in front of her I wanted nothing more than to let her into my heart and beg for her to do the same. “I had to see you. I . . . I don’t care who my family is, or what they stand for. Not anymore.”

Her lips curled up into the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. Beautiful, because in that moment, it belonged to me and me alone.

“So what happens now?” she asked.