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“She didn’t tell you anything else about this Carter?” he asked, his fingers tracing the braid.
“No. She didn’t even give me a last name. The bracelet isn’t normal, is it?”
Nate finally looked up at me. “No, it’s not. It contains a vision. The only person who can see the vision is the owner it was made for. I’ve heard of first-order angels creating items to hold visions, but I’ve never actually come across one before. They’re rare.”
“Do you think Valac was after the bracelet?”
Nate shook his head. “It’s useless to him. Unless he was simply trying to keep it from the rightful owner. In which case he succeeded since it’s here with you instead. But regardless, it probably doesn’t play into what Dantalion wants now.”
“I thought we knew what he wanted. Revenge. Me.”
Nate’s expression darkened. “Revenge looks different to everyone.”
A shiver skated down my back at his words. I hadn’t considered that—the details of Dantalion’s revenge plan.
“He’s not touching you,” Nate promised, his tone hard and uncompromising.
I nodded, but it felt like a lie.
“Come here.” Nate reached out and pulled me down to the couch beside him. His hand found my thigh like it had at the restaurant last night. “Relax.”
“I can’t,” I muttered under my breath.
Nate frowned and his thumb started tracing slow circles on my outer thigh. “What are a few things you have on your bucket list?”
I stared down at my lap. “I don’t think you want to hear the answer to that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t have a list of places I want to visit or mountains I want to climb. I don’t care about scuba diving in the Caribbean or zip-lining through a rainforest. I have a different kind of list.”
His hand lifted from my leg to grip my chin and turn my face toward him. “Tell me.” His words were a command, but his eyes were soft and searching.
“I want to get married in the church my mother and father got married in. It was this cute little building on the coast of Washington state. They lived out there for a while before I was born. We visited for a summer vacation once, and I fell in love.”
Nate smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. “What else?”
“I want to move out of this apartment and buy a real house. I want to have babies and watch them grow up. I want to see Kylie find a guy who actually deserves her. And eventually I want to find something I’m more passionate about than serving coffee at the café.”
“You have a solid bucket list, Sierra. And I hope you get to do everything on it.”
I stood up and headed for the kitchen without comment, wondering why he’d called me Sierra. It’s not that he didn’t use my name, but for some reason the fact that he chose to call me that instead ofbaby girlseemed significant. It felt like a reminder that he wasn’t going to be around when I checked off my bucket list. I wouldn’t marry him in that church in Washington. It wouldn’t be his kids I watched run around in my backyard. He would never see what I chose to do with my life or see the house I would eventually buy.
Someday the threat of Dantalion would be behind me, and when that was gone, Nate would be gone too.
* * *
We didn’t returnto our conversation about Dantalion and what he might want from me as we made dinner and ate together.
Kylie came home after her shift at the café just as we were finishing up the dishes.
“Hey, roomies,” she said with a grin that dared either one of us to complain about our nickname. “What are we doing tonight? Wait, don’t tell me.” She held up a hand. “Let me guess, we’re staying in like a couple of hermits.”
Nate scowled at her, but she didn’t seem bothered. Kylie must have been the only person on the planet other than me who wasn’t the least bit afraid of Nate. But unlike me, Nate wasn’t sworn to protect her. That added a lot to my confidence when it came to dealing with him.
“Sierra’s been out more than enough in the past couple of days,” Nate said like I wasn’t standing right there.
“Really?” I crossed my arms and glared at him.
