Sacrifice by Denise Grover Swank

kept you from leaping out of a jet flying over the Midwest? I gave you energy. I won’t agree to not touch you, but I will agree to only touch you when I deem it absolutely necessary.”
    She shook her head. “No way. You could claim anything you want to be ‘absolutely necessary.’ Why would I agree to that?”
    A derisive laugh rumbled in his throat. “You think you’re the one holding all the cards here. You think you can set these terms and that I have no choice but to kowtow to your wishes.” His voice lowered. “But you forget that you need me just as much. Without me you have no chance of saving Jake.”
    Her grief boiled into rage, her chest burning with power. “I don’t need you. I can always side with Alex.”
    “Alex.” He laughed again, looking at the ceiling. “That’s rich. You think I’m going to believe that you’ll side with the man who raped you and kidnapped your son? You claim I don’t know jack shit about you, but I know you’d sooner die than team up with him.”
    Anger filled her, her energy begging for release.
    Raphael’s glare softened to disappointment. “You’re still so young and impetuous. You don’t even know how to prevent what you’ve just done.”
    “Fuck you, Raphael.”
    “Close your eyes.”
    She narrowed them instead, her anger and hatred increasing the pressure.
    “For God’s sake, Emma, if you can’t trust me in this one thing then we’re doomed.”
    Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes.
    “As impossible as this sounds, try to relax.”
    She bit back a retort before a jolt shot through her body, then the pressure was gone. Her eyes flew open in alarm. “What happened?”
    He turned around and poured a cup of coffee. “Sit down and eat.”
    “What happened?”
    “I pulled your energy away.”
    “How?”
    “All in good time. Now you eat.” He picked up a crystal juice glass off the counter and sat in the chair next to her place setting.
    “But—”
    He looked up at her with a hard stare. “You have your conditions and I have mine. The first of mine is you let me do this my way. I teach what you need to know when I think you need to know it.”
    She glared. “I’m not allowed to ask questions?”
    “You can ask all the questions you like. But don’t expect me to answer all of them.”
    She sat in the chair and picked up her fork. “I have a lot of questions, so don’t expect me to just sit here and let you spoon-feed me.”
    He nodded, his lips pursed. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t have questions. In the past, at this point in the game you’d know all the answers. They would have just come to you. Of course, we never made it to this point before, so it’s all a moot point. But in past experiences, you had memories of your previous lives and your purpose in it all.”
    She gave him a hard stare. “I never would have chosen you, you know.”
    His gaze held hers, his face expressionless. “I know.”
    “I never would have chosen Alex, either.”
    “I know this too.”
    “Has that ever happened before?”
    “No.”
    “Did she always love you?”
    “No.”
    “So sometimes she loved Alex?”
    “In the beginning.” He watched her eat with a serious expression, lifting his glass of amber liquid to his lips.
    She frowned. “That doesn’t look like orange juice.”
    Smirking, he raised the glass to her. “How perceptive of you.”
    “A little early in the day to be drinking, isn’t it?”
    “You have your vice—loving a human—and I have mine.” He took another drink then grinned.
    “You’re creeping me out. This is the second time you’ve watched me eat. Why aren’t you eating too?”
    “I already ate hours ago. It’s nearly lunchtime.”
    “How long have you done this?”
    His mouth lifted into a crooked grin. “Watch you eat or have breakfast before lunchtime?”
    They’d spent centuries fucking with her life and he joked about it. “This might go faster if you actually volunteered some