Chaos (29 page)

Until I bit that shoulder, sinking my teeth into his muscle.

He roared in pain, then pressed his body so hard onto mine that my jaws were forced open. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

“Stop it now, Lela,” he said sharply. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Having him mock me was like pouring acid over the wounds. With a wrenching cry, I struggled, trying desperately to get out from under him. But he held both my wrists in one hand and grabbed a fistful of my hair, using it to hold me down. “Stop, Lela. Stop.”

“Fuck you,” I yelled, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. It couldn’t be over so soon. This couldn’t be how it happened. I felt so stupid. I couldn’t even protect myself, let alone anyone else. But I still wouldn’t give up. “You’re going to have to kill me, Juri. I won’t stop.”

He gently kissed my forehead. “You’ve got it all wrong, and I should have thought of this. Look at me.”

His weight on me lessened, just a bit, and my mind started to work, waiting for the exact moment to throw him off or knee him hard. To keep him from getting suspicious, I looked into his eyes like he’d asked.

“It’s me,” he said softly.

“You’ve fooled me with that line before. I’m not playing this game again.”

Fury flashed in his eyes. “You shouldn’t ever have had to play it.”

“Stop. No more pretending.”

He nodded. “No more pretending. Look at my neck, Lela. Really look.”

I did. At the smooth olive skin of his throat. He had none of the terrible scarring Malachi had been left with after his time in the Mazikin city. My gaze moved automatically to the scar where Juri had bitten Malachi’s neck.

It wasn’t there. “What the—”

Keeping my wrists imprisoned in his iron grip, he reached down with his other hand to untuck his shirt and pull it up. Terror streaked through me.

“Shhh. Lela, I’m just showing you. Look.”

I glanced down to see his abs, unscarred and perfect, not marred by the huge hollow spot where the Queen had rammed her claws into Malachi’s chest. But of course this body wouldn’t have any of that. It would only have the scars Malachi had brought with him to the land of the living. This was the body Malachi had been forced to leave behind when Juri possessed him. Slowly, he took one of my hands in his, still keeping the other secure. His eyes lingered on mine as he guided my palm to the place where four deep claw marks had scarred Malachi’s back.

They were gone, too. All that lay beneath my hand was warm skin.

“Say my name,” he said quietly.

“You’re not him,” I said in a choked whimper. “He’s gone. I don’t know what you’ve done, but you can’t fool me. He was nothing but scars after the Mazikin realm. He would have those—”

“All of them had disappeared by the time I reached the Countryside.” Cautiously, like he was trying not to spook me, he released my hand and left it on his back. I couldn’t have moved it even if I wanted to. I was paralyzed with shock.

“You
know
me. Say my name,” he said again, bowing his head so his nose grazed along my cheek, making me shiver. “Please, say my name. I fought my way out of heaven just so I could hear it again.”

“Malachi?” I said, my voice trembling.

His eyes shone with relief and love. “Yes.”

THIRTY

I
BLINKED UP AT
him, taking in every inch of his beautiful face. “What did you do?”

He looked a little sheepish. “The same thing I’ve done on two other occasions.”

“You stormed the Sanctum.” When he nodded, I said, “How is that even possible? You were in the Countryside!”

He let go of the arm he’d been holding above my head and propped himself on an elbow so he could look down at me. “When you were in the Countryside, how did you see the dark city?”

I thought back. “I saw Nadia’s face on my arm and started thinking about her, and it sort o
f . . .
appeared.” Other remembered conversations struck me. “And Jim was in the Countryside, too, and he saw the Blinding City. He said he’d been feeling restless and wanting more, and then it became visible to him. And Ana told me that the moment she understood that Takeshi wasn’t in the Countryside, the Wasteland appeared to her, and the Mazikin city is at the very edge of it, in the desert.”

Malachi nodded. “Then you know how it happened.”

I tentatively touched his face. “But didn’t you find your family?”

He closed his eyes. “I did.” He smiled. “It was good to see them. To know how happy they were. And they hadn’t forgotten me. My mother cried.”

“How could you leave all that?” I asked as his head dropped into the space between my shoulder and neck. I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers in his inky-black hair. “You’d wanted it for so long.”

“Because I wanted something else even more.” His breath was hot against my collarbone. “And when the Sanctum appeared in front of me, it was not a hard decision. Or, it was one I’d already made, at least. The Judge was rather exasperated when I showed up again.”

I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh. “You are too much,” I whispered, holding him tight. “I can’t believe you did this. Why would you let yourself get sentenced to be a Guard again? I mean—”

“I think we should clean up a bit before Diane comes home,” he said abruptly, raising his head. He stood up, leaving me flat on my back, still reeling. After a few seconds, I sat up to find him gathering pieces of the splintered coffee table. “I’ll take these to the garbage.”

He walked out to the front, and when he came back, I was running the vacuum, trying to get bits of shattered glass up from the carpet. We cleaned silently. It didn’t take long. When we were done, her living room looked a bit emptier and I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do. Malachi tied off a garbage bag and set it by the door, then came over to me. His cheek was red and puffy where I’d head-butted him, and his jeans had a bloody slash across the calf, but he wasn’t limping.

“You could get Raphael to heal that when you get back to the Guard house,” I said.

He shrugged and took one of my hands, then placed it on his chest. Just like Juri had done last night—and I stiffened. Malachi let go of me, frowning. “What did he do to you, Lela?” he asked, his voice quiet and deadly.

“The worst thing he could have done. He pretended to be you.”
Worse, I pretended, too.

He looked down at his hands. “And now you don’t want me to touch you.”

I shook my head. “
I . . .
I just feel lik
e . . .
” I didn’t know how to say it. I felt like I’d cheated on him somehow. It didn’t seem fair for him not to know. “I let him touch me,” I explained. “I knew it wasn’t real, but I let him put his hands on me.”

His eyes were so dark. Fathomless. I couldn’t read them as he said, “Why?”

“Because I missed you. And I was so tired. I just wanted a few minutes of comfort.” I swallowed back the memory of it, the defeat. “I wanted it so badly,” I said in a choked voice.

“Did it help?”

“No,” I said, grimacing. “It was confusing and awful.”

“And if I touch you now?” He was still, waiting for my answer.

“It might still be confusing.”

“I’m going to make it unconfusing, then.” Again, he reached for my hand, and I let him take it and lay it on his cheek. He turned his head and kissed my palm. “No matter what he did, or what he said, he could never pretend well enough.” He tipped my chin up. “Because he hasn’t felt himself grow stronger simply because you were touching him. He hasn’t healed your body with his hands on your skin. He will never understand the power of that. And that means he could never make you feel what I can.”

Then his lips were on mine, warm and delicious, as his fingertips trailed down my cheek to my throat. He traced them along my collarbone as he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into my mouth and making me moan at the taste of him. I coiled my arms around his neck, our connection stealing my breath, his hard body up against mine, his arm around my waist, crushing me to his chest. My hands skimmed over his shoulders, down his back, all the way to his waist. Everything was smooth, no bumpy scars beneath his shirt, and suddenly, I wanted to see what this kind of miracle looked like. I pushed up his shirt, and he pulled it over his head and let it fall to the floor.

My heart beat like a jackhammer as I touched the spot where the terrible scar had been, right in the center of his chest. Now it was perfect, muscles knitted together beneath skin that goose-bumped wherever I touched. He shivered, then laughed to himself. “I was surprised, too.”

“I love you, no matter what you look like.”

“I know.” He drew in a sharp breath when I stroked my fingers down the center of his stomach. “Lela—”

I didn’t know how to explain. Mostly because this was the biggest feeling I’d ever had. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him again, my fingers curling into the lean muscles of his back, trying to translate the powerful, shaky need twisting inside of me. After a few minutes, with that need drawing tighter with every second, Malachi groaned and lifted me off my feet. My legs wrapped around his waist. “Where?” he said against my mouth.

“My bed,” I mumbled.

He carried me down the hall and into my room, then sank with me onto my single bed, never lifting his mouth from mine. I couldn’t steady my breathing, couldn’t catch up with myself. I could feel the tension in his muscles, the firm lines of him, the urgency as his hand gripped my hip.

He’s here and he’s real.
I said it to myself over and over.
You have him now.
But how long would it last before we were separated again? My fingers clutched at his back, and I pulled my mouth from his to taste his skin, my teeth scraping against his neck and drawing a broken sigh from him. He’d settled himself next to me, not on top of me, so I turned to him, hooking my ankle over his calf. His hand was just beneath my ribs now, and I kept expecting it to venture up, to maybe try to pull my shirt off like I’d done to him, but it stayed where it was.

I wasn’t sure if I was glad or upset about that.

I nipped at the bony hollow at the base of his throat, and he curled his fingers around the back of my neck, holding me there. His pulse was beating furiously, steady and fierce. But when I drew my tongue down the center of his chest, he abruptly rolled onto his back—and nearly off the bed. I grabbed on to him and scooted back toward the wall so he could have room. “Sorry,” I said as he chuckled. “Did I do something wrong?”

His eyes were closed, and the smile on his face was so sweet that I couldn’t keep myself from kissing him. “No, nothing wrong,” he said breathlessly when I lifted my head. “But you can’t keep doing that.”

“Why?”

“Because, Lela, it’s a littl
e . . .
” He sighed. “I just want to go slow. I don’t want to relive what happened between us on the training mat that day. You were scared, and I didn’t even notice.”

“You did.”

He stroked the hair away from my face. “Not quickly enough.”

I looked down at my hand, my fingers splayed across his chest. “But you d
o . . .
you want this, right?” I certainly did. I just didn’t know how to get there. It was a little like looking at this beautiful oasis in the distance, but the desert around it was strewn with land mines, all these things that had happened to me, memories that ambushed me at the worst times.

Malachi captured my mouth with his, nibbling at my bottom lip before releasing it. “You know how much I want you,” he said, kissing my jaw, my neck.

I knew. Juri had made sure of that. He’d used it as a weapon against me. Malachi must have felt me tense. “Do I want to know what he said to you, when he was pretending to be me?”

I shook my head.

Malachi looked me over, his gaze walking itself up my legs, over my stomach and breasts, up to my eyes. “Did he tell you that I can’t get you out of my mind? Did he tell you that I imagine kissing and touching you when I really should be thinking about other things? Did he tell you that sometimes it scares me—how much I desire you, and how deep it goes?”

I had to work hard to hold his gaze as I nodded, waiting for his anger and frustration. These were all things I should have been hearing for the first time, but Juri had already beaten him to the punch. I would have been pissed if it were me, if a monster went to Malachi, wearing my skin, and told him all my secrets. But Malachi didn’t look upset.

“All of that is true,” he said. “I won’t lie.” He touched his forehead to mine. “But did he tell you how much I care about you?”

I blinked up at him. Malachi kissed the tip of my nose. “Did he tell you how absolutely precious you are to me?” When he saw my puzzled look, he smiled. “Did he say
any
of the things that mattered?”

“He only said you, u
m . . .
”

Malachi rolled his eyes. “I’m sure what he said was as crass as possible. You don’t have to repeat it. But maybe you’ll let me translate.” His hand skimmed over my stomach to my side. “What I want is everything. If you gave me your body but not the rest of you, it would be a fairly crushing disappointment. I don’t want to do anything unless all of you is there and wanting it, too.”

I touched his chest. “I don’t know how to do that. Things sneak up on me. I never know when a touch or some other sensation will trigger a memory.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I know,” he whispered. “Which is why I want to take things slow. So that when we finally are together, it will be because you’re ready, and I’m ready, and neither of us can wait another minute. I can wait for that. It’s worth waiting for.”

I gave a sniffly laugh as he pulled me into another kiss, our teeth clacking together before we sank into each other, arms wrapped tight, me halfway on top of him and not nearly close enough. It was everything I ever could have wanted—free of fear, free of expectation and worry, free of the past. It was just me and him, happy and whole and hopeful. Like we had in the Mazikin city, we guided each other’s hands to the places that felt best. But this time, it wasn’t about healing. It was about pleasure. We moved slowly, translating every breath, every tensing muscle, until Malachi had me wound so tight I thought I might catch fire.

After several ecstatic, frantic minutes, Malachi chuckled as I kissed his chest. His hands closed over my hips. “Forgive me for saying it, bu
t . . .
”

I nipped at his skin. “What?”

“I think we’re going to be very good at this.” The low timbre of his voice sent delicious shivers across my skin. And as he rolled to his side, his fingers hooking behind my knee and sliding my leg along his hip, as his mouth collided with mine and I welcomed it, I couldn’t have agreed more.

Of course, that was the moment the front door slammed and Diane yelled, “What the heck? Lela!”

I jumped off of Malachi, and he went crashing to the floor. He shot to his feet—just in time for Diane to come down the hall and see him standing there, awkwardly adjusting his pants. His shirt was dangling from her fist.

She arched an eyebrow as she glared at him. “Baby?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”

“You invited this boy here?”

“Er. Yes. Yes, I did.”

Malachi stepped forward to take his shirt from her, but she held it up and gave him a warning look that froze him where he stood. He cleared his throat. “Ms. Jeffries, I—”

“Mm-mm-mm,” she said, and his mouth snapped shut. “This is not how we do things in this house.”

“Well, technically,” I said, scooting off my bed and straightening my shirt, “you never said I couldn’t have a boy here.”

She fixed me with a stare. “How about I say it now?”

I held up my hands. “That’s okay. I’m sorry. We weren’t really doing much—”

She eyed the bite mark on Malachi’s shoulder and waved his shirt like a flag. “I found this in my living room. Any other clothing items lying around here?”

“I will be happy to put it on again,” Malachi offered, his cheeks flushed. “In fact, I’d be grateful if you woul
d . . .
”

She was fighting a smile as she tossed it at him, and in less than two seconds he was tugging it down over his front. Diane snorted. “I’m going to give you a few minutes to
compose
yourselves,” she said, “and then you can see Malachi to the door, baby.” She began to walk back down the hall. “After that, I want to know what happened to my coffee table!”

Malachi and I stared at each other for a moment, and then both of us started to giggle. I’d never heard that kind of sound come from him, and it made me laugh even harder. He covered his face with his hands and sank onto my bed, then seemed to decide it was inappropriate and jumped to his feet again.

“I should go,” he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “That could have been a lot worse, and I don’t want to push my luck.”

I walked into his arms and hugged him tight. “We have a new Guard house.”

“I know. It’s where I arrived. Henry seemed glad to see me.”

“I’ll bet he was. What did he tell you?”

Malachi looked down at me. “Only that it’s bad, and he’s been protecting Ian and Tegan. He said I needed to find you as soon as possible.”

“Juri has gotten to a bunch of our classmates, Malachi. He had a whole crowd on this property he’s taken over, and I couldn’t tell who was Mazikin and who was human.”