Authors: Apryl Baker
I look up and see Eli stalking towards us, the expression on his face murderous.
My eyes widen. This can’t at all be good.
Jake’s eyes swing back and forth from me to Eli. He stands up
, and even though he’s a football player, he has nothing on Eli Malone.
Shirtless, Eli has my mouth hanging open.
Tattoos cover his shoulders and travel down both biceps. They aren’t tribal art, probably runes or sigils of some kind. They make him look even more dangerous. Why have I never noticed the boy is ripped? My mouth goes a little dry as my eyes drink him in. Standing in front of me is not an eighteen year old boy, but a full-fledged Knight, a Hunter bent on epic destruction. This man can do some serious damage to anyone standing in his way. Jake won’t stand a chance against him.
It takes me a minute to stop gawking like some awestruck Barbie and scramble to my feet. Jake may be an arse, but I don’t want Eli to beat the snot out of him for no reason. “Where’s Caleb?” I ask.
“He and Ava are looking for Dan. They said you’d be with
him
,” Eli rumbles, blazing eyes on Jake.
“How’d you find me?” I ask.
“Hilda, like I said before, I
always
know where you are,” he tells me, his eyes boring into mine.
“Matts?” Jake asks, curious. “Who is this?”
“Matts?” he snarls. “She is
not a doormat
! Her name is Mattie.”
“He’s nobody,” I tell Jake, ignoring Eli’s glower.
Jake nods. “So, you two aren’t together, right?”
“No…” I start to say.
“YES.” The frost in Eli’s eyes dares me to deny it. “Who the hell are
you
?”
“Eli, this is my ex-boyfriend, Jake. Jake
, meet the arse, Eli Malone.”
“You still can’t say ass
, can you?” Jake chuckles. “I always loved that about you.”
“Get lost,” Eli growls. The look he gives Jake has the boy taking several steps backward.
“You have no right…” I begin, but Eli puts a finger to my lips.
“Not a word, Hilda,” he hisses. “You and I need to get a few things straight.”
“Matts, you okay?” Jake asks, very, very nervous. I almost smile at him. That’s Jake. He’s an idiot, but a decent idiot. Eli certainly terrifies him, but he’s willing to risk bodily harm
trying
to look out for me.
“Call her that one more time and I swear to God, you won’t be able to speak for all the wire holding your jaw together,” Eli says softly, eyes steady on me. It’s not until this moment I realize just how pissed off Eli is. I think it’s a mixture of my running and then him finding me getting all cozy with my
ex. Not that I
was
, but from a distance it might have looked like that.
“I’m fine, Jake,” I tell him. “Eli may act like a Neanderthal, but he won’t hurt me.”
“If I were you, Jake, I’d back away slowly,” Dan says from behind me.
Jake glances over my shoulder, but he doesn’t look convinced. “Dan, this guy…”
“Won’t hurt her,” Dan interrupts. “Trust me, that’s the
last
thing my little brother will do. He knows I’ll beat the snot out of him if he does.”
“Your brother?” Jake gapes at us all.
“Long story,” I say, feeling much braver with Dan at my back.
Jake nods, still confused. “Can I call you sometime?”
Eli lunges but Dan catches him—barely. Jake’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Uh, Jake, I think you’d better go back to your friends.” It’s my turn to sound nervous. I hear Dan chuckle
, which only serves to stroke my own anger. I glare at him and he only grins. Dan is enjoying this way too much.
“Sure, sure
.” Jake nods. “Call me, Matts!”
Eli growls. It’s low and rumbling and it’s all Dan can do to hold him. I stare after Jake. The boy really has a death wish.
As soon as Jake is safely back with his friends, Dan lets Eli go.
Caleb jogs over. “What’s going on?” he demands.
“Later,” Eli barks, and before I realize what he’s up to, I’m lifted and thrown over his shoulder. “Hilda and I have some things to work out.”
“Put me DOWN!” I screech. People are laughing and my face burns in embarrassment. I pinch any reachable skin to get his attention. He only grunts
and tightens his hold around my legs so I can’t kick him. I revel in the heat seeping into me for all of two seconds before I try again. “I mean it, Elijah Malone, put me down NOW!”
“Pipe down, Hilda,” he says with a laugh, but doesn’t break stride. “I’ll put you down when I’m good and ready.”
He moves toward the trees, his long strides eating up the distance. I grab his waist to keep from face-slamming his backside. I have no desire for a broken nose. I’m not sure how long it takes us to reach wherever it is he decides is a safe enough distance from everyone before he stops.
I’m sliding down his body and then pressed into a tree. This is exactly the position Addison was in when she died, I realize. Before I can struggle, Eli leans his forehead against mine. All I see are furious aqua eyes staring into mine. Behind the fury, though, is pain. Before I can say anything, his lips crush mine. Fire burns through me and I groan; my hands slip up to wrap around his neck,
my fingers burrow into his hair. Dear God, but the boy can kiss.
He pulls his lips away and buries his face in the crook of my neck. I can hear his labored breathing, but then mine matches it. We stand there like that for a long time before he finally seems to get the
strength to move. He simply sits down and pulls me along with him. I’m sitting with my back against the tree and he moves so that his legs are on either side of mine. Then he glares.
My temper flares right back up at the look. He has no right getting pissed.
He’s
not the one who just got carted off like he was a sack of potatoes!
“Not a word, Hilda,” he says again, in a controlled rumble. “You’re going to sit there and listen. Do you understand?”
“I don’t have to…”
He pushes forward, making me pull my knees up to my chest. He braces his hands on either side of me. His face is inches from mine in this position and I can’t move. I’m caged in by one very angry boy. I swallow. “Do. You. Understand?” he hisses.
I nod. He’s beyond pissed at me.
“Good. We
are
together, Hilda, you got it?”
“We never...you never…” I stutter.
“I’m saying it now,” he tells me, his eyes intense. “You’re mine, Hilda. No one else’s. Understand?”
All I can do is stare, frozen.
“I know your first instinct is to run,” he continues softly. “I get that, but Hilda, if you run from me, I will
always
find you. You can’t hide from me.”
“Eli,” I gasp. “You do know how stalkerish that sounded, right?”
He only stares, his eyes fierce. “I
will
find you when you run from me.”
“You said that before,” I say, looking down. “What did you mean by it? Is it something to do with the…the thing?”
He sighs. “You can’t even say it, can you?”
I fidget. Just the idea of being linked to Eli in a way that binds me even tighter to him terrifies me. “Will you explain it to me?”
“Not until you tell me you understand the simple fact you’re mine, that you belong to me.”
I frown. “Eli, I can’t tell you anything until I feel like you’re not hiding things from me.”
“I knew you’d run and I was right. You heard Caleb and me talking and you ran faster than Ava does when she hears the words Vera Wang and clearance sale.”
“Vera who?”
He gives me an incredulous look. “You don’t know who Vera Wang is?”
“Do I look like I know who that is?” I ask. “I shop at Walmart, Eli.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “How do you feel about shopping in general?”
“Detest it, why?”
“Thank God.” He grins. “I dreaded more mall days spent dying of boredom while you shopped for clothes and other junk.”
“Don’t avoid the question.” I lean back against the tree. “All this
dominant male crap only makes me want to run faster. If you don’t explain soon, I will get up and I
will
leave.”
He presses closer and my stomach does a funny flip. That old familiar nauseous feeling returns. I want him to kiss me again. He sees the way my eyes
flirt with his lips and it only makes him smirk. It makes me want to hit him.
“I
am
a dominant male and you’re going to have to get used to it, Mattie Hathaway, because you do belong to me even if you refuse to admit it.”
“Too bad for you there’s not a submissive bone in my body,” I snark.
“That’s why I like you so much, Hilda.” He grins. “You aren’t afraid to stand up to me.”
“I’m still waiting on the explanation,” I remind him. Too much more of this and we’ll end up kissing instead of talking. And we need to talk.
“
I’m
still waiting on you to admit you’re mine.”
“Then we’ll be here all day.
I’m
not budging.”
His nostrils flare with impatience. I know my admitting this to him is important. I can see it in his eyes, but I refuse to budge. If he wants me to go against every ingrained instinct I have, he has to give me a reason to trust him. I can’t trust someone who keeps secrets from me. No matter how much I might want to.
“Swear to me you aren’t going to make me chase you across five states.”
“It can’t be that bad…”
“You’re a runner, Mattie. Swear it.”
It’s that bad? “Really, Eli
—”
“Dan’ll be pissed if he has to issue an all-points bulletin for you,” Eli interrupts me.
“Come on…”
“Promise, Mattie.”
“
Fine
, I promise.”
“Are you cold?” he asks suddenly. “You’re shivering.” Then he hauls me into his lap, and
presses my face against his skin. Oh. My. God. Does he smell good! It’s so earthy, but soooo Eli. I could breathe him in all day. “Better?” he whispers against my ear, his breath tickling the sensitive skin. I shudder again, but this time with pleasure, not from cold.
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice breathy. And I am. I can already feel the warmth invading my body, chasing away the mind-numbing cold. “Now talk.”
He shifts so his back is against the tree before settling me. I wrap my arms around him and snuggle, content for a minute to just relax in his arms, safe and warm.
“You heard some of it earlier,” he begins. “It’s not a bad thing, not really. Mom is excited about it. There hasn’t been anything like this in our family for a very long time. Did Doc explain to you about our family? Where we came from?”
I nod. His family were descendants of the Knights Templar, blessed by the Angels to see evil so they could, in turn, destroy it. The church had created the Knights and then tried to destroy them when the order gained more power than the church itself.
You already know how I felt about all that, too,” he continues. “I didn’t believe any of it. I’ve never even seen anything that looks like an Angel.”
“But you do now?” I ask. Eli had been a devout non-believer. He thought maybe their genes had mutated, an explanation based in science. He believed only in what he could see and touch—very much like Dan in that respect. They both need proof before they can believe in something.
“I know you’ve always believed in God and everything that goes with it, Mattie, but it’s just taking me a little longer to wrap my head around all this. How could I explain something
to you that was so hard for me to admit was true?”
I want to soothe him, but I don’t want to distract him
, either. I won’t be any closer to the answers I need.
“Mom’s not a Hunter, but she’s taken it upon herself to chronicle our past, to make sure who we were and who we are
isn’t forgotten by future generations. She was the one who figured it out.
Our
lore is steeped in yours.”
“Mine?”
“Reapers have been a part of our history for as long as there have been Knights or Hunters, as we call ourselves. I think we should go with Knights. Sounds way cooler.”
“Wait…your books talk about Reapers?” My mind starts to twist around that simple fact. This might be the way for me to figure everything out without having to trust my father.
“Yeah, it’s another reason Mom wants you to visit, just because you need to learn more about your heritage. She might be able to help you.”