by Lan Chan
When Kai caught me, every muscle in his body was stretched taut. His heartbeat was rapid where my cheek rested over his chest.
Bone magic had the effect of dragging death to the surface. I was inadvertently making him relive the past that haunted him. I blinked and grabbed at every sliver of my magic that still clung to the air. Free of the memories that had plagued him for most of his early teens, Kai yanked me out of his arms. The world turned upside down.
“Hey!” He pressed me onto my stomach in the soft grass. My eyes flicked open to reveal a landscape on its side.
Kai shoved his knee into my lower back. He held my hands in place behind me. The pressure was only slight, but given out vast weight difference, I could barely move.
“Get off!”
He laid his palm over the nape of my neck and held my head down. I wanted to lash out. But if I did, I’d end up smashing my head against the grass. He knew I’d gladly trade hurting myself for a chance at getting back at him. That was why he was holding me still.
“You evoked shifter protection,” he said. His mouth was dangerously close to my ear. “Do you know what shifters do when they catch prey?”
I was going to rip his nuts off when I got free. He would regret ever coming near -
His teeth closed over the soft flesh just beneath my earlobe. The most sensitive part of my neck. He barely touched me, but it was more than enough. All thoughts of death and revenge receded as a lick of heat curled in my gut. It flared down my spine and made my hips lift involuntarily. His tongue traced over the spot where his teeth had been. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from crying out.
His lips curved into a smile against my ear. “I’ll let you up if you promise not to attack.”
“Go to hell!”
“I can do this all day.”
“You won’t get that long, you jackass!”
I was going to headbutt him for sure. It didn’t matter whether it was physically possible. I was going to make him pay for hurting me and then making me want him again. The circle began as a thread of blue at the tip of my feet. It gathered enough momentum to almost reach my hip before Kai flipped me over. He pulled me up and sat down heavily. The rage in me flared as he hugged me to his chest. I wasn’t sure if I was angrier that he was so presumptuous or that he did it using just his right arm. That arm then curled around my waist, while the other one grabbed my wrists and held them together.
“I hate you so much!” I spat at him.
His green eyes softened. “I know,” he said. “I can feel it. I’m sorry, Blue.”
“Let go of me.”
“I can’t.” He dropped his forehead onto mine. “I don’t want to.”
“You...” I screamed in frustration. He jerked backward when I tried to headbutt him for real.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” he said. He was trying not to laugh.
“So what?”
“So I’ve got the message. Loud and clear. You’re pissed. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”
“Just wait until I get –”
He kissed me. The stupid jackass was kissing me. Why couldn’t I pull away? His tongue brushed my lower lip. My mouth opened at the same time my eyelids fluttered closed. My whole body reacted by sinking into him. And then that cunning presence that ensured my survival on the streets threw an image of Chanelle at me. She was standing on the bridge, her hand clasping Kai’s mother’s necklace at her throat.
My fist connected with the side of his head. Pain flared all the way up my arm, but it was worth it to see the surprise in his eyes when I tore myself away.
I crouched down a few feet away from him. My breath was still coming short from the kiss. I swiped at my mouth. Despite everything, being this close to him still short-circuited my brain cells. I couldn’t let that keep happening.
“Blue,” he said, trying to reach out for me.
“If you touch me again, I’m not going to react well.”
Kai retracted his hand. A whisper of the bite he’d given me still heated up the side of my neck. “Will you at least hear me out?”
I tried to shake the dizziness. If I moved farther away, he would know exactly what I was doing. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He lifted himself up until he too was crouched on bent knees. Now he was looming over me. He didn’t seem to even notice he was doing it. I remembered the way he automatically reacted when he thought Astrid was going to hurt Chanelle. Bile rose in my throat. For goodness sake!
Kai ran his hand through his hair. “In the beginning it hadn’t been an issue,” he said.
“So when we first met, you still had every intention of going through with the bond?” I cleared my throat to keep my voice from faltering.
He looked into my eyes, his green ones cloudy to the point of almost blackness. “No. Nelle and I were over well before then.”
My jaw clamped at the sound of her nickname. “You have to understand why,” he said quickly. “We were still kids when she broke up with me.”
“Were you even together?” I didn’t want to hear any of this. But shoving my head in the sand probably wasn’t the most rational thing to do under the circumstances.
“No. But the blood vow...it made things...inevitable.”
I threw my arms up in the air. “Then why are we even having this conversation?”
I pushed up, ready to stomp out of there. Kai’s arm whipped out. He shackled my left wrist and dragged me to my knees in front of him.
“You have to understand what I was like back then,” he said. His tone and the way he looked at me were urgent. “All I cared about was getting stronger, being better so that I could seek revenge on the demons who killed my family. I wasn’t very...nice.”
I snorted. “Par for the course if you ask me.”
“You have no idea. The way I was when you met me, it was nothing compared to what I was like back then. Astrid and Max got the worst of it. Why they stayed is still beyond me.”
“Astrid says you stopped speaking to her.”
He nodded, this time looking at the ground. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear he was ashamed. “I couldn’t do it anymore. She and Max reminded me of everything I could lose. I was so angry and scared that something would happen to them and I’d be completely alone. I pushed her away, but it didn’t make me any better. The only time I wasn’t so angry was with Nelle. When the Council came at me with the blood vow, I didn’t even think about what it would mean to sign it. All I knew was that when I was with her, I didn’t feel like I was going insane with rage.”
I knew the feeling. If he kept talking, I might hulk out. “Gran tried to stop me. Max’s dad beat me almost into unconsciousness to try and talk some sense into me. It goes against everything the shifters stand for. To give up the chance of a proper mate for something as clinical as a contract. But I just couldn’t see anything beyond what had happened.”
He stared past my shoulder like he wasn’t seeing this current reality. “Six months after signing the contract, Cassie said something to me that changed everything. I was training her to fight. Forced her to, actually. She hated every minute of it, but she showed up every day. I found her crying right over there.” He pointed to the spot where my Arcana tree now grew.
“I asked her why she kept coming, and she told me that she would never see me otherwise. That I wouldn’t know she existed. Because pain was the only thing I recognised, and I didn’t feel it with Chanelle because I didn’t care about her at all.
“It seems everybody could see it but me. Chanelle broke it off not long after for those very reasons. Said that she wouldn’t stand to be treated so poorly. At the time I thought it was done with. I have no romantic feelings for her, and she made her feelings about me abundantly clear when she left.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. What could I possibly say? He wasn’t finished, though. “That period after first semester when you went to Zambia, I checked in with Nelle. Made sure she
would keep her word and disavow the pact. She told me she would.”
“And you believed her?”
“I had no reason not to.”
He couldn’t possibly be that naïve. My top lip curled. “Aside from the fact she’s a...” the sentence was out of my mouth before I could think. I reined it back in. He raised his brow knowing exactly how the thought of her made me feel. I refused to feel jealous of someone who only had a claim to him by rights of some contract. Sometimes refusing to do things worked. This time, it did not. Still, I made my face unclench. I had to get points for trying.
“Why has she decided to renege now?” I asked.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She thinks if I can commit to somebody else, then I’ll be able to be with her the way she wants.”
“Why her?” I could understand why the Council wouldn’t want me. Who knew what my blood would do to any child I ever had? But why her?
“When two Nephilim of different bloodlines have children, one of the lines is always more dominant. Chanelle’s bloodline is diluted, but she still retains a small percentage of Raphael’s gift. It’s not enough to make her viable on her own, though.”
“So if you bond with her...”
“There’s a high chance our children will carry on Raphael’s line.”
I smiled bitterly. “By that logic, her mother would make a better incubator.”
“It’s in her father’s line. He died in the same battle as mine.”
Of course he did. I swallowed past the thing that he left unsaid. That I was at least half Lucifer. The strength of my blood was unchallenged. So if we ever made that commitment, our children would bear the devil’s blood. Just perfect.
6
“Well,” I said, dusting my damp hands onto my jeans. “That basically settles it. Thanks for the explanation.”
His jaw clenched. “Can you just try and be a little less...prickly?”
“No.”
“Blue!”
“No! You dragged me into this emotional shitstorm and now you want me to play nice? I was completely blindsided.”
He wrapped his hand around my ankle and dragged me towards him. “Is this it then?”
I looked up at him. At those captivating green eyes that were suddenly as hard as emeralds. I needed to say yes. I could tell he was waiting for me to do it because he’d stopped blinking. I had to do it. But my throat refused to comply. The pulse pounding in my ears was so loud I swear there was an amplifier against my chest.
As I watched, the light in his eyes dimmed. His hold on my ankle slackened. Nanna’s practical voice filled my ears. He’s spent so much of his life fighting for others. Maybe it’s time someone fought for him. Ah hell.
“Your Council will never approve of me.”
He finally blinked. It was strange how one small movement could completely change the quality of someone’s expression.
“I don’t give a damn what they think.” His eyes locked with mine. “All I care about is what you want. Being with me isn’t going to be a picnic. There are rules I have to live by simply by virtue of being who I am.” He rubbed at the side of his neck. “I’m never going to be the kind of man who can give you a quiet life of safety and comfort. Sometimes, I need to be ruthless and you’re not going to like it but I need you to do it anyway. After I graduate, I could be gone for long stretches. It’ll put a lot of strain on any relationship I have.”
I could feel my hackles rising. “Is this the ‘I’m Malachi Pendragon and I am too important for your mere mortal mind to comprehend’ speech?”
“I’m not joking, Blue.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Assuming I even want to be with you,” I said, “what makes you think I’d be sitting at home moping? In case you hadn’t noticed, the seraphim bringing the war to your door is my arch-nemesis. A lot can happen in a few years. Who’s to say we don’t just kill each other by the time you graduate? And if by some miracle that doesn’t happen, don’t think I’ll be taking your surname eith – what? Why are you grinning? It’s not friggin funny!”
I had been Alessia Hastings all my life. What I’d learned from Hilary’s shade had taught me there was power in the Hastings line. Even if it wasn’t the kind of power that manifested in physical strength.
Kai’s smile broadened. “You’ve thought about what might happen if we get married?”
Heat crept up my neck. “No! It was hypothetical.”
“Uh huh.” Smug bastard!
I ripped out a chunk of grass. There was a screech behind me. Oops! I crossed my legs over the bald spot on the lawn. The purple nymph was not fooled. She might have laid into me under different consequences. Instead she dropped a piece of parchment between where Kai and I were grouped.
“Anything?” he asked. She landed beside it, giving the edge of the parchment a kick for good measure.
“What’s that?” I asked. Though I had a sneaking suspicion I already knew.
“A copy of the blood contract,” he told me absently. “There has to be something!” The last part he directed at the nymph. According to my Demonology 101 class, the lesser Fae, including nymphs, faeries, and sprites, were the best in the business when it came to contracts. Of all the supernaturals, they took the greatest delight in binding unsuspecting victims to contracts for their own gains. As yours truly had proven time and again.
Purple nymph opened her mouth and let out a series of shrieks that sent a shiver running through my molars. Like when someone ran their nails down a chalkboard. I wasn’t going to be able to understand like this.
Dropping into the Ley line dimension took less than a second. Shock had me almost ejecting myself. Every other time I’d done this, I hadn’t been able to see my own spark unless I specifically turned my gaze inward. This time, there was an edge of midnight blue around me.
“Blue?” I heard Kai say. I glanced up to see his aura blanketed in his usual green interspersed with tendrils of my hedge magic. The purple nymph was her usual radiant lavender. All around me, everything glowed in stunningly bright shades. At least everything outside of an arm span from me. As the colours came closer, they began to fade a little. It was as though I was stealing some of their life force. I let out a shaky breath and opened my eyes.
“I’m fine,” I said. I sat on my hands for good measure. “Keep going.”
Now that I’d slowed the input, I could understand the purple nymph. “The contract is simple enough for it to be completely binding,” she said. Her delicate features screwed up. I knew how much they hated being robbed of their prize.
“Then we’ll have to challenge the validity of the vow,” Kai suggested.
She shook her head. “It exists. Therefore it is valid. You said yes.” She tapped at his blood-red fingerprint at the bottom of the parchment. “They didn’t coerce you.”
Kai grabbed a chunk of grass in frustration.
“Surely they have to have a get-out-of-jail clause,” I said. “What happens if they change their mind about who they choose to be their candidate? That part doesn’t seem to be binding?”
She looked at me sideways then. Her violet eyes narrowed. I wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “There is one way whoever Malachi chooses would prove their claim to the bond,” she said. I bit the inside of my cheek while I waited. “You can produce an heir with Raphael’s healing ability.”
I coughed so hard I thought my chest was going to explode. “Pardon?”
She imitated rocking a baby in her arms.
“No bloody way!”
I looked up at Kai and made my voice even. “There is no way I’m going to get pregnant and have a baby at this age.”
He exhaled heavily. “Of course not. I’m not asking you to.”
“Why not?” Purple nymph said. I couldn’t even go into all the practical reasons why not. All I could do was sputter.
“Because I don’t want to is why not!”
My pulse was pounding again. The purple nymph gave me a disturbing
smile. “We can always kill her.”
“No,” Kai and I said at the same time.
Kai snatched the parchment back and rolled in into a scroll. He produced a red ribbon and tied it neatly around the paper. It looked exactly like the one Chanelle showed me on the bridge. I huffed.
The nymphs were doing a strange communal dance over our heads. “No!” Kai roared at them. They scattered in a frenzy of giggling. For someone who was against killing Chanelle, his expression was murderous.
“What now?” I asked. He sat there for a minute, his whole body tense. I knew for a fact he would spring into action if something threatened us, but the look in his eyes said his thoughts were a million miles away. With the Ley filter still in place, I noticed for the first time that his heartbeat was erratic. It sounded just like it would if he were in battle. In a way he was, only this time it was with an enemy he couldn’t hurt. He seemed caught up in the same fight with himself.
“What exactly does the vow specify if you refuse to bond with Chan – her?” I asked.
It seemed like he would ignore me. Then he turned his head and looked me right in the eye. The lines of his jaw were hard. “I’ll be compelled to bond with Chanelle against my will.”
I bit my bottom lip. “What if we’re still together?”
His silence said it all. Whether he was with me or somebody else he actually had feelings for, because of the vow, he would betray us for the sake of continuing Raphael’s bloodline.
My hands were shaking when I lowered my head to peer at them. Mostly because I could no longer stand the pained look on his face. I knew myself too well to pretend it wouldn’t break me if he was with someone else. Against his will or not. Maybe I really should have been born a shifter. Maybe I was just possessive by nature. I’d seen too much of the pain that kind of betrayal created. What kind of sick people cornered a child and forced them into something like that?
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“Blue.” He reached out for my hand. I shook my head even though I didn’t fight him when he wrapped his arms around me. My limbs suddenly felt heavy. I sat there like a stone.
