The Secret

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Pleasure and pain roiled in one intoxicating wave as the burning grew. He felt the knife dip into the fire and ink. The doors of memory slamming open in his mind.

  Through the searing pain, he felt her. Through the flood, she held him. Her magic lifted him, turning his mind in circles as the invisible knife carved the ancient runes. Over his shoulders and chest. Down his arm and across his back.

  “Touch me, Ava,” he groaned. “Please.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.”

  He needed her to anchor him, because the flood of magic began to take him under. He could feel his power rushing back. It was like waking up after a vivid dream. Days and weeks and years tumbled in his mind, like the strands of an intricate tapestry tangling, unraveling, then forming something new. But the pattern was familiar. These were his years. His moments. His words.

  They fell into his mind until their weight threatened madness.

  Then…

  One piece locked into place.

  I heard you!

  A hiss of steel and the bite against his skin.

  Another piece locked.

  “Do you have a name?”

  A name?

  “My name is Malachi.”

  Another and another and another.

  Colored threads twisting in a hedgerow. Pine needles on the forest floor. Salt and cedar and wind in the pines.

  In the crash of memory he became hers again.

  “You make the voices go away.”

  A kiss.

  One touch that had changed the world.

  “You’re not crazy, Ava. You’re a miracle.”

  A miracle.

  He didn’t know what was real except for her.

  She was real. The single voice in his mind.

  “Come back to me.”

  So he did.

  “MALACHI.”

  He heard her. Smelled the magic in the room like the lingering bite of ozone after a storm.

  “Malachi?”

  He blinked his eyes open and saw… everything.

  Ava’s hair hung around her face, a dark halo surrounding radiant gold eyes. Her mating marks still lit the room, and a sheen of silver reflected on her breasts. He looked down, then looked back at Ava. Her smile trembled on her lips.

  “They’re back.”

  He nodded. He could feel every inch, even the aching scars on his back where he knew his family marks had returned. But he couldn’t take his eyes from her face. She must have given him new eyes, because his mate’s skin was luminous.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Malachi paused. He knew that it must hurt. His brain registered the pain in his arms. But it was nothing to the pure jolt of power her mating song had given him.

  “Will you say something?”

  “No.”

  He sat up, wrapped his arms around her waist, and tackled her to the bed.

  Ava gasped as he covered her. His mouth fell on hers in a ravenous kiss. He felt her breasts crushed against his chest. His hands tangled in her hair. Heat and magic and hunger swirled together in a vicious cocktail of need.

  Malachi kissed her mouth, opening her lips with his tongue to taste her. Stroking along the lips that had worked such painful, beautiful magic. He bit her lower lip, sucked it into his mouth, and released it before he did the same to her upper.

  One of her hands clutched his hair, the other dug into his neck, pulling him closer as her legs wrapped around his waist.

  Jaw. Neck. Throat.

  He let his lips linger at the rapid pulse in her neck as she gasped for breath.

  Then his lips and tongue went lower, tasting the golden skin of her breasts, teasing frantic cries of pleasure from her. He bit the inner curve that tempted him, marking her with his teeth as he pressed up at the small of her back. He lifted her soft belly to his lips. He could feel his aching skin stretch and heal around the black ink that had reappeared, but the silver glow of the magic she’d given him was a pure current running through his body.

  He pressed forward, taking her mouth again.

  She was his. Every inch of her. Every breath. Every cry.

  “Malachi, I need you.”

  His to cherish. His to hold.

  He ran a hand down the curve of her waist to her hip, stroking back and squeezing the tight round muscle in the palm of his hand. He pressed up and in, holding her there as the scent of her arousal filled the room.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

  He released her mouth only long enough to tear away the loose pants she wore. Then he shoved down his own and he was over her, poised at her entrance.

  “Ava,” he commanded. “Look at me.”

  Gold eyes met grey.

  “You are mine.”

  “Yes.”

  Malachi drove into his mate with one thrust, sinking to the hilt and allowing his face to fall into her neck on a groan.

  He closed his eyes and saw it again, a gold sky streaked with light.

  Holy and wholly.

  Their union a perfect mirror of eternity as their magic met and twined together. Light and dark spun in an endless whorl.

  FAST. Then slow. Fast again.

  “You’re going to kill me,” she panted after the second time they’d come together, and Malachi showed no sign of slowing down.

  “Never.”

  Malachi teased her for hours, the potent cocktail of magic and endorphins forming a perfect storm of sexual energy. Ava was wrung out. Exhausted.

  But he could also feel her happiness.

  Her contentment was a balm over his soul. He could feel the magic she’d sacrificed to bond herself to him, but he refused to let fear spoil her gift.

  “I love your vow.” He stretched his arms over his head as she rode him.

  She bent down, ran her lips over the flat, sensitive nipple surrounded by spells. Let her lips trail over the skin where he’d put her words.

  “I will be proud to wear it,” he said.

  “I’m glad.”

  “I promise to always be a good home, Ava.”

  She paused and looked at him, her eyes stripped of every defense.

  Malachi whispered, “A safe home. Always.”

  “I know.”

  “No matter where we go,” he continued. “No matter what happens as the years pass, I promise.”

  He sat up, held her cheeks with both hands and watched her smile spread.

  “I love you.”

  “I came back to you,” he said. “I remember. It was a choice, and I chose you.”

  Ava’s jaw dropped when she realized what he was talking about. “Was it beautiful?”

  “Very.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t. I told you,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her trembling lip. “I’d abandon heaven if you weren’t there.”

  “How can I repay that?” she said. “There’s nothing—”

  “There is no debt. Love is not a debt. It’s a promise. And I promised you once that I’d be back. Don’t you remember?”

  “In the cistern,” she said. “Before—”

  “I promised.” He smiled when he pinched her chin. “You only had to call me, canım. You may not have noticed this, but sometimes your mate is forgetful.”

  She laughed and laughed, and that too was a balm on his soul. Because though Malachi had left her, he hadn’t known to miss her in heaven. Not until she called.

  Ava pressed a delicate kiss to his lips. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said against his mouth.

  “I don’t plan on leaving again.” He rolled so she was under him. “And now I have a powerful singer as my mate.”

  She arched her back and ran her hands over his shoulders, along his biceps, and over the spells on his forearms until she could wrap her fingers around his wrists. “And I have a magnificent scribe who has claimed me.”

  He flexed his hips against hers and hummed in satisfaction when she moaned.

 
; “You do.”

  “Make me yours again.”

  He leaned down, bracing an arm near her shoulder as he took her mouth.

  “Always.”

  Chapter Twenty

  SHE WATCHED HIM AS HE left for the Library. He’d woken before dawn to go and tattoo the mating vow on his chest. And though he would only be walking through the city center, he was strapping silver daggers to his body, taking every precaution before he left her.

  “You’re staring,” he whispered. “You should go back to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired. And you’re too beautiful not to stare at.”

  He smiled. It might have been just a little smug. But then, they’d both been voracious the night before. Ava guessed it was only the magic making her restless.

  “Damien will be here in a minute,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t feel weaker or anything like that.”

  He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “With Grigori in the city, I don’t want you going anywhere alone. Normally we would have performed our mating away from everything. Taken time apart to give our bond time to mature so we would both be at full strength. We probably should have done it at my grandparents’ house when we were there.”

  “We weren’t ready then.”

  “No.”

  She took a deep breath and traced the line of a tattoo that peeked over his collar. “Do you really remember everything?”

  “Yes. Including how stubborn you’ve always been. You pulled a gun on me once,” he said with a grin.

  “I thought you were a nefarious kidnapper. Bent on seducing me and stealing me away.”

  “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

  “Yes, let’s do that.”

  He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Until we can, I want you to be careful.”

  “The spells Vasu told me, they were pretty effective.”

  “Hmm.”

  She’d written down what they had sounded like to her, but he hadn’t recognized the words. She’s told him the instant effect—both the excruciating mental pain and the paralysis they’d caused—and he’d been impressed.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that the Fallen and Forgiven might have very different magic.”

  Ava frowned. “Isn’t it all basically the same thing?”

  Malachi shrugged. “Yes? I don’t really know, to be honest. The Old Language is the angelic tongue, but you have to remember we only have what our ancestors were taught. We’re talking about thousands of years of oral and written tradition following that. Irin magic has changed over time. I’m sure of it. It could be the spells Vasu taught you are words that have been forgotten. Or were never given to us at all.”

  “Well, I’m not forgetting them. If I can use those against Grigori—”

  “I still want you to be careful. The Grigori advantage has always been numbers. In Vienna, that threat is mitigated because of the larger Irin population. At the same time, it’s a city of bureaucrats and politicians, not active soldiers.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Thank you, canım. That puts my mind at ease. I’m going to the ritual room with Rhys, but we’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”

  She spread her hand over his heart. “So it’s going here, huh?”

  He nodded.

  “Do I need to write it down for you?”

  He shook his head. “I remember every word.”

  “Good.”

  Malachi stood and stretched his shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt, but I feel them. I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “You really remember everything?” She didn’t know why she was having a hard time believing it, but she was. “Really?”

  His smile turned wicked. “Yes. Even that thing you told me you like when—”

  A quiet knock came at the door.

  “Oh look.” She jumped up and threw on her robe. “Sounds like Damien. You better go.”

  His low chuckle followed her out the bedroom door.

  Yes, her mate was definitely back.

  Malachi waited at the door until he heard Damien’s quiet voice, then he cracked it open and greeted his brother with a solid embrace. Damien started in surprise until he pulled back and looked into his brother’s eyes.

  “You’re back?” he asked. Damien’s warm eyes turned to Ava. “He’s back. Sister?”

  Ava shrugged. “We completed our mating ritual. And when I gave him my magic, it just…”

  Damien clapped Malachi on the shoulder. “And your talesm?”

  “Complete.” He patted his left chest. “Except for one very important one here.”

  “This is a beautiful day,” Damien said. “I’ll call Sari after you’ve left. She’ll want to plan a mating feast for you.”

  Ava said, “That’s really not necessary. I mean—”

  “It is,” Damien said. “Part of rebuilding our people is recovering our traditions. Sari and I have already claimed you as a sister. Please let us, Ava.”

  Ava threw her arms around the big man. “Thank you.”

  Damien kissed the top of her head. “I hadn’t planned to let you go, you know. Just because he came back. You’re our family now.”

  “Give me my mate,” Malachi pulled her away from Damien. “A kiss before I go.”

  It was sweet, lingering, and long. Malachi paid no mind to his audience, even if that audience was his watcher and the man who’d claimed Ava as a younger sister.

  He only pulled away when Damien started laughing.

  “Go,” he said. “Put her brand on your chest before you see her again. I’ll keep her safe.”

  “Stay with Damien,” he said, his hand on her cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”

  She nodded and he slipped out the door.

  Then Ava took a deep breath and turned to Damien. “Coffee?”

  “Please. And you need to tell me about this angel you met. Malachi called, but I want to hear it from you.”

  “Fine.” She started the water. “But I want to know about this rumor I heard about the Templar Knights.”

  “Damn gossiping Irina,” he muttered.

  HE was silent for a long time after she described the fight she’d had with the four Grigori at the cemetery.

  “All the humans disappeared?”

  She nodded. “Jaron did the same thing once. He said something about them being in a dream.”

  “We know the Fallen can manipulate time and human perception. It must have something to do with that.”

  “Whatever his reasons, Vasu did protect me. I didn’t even know the Grigori had followed me, and I’m usually pretty good at spotting a tail after years of having bodyguards when I travel. I’d let down my guard.”

  Damien shrugged. “Or he led them to you to see what you’d do. We have no idea what his motives could be.”

  “He was… oddly honest. I think he’s an ally of Jaron’s. He could have hurt me anytime he wanted. I’d let him in the apartment when he was a cat.”

  “A cat? Malachi left that part out.”

  Ava explained as she downed another cup of coffee and devoured the breakfast pastry Damien had brought. If it weren’t for the typical voracious Irina metabolism, she’d blow up like a whale. The sweets in Vienna were out of this world.

  “I’ve never heard of one shifting to an animal before, but that could be something unique to this Vasu. Perhaps the same talent that allows him to transport you over distances.”

  “Aren’t angels basically the same?”

  “No.” Damien stood to get himself another coffee. “They were created to perform different duties, therefore they have different talents. That’s why a daughter of Leoc has visions, but a daughter of Ariel has an affinity for the elements, like Sari.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Can you move rocks and wood?”

  Ava grinned. “That was pretty cool at the Library, huh?”

  Damien’
s mouth lifted in the corner. “She was a vision. I was the envy of every scribe in that room.”

  “I love that you’re not intimidated by her power. By how outspoken she is.”

  “Why would I be? It only makes me stronger.” He sighed. “You lived in the human world for too long.”

  “I’m better now.”

  “I remember when I first met you.”

  “You were so suspicious.”

  “You were so jumpy.”

  They both smiled, and Ava was glad—as painful as Malachi’s loss had been—that she’d found Damien.

  She put a hand over his. “It’s good to have a brother.”

  THE mating feast at Damien and Sari’s house wasn’t quite the grand event that Ava had imagined. It was more like a really fun, really long dinner party with lots of speeches and blessings. Everyone stood up to say something really eloquent or really funny. All the scribes from the Istanbul house were there, along with Renata and Mala. Orsala, Sari, and Damien were the hosts. Sari and Damien’s brother-in-law had also been invited. Gabriel was the mate of Sari’s sister, who had died during the Rending. Ava could see the tension between him and Damien, but she didn’t ask questions.

  She was too happy.

  Malachi was at her side. The passionate, intense man who had slowly been returning to her was back completely. He joked with his brothers. Held her close to his side all night. Teased her shamelessly and was quick to open his shirt and show off the new mating mark to anyone who asked.

  He also watched every door and window like commandos might crash through at any time.

  “Relax,” she whispered to him when she’d gone to stand by the window and watch the moon. He’d drawn her away from the window without a word, distracting her with a kiss.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You. You’ve been like… poised for action all night.”

  He slid his hand down to cup her bottom. “Well, if you’d like to leave now—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said with a laugh as she wiggled away. “You and Max and Leo looked all over the city today. And I know you’ve got some of your buddies outside right now. We’re not going to be invaded by enemy forces.”

  His smile wavered. “We don’t know that.”