“So many dead.” She closed her eyes and whispered into his skin.
“I know.”
“Women like me. They hated them. They killed them. Because they were afraid.”
They were sitting in a quiet corner of the scribe house, in a room she hadn’t seen before. Low lights flickered from sconces on the wall, and the room was lined with comfortable chairs and sofas. There was another mural on the wall, but this one was a picture of the sky, vividly blue against the light stone walls. Malachi was holding her on his lap, stroking her hair as she burrowed her face into his neck.
“Was your mother killed, too?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Yes. And my father. He had remained behind at the retreat when the men in our village went to Hamburg to help the guardians. He was killed, too. Almost our entire village was wiped out. I was stationed in another city.”
She fell silent again, focusing on the quiet comfort of his skin against hers. How could a people survive such a loss?
“You lost your wives. Your mothers. Your children.”
“Most of us haven’t even seen an Irina since the Rending.” His voice held suppressed rage. “We are half a people.”
“That’s why you called me a miracle,” she said.
She felt his arms tighten. “Nothing about your family says you can be Irina, but you are. We lost so many, but… I am willing to hold out hope that somehow, if you exist, then others might, too. That our race will survive. We are dying, Ava. We may live forever, but we are dying from the inside. Once there were so many of us. Families. Generations. Now there are almost no children. The Irina who still live hide away, angry with the rest of us for leaving them vulnerable. Enraged at the loss of their sisters and children. And who can blame them?”
“And the Grigori know who I am.”
His arms squeezed a little tighter. “They will not get you. I will not allow it. None of us will.”
She pressed her face into the skin of his neck and breathed deeply, allowing herself the comfort. Allowing herself to dream for a moment that there could be a future for her that didn’t mean loneliness and isolation.
“Ava.” She heard the reservation in Malachi’s voice and felt him begin to draw away. She held his shoulders tightly.
“Just give me a few more minutes.”
His shoulders tensed, then relaxed, and she felt his arms go around her even more tightly, pressing her into his chest as he took a deep breath. His voice was only a soft murmur in her mind, and no other intruded. Malachi began stroking her hair again, tentatively brushing his fingers along her neck and behind her ear.
He finally said, “A few more minutes.”
And just like the moment in the hall, when grief and recognition slammed together, Ava knew. However it had happened, whatever strange twist of fate had caught her… these were her people.
And however he tried to deny it, Malachi was hers, too.
Chapter Eleven
It was getting harder and harder to avoid her. Malachi sat in the corner of the library, watching Rhys and Evren interview Ava about her family again. He’d trusted his brother to look after her, even if Rhys’s behavior had irked him, but Ava’s collapse in the hallway had been unnecessary. Rhys should have known. Irin scribes still struggled to talk about the massacre that had taken most of their families. How did he think Ava would react?
So Malachi was back to guarding her, this time from his own people. He didn’t know why he was so attuned to the woman, but perhaps days of reading her expressions had given him some insight the others didn’t have. She was handling her new reality well, but he knew she was still stressed at times. Like when they asked her about her family…
“Listen… Yes, I have a lot of cousins on my mom’s side.” Her voice was clipped, her hands clenched tight. “But no, as far as I know, none of them hear voices. My mom doesn’t hear voices. Her mom didn’t either. I don’t know why you don’t understand this. There is no history of mental illness—”
“Not mental illness,” he muttered from the chair at the far end of the table, glancing up at her. “Stop calling it that. You’re not mentally ill, Ava.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Angel blood. Irin blood. Call it what you will. I’m the only one, okay? Lots and lots of girls all over my mom’s side, and none of them hear voices. Or souls. Or whatever this is.”
The rest of the world might have disappeared. Malachi and Ava glared only at each other.
“Are you always this sarcastic?” he asked.
“Are you always this taciturn?”
He picked up a book again and pretended to read.
Ava said, “I’ll take that as a yes.” She turned back to Evren. “Okay, next question.”
Evren cleared his throat. “It seems improbable, but let’s explore all genetic possibilities and look at your father’s side.”
“Now that could be difficult.”
“Because?”
“I barely know my biological father.”
Her father was a famous musician, Jasper Reed. He and Lena Matheson had never married. It was a brief relationship that only lasted until Lena became pregnant. From Malachi’s research, he knew the father had stayed in the mother’s life in a peripheral way, remaining friendly, but not an active part of his child’s life. Malachi found little to admire about Reed, despite the human’s legendary musical talent.
Children were rare to the Irin. A mated couple would probably only ever have one, possibly two, children in hundreds of years. No one knew why. Perhaps it was simply a divine trade for the unnaturally long life their race had been granted. For that reason, children were unreasonably cherished. Malachi might even say pampered, except for the rigorous magical training that started when Irin children reached the age of thirteen.
The thought of fathering a child and abandoning her was unheard of.
Evren asked questions carefully, but Malachi could tell Ava was becoming more upset. She twisted her ring in a nervous gesture, and the air around her became charged. He had the almost unbearable impulse to shove Rhys from his seat next to her so he could take her hand, just to calm her down. He quashed it. Damien’s warning still rang in his ears. Ava wasn’t a normal Irina who had been nurtured by a loving family. She had been subjected to the battery of human emotions her whole life. In that situation, any Irin male would be able to offer her comfort. It didn’t mean she had a special bond with him, even if he felt drawn to her.
But…
Maybe it was more than just a normal attraction. She wouldn’t let Rhys approach her when she broke down in the hallway. She’d reached for him. Even with her eyes closed, she’d sensed him. Almost as a mate would.
Reshon. The word had become a persistent whisper in his mind.
There has been an overwhelming feeling of comfort as he held her. Malachi knew he was soothing her, but the act of giving comfort fed his soul, as well. Not to mention the intoxicating feel of her skin against his. Then the memories of their kiss on the island—
“Shut up!”
He blinked and looked to her. Ava was glaring at him, and Malachi frowned.
“I wasn’t saying anything!”
“Not out loud. But did you forget I can hear you? You. You’re here, and all the other voices fade, and I just hear you. And there’s this weird mix of pride and frustration and wanting—” Her voice caught. “And guilt and anger and I cannot take it anymore, Malachi. I can’t deal with all this and you, so please just go.”
If she had punched him in the gut, he couldn’t have been as shocked.
“Ava—”
“Go.” He could see a sheen in her eyes. “I can’t handle all your complicated shit and these questions, too. So I need you to leave.”
He saw Rhys begin to rise, but one look from Malachi had the other man sinking to his seat again.
He set down the book. “Fine.” He shoved back his chair and marched from the room, ignoring the voice inside that practically begged him to take her with him. He wouldn’t stay where he wasn’t wanted, even if everything in him said she was exactly where he belonged.