The urgency in his voice, the raw honesty of it, cooled her anger. “Malachi—”
“Why do you want to leave that? I need you, as you need me.” He drew her back down and placed a lingering kiss on her lips. “We can stay here. We can go another place. We can seek out the Irina who have hidden themselves and ask them to train you in magic. We can hide from the world if we must. I don’t know what we’ll do for money, but we’ll find—”
“I have plenty of money,” Ava said. “Money for a lifetime. I’m not worried about that.”
“Then why?” He kissed her again. “Why leave? I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re together.”
Her heart swelled, and she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Is this real?”
He smiled a glorious smile and kissed her again. “Of course it is. We can live forever. The two of us. Forever. Have a family. A life.”
“I love you.” Ava kissed him back, her heart pounding out of her chest with a mad hope. She believed him, and it scared her. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.”
He held her on the bed, rocking back and forth as Ava bit her lip and tentatively allowed the dreams he shared to take root in her heart. She could see it. For the first time in her life, she caught a glimpse of a life that didn’t end in loneliness and pain. She wanted to be cautious, but her reckless heart ran toward him.
“To be completely honest, however…” He glanced down. “Some might consider us… mated.”
Ava sat up. “That’s the Irin version of married, isn’t it?”
“It’s not exactly…” He was fiddling with the fingers on her right hand in what had become his own nervous gesture. “Yes.”
“I knew it!”
Ava and Rhys were looking through old record books, trying to identify the Grigori she and Malachi had seen in Kuşadası. Unlike police lineup books, which Ava had been acquainted with due to her kidnapping as a child, the Irin records were a mix of pictures and sketches. The profiles she paged through were only for the longest-lived and most dangerous soldiers, which meant it read more like an encyclopedia of evil than a suspect book.
Ulrich, son of Grimold. 1734. Took part in Rending near Stockholm.
Finn, son of Volund. 1856. Known kills in Barcelona, Madrid, and Rabat.
Michael, son of Svarog. 1699. Took part in attack of Prague prior to Rending.
Kemal, son of Jaron. 1955. Known kills, multiple victims in Istanbul, Athens, and throughout Romania.
Joseph, son of Volund. 1902. Known kills in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Brittany, Lyon, and Milan.
Some of the names had been crossed out, usually with a notation about who had killed them. There were also notes about how each Grigori fought or who their associates were. Certain names kept popping up over and over.
Volund.
Jaron.
Svarog.
Galal.
“Hey, Rhys?”
“Hmm?” He looked up from his computer.
“These names—the fathers of the Grigori listed—so are these…?”
“Fallen angels,” he said. “The real kind. Not offspring like us, and definitely not the nice fluffy variety you see on the television. The Fallen never left Earth, and they’re incredibly powerful. Incredibly cruel. We’ve killed a few over the years, but it’s very difficult. They can shapeshift and cloak their power, so more than one Irin scribe has lost his life thinking one of the Fallen is a harmless old woman or child in need of help. It’s more common they kill each other than we’re able to kill them.”
“How do you kill an angel?” she whispered to herself.
“There are only a few weapons that can do it. Most are in the possession of the Council in Vienna. They have an ancient armory they loan out to very specific people. One of their daggers showed up on a Grigori soldier last month, which has everyone scrambling. Damien was up in arms when he called Vienna, wanted to know how the bastard had obtained it.”
“Does anyone know?”
Rhys shrugged. “It’s possible an assassin they sent to kill one of the Fallen failed. Brage—that’s the one who had it—is one of Volund’s most trusted children. Volund controls most of Northern Europe and Russia. He might have given it to him, but if he did, he’d have a very specific purpose for it. It’s not something you’d give away lightly or carry every day.”
“Is it weird that one of Volund’s Grigori is here in Istanbul?”
“It could be, but then, it may be nothing. Most go back and forth despite some rivalry.”
“Huh.”
“Though… there’s a lot of strange happenings lately,” he muttered, still searching for something online. “Like your Dr. Sadik.”
Ava burned just thinking about him. Bastard. She’d trusted him, and now she had no idea who the doctor was, or even if he was a doctor at all. Rhys was still trying to track him down. They worked in silence for several more minutes, but Ava could feel Rhys’s eyes keep coming back to her.
“What?”
“I’m curious about something.” Rhys handed her a book written in what looked like Farsi just as Malachi entered the room. Ava tried to push down her own annoyance at seeing him.
“I can’t read this,” she protested, looking through the book. “I can speak a little Farsi, but—”
“Just look at the pictures,” Rhys said. “See if you recognize anyone.”
Malachi walked toward her, but she shot him a look. She was irritated about the whole “mated-not-married” thing, and she wasn’t going to try to make him feel better. He could have at least warned her. And the fact that everyone around her was so damn happy only irked her more. Would it have killed him to keep her informed?
“If you want to punish him, you’re doing a bang-up job,” Rhys said when Malachi crossed the room to speak to Maxim about something. The two conferred for a moment before heading toward the library door, leaving her and Rhys alone. Ava turned to him.
“I’ll get over it eventually, but right now I’m pissed.”
“He didn’t mean to anger you. I’m sure of it.”
“But he didn’t exactly keep me informed, did he? Did Malachi tell you we were mated?”
Rhys’s mouth did a little gasping-fish thing. “Not in those words… exactly.”
“Really? When?”
He muttered something that sounded like “Captain Donkey.”
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “Cappadocia.”
“Oh really?” She glared at the door. “We were there one night after we… you know.”
“I think the whole valley knew. Caves echo.” Rhys kept talking, even though her face reddened. “Honestly, love, the two of you had been dancing around each other for weeks. Stop being such a fussbudget.”
“A…a what?” She tried to hold in the laugh as Rhys blushed.
“Nothing.”
“Did you just call me a…a fussbudget?” The snicker turned into a laugh.
“I… well, you are. Being very fussy about all this. You’re—”
“Showing your age, old man.” Ava couldn’t stop laughing.
“And you’re being annoyed for the sake of being annoyed.” At least Rhys was laughing, too. His eyes were lighter than they had been since the disastrous night she’d kissed him. “So just stop.” The laughter left his voice and Ava wiped the tears from her eyes. “You two have what most of us have only dreamed of for over two hundred years. A mate. A partner. We can all see it, even when you’re annoyed and he’s exasperated.”
She sighed. “I do exasperate him.”
“And he loves it. He loves you. And you’re clearly besotted with him.” Rhys grabbed her hand and squeezed it for a second. “So stop trying to be sensible about it. Grab love when you can. It doesn’t come around for everyone.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll try…” He shook his head and turned back to the computer screen. “You know what? Keep fighting the inevitable. It makes for very entertaining—”
“Oh my God,” she breathed out, staring at the face on the page. The vivid green eyes were rendered in black and white, but the shape was exactly as she remembered. The sketch looked old, maybe from the turn of the century or earlier. It was hard to tell. After all, that particular style of glasses was classic. “It’s him.”