The Secret (32 page)

“No more,” Ava groaned.
 

“Finish it.”

She plunged the blade into the neck of the fourth Grigori and waited, her hand frozen as the gold dust began to rise around her.

Vasu was in front of her, crouching down with fire in his eyes.

“The other two fled.”

“Okay,” she sobbed.

“That was beautiful, Ava.”

Then Vasu leaned forward and gently kissed her on the lips.

The magic left in the space of a heartbeat, and Ava crawled to the bushes near an overgrown grave and threw up everything in her stomach. Vasu watched her with a curious expression.

“What do you feel? Guilt?”

“I don’t know what I feel. I want to go home.”

“Hmm.” He stretched out next to her on the gravel path, ignoring the grit that must have embedded in his palms. He didn’t move like Jaron did. This creature was at home in his body. “Where is home to you, I wonder? Not America.”

Malachi.

Malachi was home. Wherever he was. However angry he was with her or she with him, Malachi was home, and she needed him.

“Fine,” Vasu murmured. “I’ll take you to the scribe.”

A tug in her belly, and then they were in the entryway of Ava and Malachi’s apartment. She’d lost her coat. Her hair was tangled around her face, and she was covered in blood.

“Ava!” Malachi ran toward her, eyes on the angel who held her.

Vasu winked out of sight, and Ava collapsed.

“What happened?”

He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, but Ava put her hand on the doorjamb.

“Shower. I have to get it off.”

“Is this your blood?” His voice was panicked.

“Their blood. Their dust.”

She licked her lips and tried to spit out the grit that had collected there.

“Who was that?”

“Vasu. Jaron’s brother.”

“Did the Fallen do this to you?”

“Grigori,” she whispered as he opened the shower door and started stripping the bloody clothes off her. “They’re here.”

SHE curled into his chest, trying to crawl into as much of his heat as possible. Malachi had already called Damien and told him about the attack at the cemetery and Vasu’s appearance. Rhys was digging into anything he could find on the archangel from the Indian subcontinent who was supposed to be dead.

“He wasn’t dead,” she whispered into his chest. “He… helped me. It was like he was in my body.”

“
In
your body?”

“No, that’s not right. More like he was… behind me maybe. Pushing me. I felt him with me the whole time. I moved so fast, Malachi. I’ve never moved that fast on my own. And he whispered spells to me. Magic I’ve never heard before, but it worked. Using those spells was as easy as breathing.”

Malachi was silent for a minute, but his arms never left her. He’d wrapped himself around her and was holding her as if she might fall apart.

When Ava closed her eyes and remembered the blood spurting from the Grigori’s throat, she felt like she might.

“But this Vasu didn’t hurt you?”

“No, he helped. And the minute I thought about you, he brought me back here.”

“So he could have taken you from there at any time?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“If he wanted to help you, why didn’t he just take you away immediately? Bear in mind, I’ve never heard of a Fallen who can transport others, only themselves, so this might be unique to him. I don’t know his power.”

“I don’t think he wanted to take me away. I think he was curious.”

“Curious?”

“He made me promise to stay in Vienna, because he didn’t like the cold. I have a feeling whoever Vasu is, Jaron is still the one in charge.”

“He made you promise to stay in Vienna because he doesn’t like the cold?”

“Yep. Whatever Jaron’s plan is, this Vasu guy wants to get it over with.”

“This sounds like a very odd angel.”

She nodded. “He was the cat.”

Malachi pulled away. “What?”

“The black cat who wandered in here? That was him.”

Malachi cursed long and low.
 

“Hey, at least he got me to promise to stay in Vienna, right? You should be happy.”

He squeezed her more tightly. “I don’t care where we are. I only want you safe.”

Ava’s love for him was an ache in her heart. She kissed his chest, over his heart. Up his neck. Trailing her lips across his jaw.
 

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

“Ava—”

“Please. I need you.”

He met her mouth, his arms everything warm and real and safe. She was back at the cemetery, looking at the statue of the lovers, but it was Malachi who held her. Malachi who needed her. Malachi who was everything…

Everything
.

She pushed him to his back, and his fingers dug into the small of her back as she crawled over him. When she sat up, he followed her, rocking up to take her mouth as Ava straddled his lap. She could feel him, hard and real beneath her, not a lover made of stone, but a man burning for her.

“Malachi.”

“Want you,” he breathed out, burying his hands in the waves of her hair, still damp from the shower. Her skin felt clean, but she hadn’t felt whole again until he touched her. She dug her fingers into his shoulders as she felt the magic rise. Her mating marks began to glow in the dark room. His
talesm
shone with a silver light.

“
Reshon
,” she whispered. “My
reshon
.”

“Ava.”

She threw her head back and felt the magic take over. The song hung in her throat, ready to be released.

Malachi put both hands on her cheeks, turning her face to meet his kiss. He drew back with a groan, the dark fire burning in his eyes.

“I’m ready,” she whispered. “So ready. Please, let me sing to you. It’s time.”

Her mate wrapped his arms around her waist and nodded.

“Sing.”

Chapter Nineteen

VOLUND LIFTED HIS HEAD and raged against the heavens, shattering the frozen valley where he rested. A chasm split the earth, raining water, ice, and mud into the rift that formed beneath his feet.

“NO!”

The blood boundaries were falling. He could feel the power of his old rival’s blood twine within the blessings of the Forgiven.

Jaron was winning.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the black sun rise as light and dark magic melded together. And as the moon’s shadow covered the sun, the light from the stars hidden for a thousand years blinked to life.

“Do not fear the darkness.”

His scream reached the heavens.

MALACHI lay in thrall to his mate. Rising above him, Ava was a vision in the dim room. Her hair damp against her shoulders, her skin dewy from the warmth of the shower and their shared heat. He braced himself, not knowing what to expect. Though he knew some of the traditions—the songs and litanies she had learned—the mating ritual happened only once in a scribe’s lifetime. In this moment, he was as innocent as Ava.

He felt rather than heard when she started to sing.

“My beloved comes to me as the ground beneath my feet

Steadfast and faithful

The heavens direct our path…”

The words of the Old Language rose from her throat, her lips carefully forming the angelic tongue. Halting at first, then clearer as the magic took control of them both. Ancient instinct took over. He pushed the shirt she was wearing up and over her head, desperate to see his own vow written on her skin.

I am for Ava.

He released a breath when he saw it. Part of him was still transfixed every time it appeared over her heart. His finger traced the words he’d written. A memory locked in the black vault of his mind.

For her, my hand and voice.
 

For her, my body and mind.
 

Her strength in weakness.
 

Her sword in battle.
 

Her balm in pain.
 

I am hers.
 

Hers to cherish.
 

Hers to hold.
 

Hers to command.

The world around him ceased to exist. There was no city. No war. No angels or brothers or elders. Nothing could distract him from the purity of her voice. Her mating marks gleamed in the darkness as she continued to sing.

“My beloved holds me as the sky holds the moon

Vast and eternal

Our union is without end…”

Ava pushed his shirt up and over his head so they were both bare before the other. Her voice rose and fell as she sang the words legend said were given by the Forgiven to their children. The vows that bound them, not only in this life, but the next.

“My beloved warms me as the sun warms the earth

Sweet and rich

Our love mirrors the heavens…”

He felt the magic swell. The small electric lamp by the bedside flickered out and the only illumination was from the small window and the spells that lit their bodies. Tugged from his chest, the power spread over his skin, lighting his
talesm prim
, both old marks and new, before it traveled up and over, like a thread of quicksilver under his skin.

Malachi burned for her.

“My beloved is my own

First before others.

Before the bond of kin

Before mother or father

Brother or sister

Before the angelic host…”

He could feel her voice swell, reach a crescendo.

“This day I make my vow

I pledge my soul’s magic to my beloved

In time of joy

In time of grief

In darkness and light

In life and death

This day I promise…”

And Malachi waited to hear the words she would give him, the words he would carve into his own skin in the ritual room, marking his body and heart as hers for all time. The words he would wear for the world to see that his mate had claimed him as her own.

“I promise,” Ava whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck, “to love you and protect you in every way I can. I will not let fear rule me. I will trust you with my heart and my song.” He heard her choke back tears, and he pressed her cheek to his as she continued. “Because I called you in the darkest night of my soul. You heard me and you returned.” She brushed a kiss across his temple. “You are my home.”

She sat back and framed his face with her hands, looking into his eyes as she whispered, “
Da livkara bavatara ma
.”

This scribe belongs to me.

The force of the mating spell drew a groan from his throat as it hit him, powerful and sweet. Ava’s magic was blinding light edged in darkness. He closed his eyes as his back arched and the fire burned beneath his skin.

“Ava!”

“Stay still.” She braced her hands on his shoulders as he leaned back and let the power of it wash over him. “Don’t move. I can see them.”

“I can
feel
them.”

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.