Chapter 23 Malice
MALICE
It’s been six days since Malice underwent the blood-bond and became Aerin Tolvare’s bonded-mate.
Aside from occasionally feeling something trickle through the bond that ties them, not much has changed.
Malice has avoided being alone with Aerin as much as possible since the shower incident.
He shadows her during the day, keeps his distance, and keeps her safe.
That is what he is meant to do. Nothing more.
It’s gotten easier since they both realized they can control how much flows between them down the bond.
Malice is certain they could go so far as to speak in each other’s heads and share their magic, but they haven’t tested it.
If anything, they are actively trying to minimize the blood-bond as much as possible. Pretending it isn’t there.
Despite everything that happened, blood-bonds, Dragons, and fights with her siblings, Aerin acts as if nothing occurred. By Sunday she’s back in the library working on her final paper. She turns it in to her professor on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday, she attends a pool party at a rooftop bar in the skimpiest bikini Malice has ever seen, even with the sheer dress she wears over it.
Malice swears his muscles were sore from the force it took to hold himself still as he watched her.
As she laughed with Vyx and Quinn, took shots with random Shifters, and flirted with that same Jaguar from the club.
The one Malice knows has slept with Aerin in the past.
The party was maddening, an exercise in his self-control. But he held his ground. He followed her home. All the way to her bedroom door. Just when he was about to crack, about to say something, anything, she shut the door in his face.
As Malice follows Aerin on her jog home from the gym, he wonders, not for the first time, what the fuck he’s doing. They can’t go on like this, planets orbiting one another. And in any case, he still has a lot of questions for her. Questions he needs answers to. Reassurances that need to be made.
Just as Malice starts a running list in his mind, Aerin veers off her usual course. Malice turns the corner to follow, only Aerin is nowhere to be seen. He scans the street again, but her neon sports bra and blonde hair have vanished. Even when he homes in on her scent, there’s nothing.
He thought they were done with this game, at least. Aerin hasn’t ditched him since they became bonded-mates.
Malice reaches the end of the block and spins around again, snarling curse words in his head. He reaches down the bond only to slam into a wall. He can feel her, just beyond it.
After a minute a melodic voice echoes back to him: Aerin.
[I’m safe. Go back to the apartment. I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes.]
Back at the apartment, the thirtieth minute is the longest minute of Malice’s life.
He sits on the edge of the couch, eyes trained on the door, fingers tapping on his knee.
Like all his protective instincts have turned up to eleven, he can’t stop thinking of a thousand ways in which she could be hurt.
Each more outlandish than the last. He keeps telling himself that if she got into trouble, he would know; the blood-bond would know.
Just as the thirty-first minute is about to strike, the door swings open and Aerin, still clad in her neon clothing, steps inside.
Malice is upon her in an instant, his loss of control bleeding all over them.
He places his hands on her shoulders as he evaluates her from head to toe.
Then he spins her and does it again. He’s met with only expanses of suntanned skin interrupted by tight clothing.
Her hair is in the same messy ponytail. Her skin smells like spiced tea, damp leaves, and salt from her dried sweat.
He spins her back to face him once more, his eyes pouring into hers, looking for any sign of harm.
Aerin only looks slightly amused, saying nothing.
“Are you okay?” Malice finally asks, breathless, his heart rate slowing for the first time in thirty minutes.
“I’m fine, just as I told you I’d be,” Aerin says softly. Malice catches the way her hand twitches towards him before it falls back to her side.
As if being snapped back into himself, Malice drops his hands from her skin and takes two large strides back, separating them. It’s then the anger comes.
“Don’t ever do that again, do you understand me?!”
Tucking a stray piece of hair behind her pointed ears, Aerin gives a ghost of a smile. “Sometimes, a girl needs to be alone.” She shrugs and strides away from him, down the hall.
She casts another glance over her shoulder and says, “We’re going outside the walls tonight. Be ready.”
Then, like it’s any other day, Aerin enters her room and shuts the door.
Malice pats down his body one last time, taking stock of the various knives he’s hidden on it.
He isn’t sure why they are leaving the safety of the walls, but this time he will be fully prepared.
A part of him is worried Aerin will ask to see Reikan again, to speak with him.
He pushes those worries away. If that’s what she wants, she won’t get it.
[If I want to speak to our bonded-mate, I will,] Reikan warns in his mind.
Malice slams a door between them aggressively, his only rebuttal to the Dragon’s threat.
No matter her reasons for going, Malice knows Aerin will be going. With or without him. Malice considers, as he prepares himself, those words she spoke to him the night of the ball. That perhaps her quip ‘ready for anything’ was less banter and more warning.
When Malice emerges from his room, Aerin is waiting for him.
“Ready?” she asks, slinging a backpack over her shoulder.
“Are you going to be disguising us?” Malice asks, opening the front door for her. They walk side by side to the elevator.
“Until we get outside the walls,” Aerin confirms.
“Don’t make me Ursine again,” Malice grumbles, stabbing the elevator button a bit harder than necessary.
“What would you prefer?” Aerin asks, giving him a smirk. The humor in her eyes tells him he isn’t going to like what she says next. “A Tiger, perhaps?”
Malice bristles at the memory of that Tiger touching her. He shoots her a glare. Aerin laughs as they step into the elevator. It is a beautiful laugh, all natural and breathy. Malice’s anger wanes.
“A Jaguar,” he decides, “You seem partial to those as of late.”
“I do enjoy a Big Cat,” Aerin says with a smile. Like a blanket the change wraps around him. He flexes his fingers, testing the claws. They push forward from his knuckles easily.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you those things are dangerous?
” Aerin’s voice is no longer her voice. She appears as a Rabbit Shifter, small and pale.
Malice is so taken aback by the abnormal meekness of her appearance that he misses the joke.
Aerin tries again, obvious in her attempts to keep up the tentative camaraderie.
“Predator and Prey.” Aerin bumps her shoulder into him.
Malice, in this Jaguar body, doesn’t hold back a smile.
“Look at that!” Aerin exclaims, a little excitable herself in the Rabbit form. “I just need to change you into a Cat to get an emotional response out of you.” She giggles before straightening and turning away, redness coloring her cheeks.
Malice crowds her, backing her into the elevator wall. He dwarfs her in this form. An urge to pick her up and toss her over his shoulder like a sandbag rises in him. He’d take her right back to his den so he can show her—
Gods, stupid Cat thoughts.
Aerin’s overlarge brown eyes become comically wide.
“What are you doing?” she all but squeaks. Her Rabbit body trembles, the response of prey cornered by a predator. Malice runs a claw down her cheek, and those big eyes flutter shut.
“It’s nice seeing you like this as well, trembling under my touch,” he whispers. He’s not filtering his thoughts well in this form.
“There are other ways you can get me trembling under your touch, Malice,” Aerin says, standing a bit straighter, meeting his eyes.
His claws flex as he drags them lightly down her neck, leaving trails of redness in his wake.
“Maybe…” Aerin gulps. Malice is rapt in how the marks bloom under his touch. “Maybe being a Cat and Rabbit wasn’t the best idea.”
Malice’s blood sings for her, like a siren call. More than anything he wants to crush his lips to hers. But somehow, his rational brain overrides the call of the Cat and the call of the blood-bond. He drops his hand and one second later takes a purposeful step back.
“The Cat and Rabbit are perfect,” Malice murmurs, taking her small hand in his and leading her out of the elevator. Aerin smiles shyly at him as they exit the apartment building.
They stay hand in hand as they weave through the city, taking a different path than before. Crossing through the wall is easy enough, though the wards pull on him, like moving through mud.
As soon as they are on the grass, Malice no longer feels the small Rabbit’s hand, but rather Aerin’s. Touching her true skin is too much. He drops it. Then he pretends he doesn’t see the way Aerin schools her features in response.
“This way,” Aerin says simply, taking off through the woods.
Malice becomes intensely aware of their surroundings, each sense on high alert.
Aerin seems to be single-mindedly heading to her destination, so Malice is vigilant enough for the both of them.
Last time they’d been lucky not to run into any Rogues, or worse, a Dark Creature.
He isn’t certain their luck will hold this time, and he’s determined to be prepared if that’s the case.
After two hours, they come upon a cave that opens to a small grove. Aerin walks into the mouth of the dark cave, dropping her backpack to the cold ground.
“We’ll stay the night here,” she declares, pulling dehydrated food out of her backpack. She tosses a package to Malice.
Malice held his tongue the entire day, knowing her aversion to answering his questions, but he can’t help speaking out now.
“What are we doing here, Aerin?”
“Meeting someone,” Aerin replies, settling onto the floor.
“There is no one for miles,” Malice tells her, looking at her skeptically. Aerin settles on the ground of the cave, leaning up against the grey stone.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be here,” she says confidently.
Malice takes a lap to evaluate the grove but finds nothing to indicate the presence of others. He comes back to the cave.
“You’re sure?”
Aerin looks up at him, her golden eyes gleaming, “Yes. They’ll be here.”