Chapter 53 Malice
MALICE
For the most part, the Human is good at schooling her emotions.
But now, she is like an open book. Apprehension, worry, consideration, worry again, all flash across her features after Malice’s threat.
Humans, generally, are timid creatures. They keep to themselves, mostly for self-preservation.
Those who venture into the full-magic society usually find themselves as playthings under the thumbs of predator Shifters until their usefulness reaches its end.
Then, they usually find themselves dead.
It’s worse in the West, where the abundance of Humans results in less wariness and more carelessness.
When they first discovered the Fae Prince with this particular Human, Malice assumed the Prince was paying her a sum for her services. Looking at her now, he wonders if perhaps he was wrong.
She seems smart. Level-headed. A hard worker if she became a healer, even harder to work at a clinic inside of the City-State walls. It is odd that she of all Humans would be with a Fae. Everything points to her being more sensible than that.
After a few seconds, her soft features settle back into hard determination.
“Well? Is that all?” she snarks. Her attitude is laughable considering her size and strength, but Malice admires her for it all the same.
“Is he holding something over you?” Malice asks, maybe looking for a reason to continue hating the white-haired Fae who unfortunately is becoming more tolerable the longer they are in Zeneith.
“What?” Reyna has been surprised by many of the things Malice has said during this exchange, but by this she seems the most baffled.
“The Prince, is he holding something over you? To compel you to continue the affair?” Reyna first looks appalled, and then angry again. Always angry.
“How dare you!” she shrieks, nostrils flaring. “Who the hell are you to come in here and question my relationship?”
“That is not a ‘no’, Human,” Malice points out. What he wouldn’t give for a reason to convince Aerin to ice out her Paramyr.
Letting out a small shriek, Reyna chucks a jar of popsicles sticks across the room. The glass shatters on the wall behind him, the throw so far off Malice didn’t need to shift at all to avoid it.
“No, you bastard!” Reyna huffs, her heavy breathing making far too much noise. “I love him, simply and completely. That’s why I am with him.”
“You mean, that’s why you risk everything,” Malice corrects her. She glares at him once more. After a beat, Malice watches her shoulders drop from their place by her ears. She leans back against the countertop behind her, arms loosely folded.
“You’re not nearly as scary as you think you are,” the Human states matter-of-factly.
As Malice is about to rebut, the door crashes open. A Royal Guard sweeps inside, ice flowing from his hands until it’s wrapped around Malice: hands, ankles, wings, and mouth. Seconds later ice blocks the doorway once more, trapping the three of them inside.
The guard crosses the room. Paying his bound prisoner no mind, he takes off his dark blue helmet to reveal white-blonde hair.
Malice should have known. He easily melts the restraints, annoyed at the Fae as he listens to their exchange.
“Are you okay?” Khortland asks Reyna, her face gripped gently in his hands. Reyna shakes him off, pushing at his chest.
“I told you not to come here,” she whispers harshly. “It’s too risky.”
“I wasn’t seen, I promise,” he tells her, kissing her on the forehead before whirling around to Malice and blasting him with another wash of ice. “How dare you?!” he roars. For the first time since meeting the Prince, Malice thinks he could be a formidable opponent.
The ice burns against his skin but quickly melts when faced with Reikan’s heat.
“Careful, Prince, I don’t have the same amount of precision with my flames. Hit me again and my retaliation might do more damage than you think,” Malice growls in a low voice, his eyes flicking to the Human in the corner.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Khortland rages, his dark features darkening further.
“Simply relaying a message.” Malice shrugs.
“Aerin knows that Reyna is off limits,” he snarls. Icy air flowing from his fingertips, forming a fog around their feet. Reyna shivers.
“The Princess doesn’t answer to you,” Malice replies.
[We are bonded-mates with her. Not him.] Reikan’s voice is low, threatening.
Instead of doing something he’ll regret, Malice melts the ice in the doorway and walks through it, leaving the lovebirds to clean up the mess they made.
Back on the streets of Zeneith, Malice fishes out his cellphone to track Aerin. He finds the little dot that is her phone inside a shop across the City-State. Based on the “I’m bored” message he has from Emrys, Malice is confident the two are together.
Malice smiles at the message, reading it in the same monotonous yet curious tone Emrys always seems to use.
The Wolf is growing on him, certainly. He’s like a lost lamb, gangly in his form, uncertain in social situations, and yet surprising.
Like last night, the Wolf surprised him when he laid his own lips against Malice’s.
The kiss stays at the forefront of Malice’s mind as he walks through the winding streets.
He needs to tell Aerin. Perhaps the Wolf already has, but it’s another line crossed.
The Wellroot they smoked made them both hazy.
When the Wolf’s lips hesitantly fell against his, Malice felt the same thing he often feels when he looks at Emrys lately: a sense of warmth.
Not the same unabashed attraction he feels for Aerin, but a sense of tenderness, nonetheless.
He wonders what it means. How he went from a reclusive Dragon-Fae hiding in the mountains outside of Iron Spine to this—a bonded-mate to a Core with who knows how many bond-mates.
Reikan hums under his skin, his irritation at Khortland still fresh. Malice does his best to prevent the Dragon’s feelings from bleeding into his own.
Pulling out his phone again Malice knows he’s nearing the area Aerin’s phone pinged, but the blood-bond feels distant.
Anxiety flutters through him. Malice feels down the blood-bond to find Aerin’s emotions and mind blocked from him, but that’s normal.
She seems fine, physically and mentally, yet that thing in Malice won’t settle. Something’s off.
Malice easily spots Emrys in the crowd, at least a head taller than practically everyone else. He’s trailing behind a blonde Fae. A blonde Fae who wears Aerin’s curves, her hair, and her eyes, but who certainly is not Aerin.
Approaching quickly from the side, Malice slams the imposter into the bricks of the building behind them. Emrys’s initial growl is smothered when he sees Malice. The sound turns to a strangled yelping noise.
“What are you doing?!” Emrys demands.
The golden eyes of the creature pinned by their throat bulge with the force of his grip.
“Where is she?!” Malice roars.
Nails that look like Aerin’s claw at his forearm. But as if only confirming what he already knows, the creature is not able to escape his grip. Aerin easily could have. Malice pulls them back from the wall, only to slam them against it again, the bricks crumbling behind them.
In a flash, the features before him change. Blonde hair changes to black, gold eyes to yellow with narrow slits for pupils, tan skin turns pale with green scales.
“Let me go,” Quinn demands, her fangs bared at him in threat.
Malice lessens his forearm’s pressure on her throat but doesn’t release her.
“Where is Aerin?!” he demands again.
Quinn struggles against him, her toes barely on the ground now that she’s lost Aerin’s height. He presses down tighter once more.
Emrys is at his side, tucked under the wings that shield the scene from onlookers. Concern leaches from the Wolf into the space around them, so strong Malice could choke on it. He glances at Emrys, they share a look.
Where the hell is Aerin? And why the fuck has she given them the slip?