Chapter 14 #2
“Eden,” I call out as I stride down the hallway. “Not to undermine the sterling reputation I’m building as a nuisance, but I require—”
I find her in her bedroom, standing there with her back to me, shoulders hunched, breath shuddering out of her in uneven pulls.
“What’s happened this time?” I groan. “Did you harm yourself again? You really need to—”
She turns, and the words die on my tongue.
Her hair’s still damp from her shower, face greyed out, jaw clenched so hard the muscle’s quivering.
My eyes flick down her body, right to where her hand is splayed against her side, and I’m across the room in half-a-heartbeat, my hand closing around her wrist.
“Don’t,” she gasps. “It burns—”
I ignore her plea, prying her fingers back despite the way she flinches. My gaze falters for a split second. There’s a large, silvered-pink scar cutting right across her stomach, from hip-bone to navel, then up further, disappearing beneath her breasts.
But next to that… etched into her skin in the exact same place as mine—nestled along the lower curve of her ribs, just beneath the last bone, elegant and cruel in its symmetry—is a sigil.
My sigil.
Shit. The. Fucking. Bed.
My thumb drags slowly over the pulsing lines carved into her soft flesh, and a genuine roll of nausea curls low in my gut.
Her eyes dart to mine, then down to the matching sigil glowing on my own silver skin.
She looks like she might cry, or hit me—or do both in quick succession, just to cover her bases.
“I heard a voice,” she whispers. “In the bathroom. And then... then this happened. It felt like someone pressed a branding iron into my side.”
“That was my boss,” I say with a shrug.
“Your boss?” she chokes out, her eyes widening. “The... the Devil? The Devil did this?”
“Close.” I let out a dry, forced chuckle, my fingers raking gently over the angry red burn on her side. “Veraxia. She’s my boss. A bureaucratic little bitch if ever there was one. Think of her as the ultimate manager with a flair for the dramatic.”
“Why’s she put this on me?” she asks, panic bleeding into each syllable.
“She didn’t. Not intentionally. Hell has just… pinned my coordinates.” I lie. “But because of the proximity, and that messy coating from the Veil, it’s caught on to you too. Think of it as a shadow—a sympathetic resonance. It’s just an echo of paperwork on your skin, Eden. Nothing more.”
“Coordinates?” she says on a breath, her knees buckling as if her bones have turned to lead. I catch her before she hits the carpet, my hands locking around her waist to anchor her. “You mean they’re tracking you? Like GPS? Like... like they know you’re in my apartment?”
She grips my forearms tightly. “Malachi, if they have your coordinates, they have mine. They know where I live. They know where I sleep. Does that mean she—the Veraxia woman—is coming here? Is Hell coming? Is Hell going to come for me by association?”
Idiot. What a fuck-ass excuse. Now she’s equating it to a homing beacon.
“Shhh,” I murmur, tightening my grip on her, feeling the fragile structure of her bones through the soft curves. A wave of her panic flows into me, but for once, it doesn’t make my eyes roll back. It tastes like responsibility. And I fucking hate it.
“No one said anything about anyone coming for anyone. I wouldn’t worry about it,” I say, injecting a cavalier arrogance into my voice as I ease her back onto her feet.
“It’s just bureaucracy, baby girl. You aren’t even a footnote to them.
You’re a smudge on a margin they haven’t even turned to yet. ”
Her gaze doesn’t waver despite her state. “And if you’re wrong?
“I’m not.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because it’s my home,” I say simply. “I know how those fossils work. Veraxia’s likely already had to take a sedative just to calm down from the stress of even issuing this. Why would she come and get me? It’s far too much effort for her.”
I reach out, pulling her lip from the desperate grip of her teeth until the skin’s free and gleaming.
She flinches, swatting my hand away as if my touch burned worse than the sigil.
“Your little cleansing kit will arrive in a matter of days,” I say, reclaiming the room’s energy by flicking the tip of her nose softly.
“And then you can... wash the coating away. That little mark will vanish along with it. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in no time. Nothing to worry about.”
“But you said it wouldn’t work,” she whispers, her eyes still clouded with panic.
“And you said it would,” I counter, finally stepping back and letting the cold air rush into the space between us.
“Now, can you please find me something to wear? Unless, of course, you’d prefer the alternative,” I drawl, hooking a thumb into the knot of my towel and letting it loosen just enough to be a genuine threat to her sweet, mortal sanity.
“I’ll bare-ass it around your apartment.
I have a lovely set of cheeks, Eden, and they do look better when wet, if I do say so myself. ”
“No,” she stammers, her face finally regaining a flush of color. “No. I’ll... I’ll find you something.”
“Good mortal,” I murmur. “You do that. And then go find something to ice that sigil with. It’ll ease the burn.”
I retreat to the doorframe, leaning against the wood with a casualness I don’t entirely feel as she moves toward her dresser, yanking open a drawer with trembling fingers.
I ignore the phantom itch in my palms to reach back for her, to pull her against my chest until the shivering stops and look away, focusing instead on the way the morning light catches the dust motes dancing in the air of her cramped bedroom.
Fuck the sigil. Fuck the Ninth. Fuck Veraxia and her empty threats.
Right now, I have bigger fish to fry.