Chapter 22 Eden
Eden
“Excuse me,” I mutter as I wait for the water to come to a boil. “I need the milk.”
Malachi lets out a long, theatrical sigh from where he’s leaning against the fridge door, arms folded tight across his chest, staring at the wall with a look of profound, aggressive boredom.
“No,” he says flatly.
“Malachi, I’m serious. I’m tired, I have a headache, and I need tea. Move.”
He continues to stare at a spot on the wall behind me as if he’s trying to set the drywall on fire with his mind.
I plant my hands on my hips. “You're being a child.”
He tilts his head just a fraction, those round, deceptive pupils catching the morning light. “I am being a demon, Eden. I am an entity of the abyss. We are not known for our flexibility.”
Realizing he isn't going to play nice, I step into his space and hip-bump him—hard—and the contact sends an unwanted spark through my flesh that makes me want to scream.
My stolen fluffy socks scuff softly against the linoleum as he finally shuffles away, letting out a dramatic huff.
He sags onto a kitchen chair and scoops a reluctant Vesper up into his lap.
She lets out a confused meow but doesn't struggle, settling against his chest as if he’s just another piece of furniture.
“At least you like me, huh, House-Beast?” he mutters into her fur. “You’re the only one in this hovel with an ounce of taste. The rest of the inhabitants are... fickle.”
I let out a frustrated groan, wrenching the fridge open to grab the carton of milk.
I can practically feel his golden gaze tracking my every move, heavy and expectant, like he's waiting for me to apologize for existing.
I splash the milk into my mug, and then I yank open the cutlery drawer with so much force the metal runners screech.
I expect the usual rattle of silver alongside it, but there is none.
Empty.
I check the sink, my eyes darting over the drying rack. Nothing. Not even a stray teaspoon.
“Looking for something?” he muses.
My jaw clenches as I turn to face him. “Did you hide the spoons, Malachi?”
“Use your fingers,” he says smoothly, returning his gaze to the cat, a small, wicked smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “You’re quite fond of those, aren't you?”
“You hid the spoons to try and... what? Get to me?” I huff, leaning against the counter. “How old are you again? Because right now you're about five.”
He holds up his hand, inspecting his human-looking nails, and hums. “Perhaps I did. I find that when I am inconvenienced, I like to share the experience. It feels more... equitable.”
“Inconvenienced?” I repeat, the word coming out as a dry, incredulous rasp. “What are you even on about?”
He barks out a laugh. “One moment you're practically coming apart in my hands, but the second I’m ready for my own pleasure, you’re treating me like a common pest. In my realm, we call that whiplash. It’s remarkably rude. Even for a mortal.”
I stare at him, my mouth falling open.
Oh. Oh, I see.
The centuries-old demon is sulking. Because in my panicked, ‘after-intensive-therapy-with-my-sister-and-invasive-doctor’ state, I cock-blocked him. That’s what this is. It’s beyond absurd.
“That’s why you’ve hidden the spoons?” I ask, my temper rising with hot prickles under my skin. “We were in a public construction site, and I was post mental breakdown!”
He scoffs. “Don’t insult my intelligence,” he says, dropping the petulant theatricality for something much darker and far too perceptive.
“The location didn't bother you. The tears didn't bother you. You were perfectly willing to let me take you apart against a concrete pillar right up until the exact second your conscience caught up with your biology.”
He leans forward, gaze pinning me to the cheap linoleum and stripping away the last of my defenses.
“You didn’t push me away because of the dust, Eden. Or the therapy. You slammed the door in my face because you realized you were actually enjoying yourself.”
The anger drains out of me all at once, leaving me hollowed out and exhausted. I stare down into the abyss of my tea, the fight completely gone.
“I wanted it,” I admit quietly. “I wanted it just as much as you did, but I hated myself for it. I felt like I was betraying Matthew. Like if—”
“You think you were cheating?” He barks a harsh laugh. “Are you serious? What do you think he’s going to do? Come back and tell you you’ve been naughty? He’s a pile of ash in a jar, and I am the one who’s here.”
“If you’d let me finish,” I hiss, “you’d know I was about to say that it’s because it felt real. And it scared the shit out of me. And yes, maybe it felt like a betrayal against Matthew because I don't even know you, Malachi.”
It’s true. Feeling that good felt like a crime. It felt like I was erasing Matthew with every gasp I let out. Every time my back arched, I was moving further away from the man I’d tried so hard to bring back, and the guilt that followed was a black tide, swamping me until I couldn't breathe.
“And yet you still wanted it.” He tilts his head. “But tell me, Eden... did you think of him while I had my fingers inside you? Or was I the only thing that felt real?”
Ouch.
The question smacks me exactly where he meant it to. I want to lie. I want to scream that I was thinking of Matthew the whole time, that I was grieving and mourning and being the perfect girlfriend to a dead man.
But I can’t.
For so long, my life has been a muffled room where the only sound was my own heartbeat. But yesterday, Malachi had reached into that room and turned the lights on. He’d made me smash things until my muscles screamed, and then he’d made me feel a pleasure so hot it had nearly erased my name.
“I wasn't thinking of him,” I whisper, the admission washing over my tongue with a ripple of self-disgust.
He hums softly. “It’s a violent transition—coming back to the living.
And rather poetic, isn't it? That you had to meet someone from the land of the dead to finally feel a pulse again. But also a waste of perfectly good momentum,” he scoffs, his tone shifting back to that insufferable, dry arrogance.
“And I didn’t particularly enjoy being left with an aggressively hard cock for the rest of the day. ”
I let out a startled, wet laugh, the sheer absurdity breaking the tension in one single snap. The absolute nerve of this creature.
I open my mouth to snap back—to tell him exactly where he can shove every single one of my teaspoons for that comment—but Vesper lets out a guttural yowl from his arms and jumps down, her back arched into a mountain of fur.
Her tail’s puffed up into a bottle-brush, claws scratching frantically against the tile for purchase as she skitters backward.
The air in the room ripples with a fuzzing energy like the static before a massive summer storm.
“What did you do?!” I snap.
He looks at the cat, then at his own human-skin hands—fingers flexed as if checking for invisible strings—then back at me, his expression a mix of indignation and genuine confusion. “Nothing.”
“Then why is she freaking out?” I demand, my voice climbing an octave.
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?! I’m not a veterinarian for minor household animals! Perhaps she simply realized she lives in a hovel with a woman who buys her magic from shitty websites and cries all the time!”
I bite my cheek and crouch down, leveling myself with the kitchen tile. “Vesper, honey, it’s okay,” I coo. “It’s just... it’s just a draft. It’s an old building, you know that.”
My eyes flit across the kitchen to find whatever phantom she's seeing as I crawl toward her. “Come here, baby,” I whisper, reaching out a hand to stroke her flattened ears. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”
Her claws bite deep into my hand in one furious, desperate swipe that feels like hot wires being plunged into my skin.
“Ow! Dammit!” I grit out, snatching my hand back.
Four bright red beads of blood bloom across my knuckles. Vesper has never touched me—not once. In three years, the worst she’s ever given me is a playful nip, but this is something completely new. This is terror.
What is going on?
“Up,” Malachi commands, hauling me to my feet with a tug. His thumb presses against my palm as he studies the three red lines, tracking the slow slide of the blood.
Wordlessly, he drops my hand and takes a step toward the center of the kitchen. Then he squares his shoulders, draws in a breath that seems to suck the oxygen right out of the room, and lets out a low, bone-shaking snarl into the empty air.
I stare at him, my jaw hanging open. “What are you doing?”
He stops, looking back at me over his shoulder with a completely serious expression. “I am intimidating the air to put her at ease. Is it working?”
Vesper’s stopped hissing, mostly because she’s now staring at Malachi in what looks like absolute, stunned silence.
“You... you’re bullying the atmosphere?” I deadpan.
“The House-Beast believes there is a threat,” he says, turning back to the corner to give the air one final, lethal glare. “I am letting the 'threat' know that I am the only dangerous thing permitted in this kitchen. It is very simple logic, baby girl.”
The digital trill of my phone cuts through the air. I pull it from my pocket, and the name flashing on the screen makes my heart do a painful, panicked somersault.
Piper.
I slide the bar to answer, pressing the cool glass to my ear. “Hey, look—”
“No, you look, Eden!” she snaps down the line furiously. “I’ve heard enough, and I’m done. I’m coming over. I’m already in the car.”
A spark of my own irritation flares up. “Piper, no! You can’t come here. I want space, I—”
“No,” she snaps. “You’re staying with me, Mom, and Dad. We are going to get you better, Eden. With real, professional help.”
“I'm fine, I promise, I just need—”
“You aren't fine!” Her voice cracks, the anger giving way to pure desperation. “Do. Not. Move. I’m just pulling up outside.”
“Piper, wait—”
The line goes dead, and I pull the phone away from my ear, staring at the blank screen.
“She's coming,” I whisper, looking up at Malachi. “She’s coming here right now, and she thinks I’ve lost my mind—she wants to take me home, to my parents home.”
“Tell her no,” he says simply.
“I can't,” I stammer, chest tightening. “She’ll have the door kicked down if I don't open it. She’ll call the police. She’ll—”
He towers over me, looking down at me with a look that’s half-pity and half-disgust.
“You are a baby,” he hisses. “First, she barges in with her soup, then all-but forces you to go to therapy, and now she wants to give you a 'time-out' at your parent’s abode like a disobedient whelp. Grow a fucking backbone.”
“Stop!” I snap, the fear flaring into a sudden, hot spark of temper. “She cares about me! She thinks I'm having a collapse, and she’s right. I kind of am!”
Malachi just rolls his eyes and scoffs at me.
“What am I going to do?” I mutter to myself.
He shrugs, wholly unbothered. “Well, you know what I think. We could simply not answer the door when she arrives. Or I could kill her. Both are viable options. One is arguably more permanent, and a lot more fun for me.”
“That isn't helpful, Malachi.”
“Wasn't meant to be.”
The knocking starts minutes later, and I jolt to action.
I smooth down my hair with shaky hands and tugging at the hem of my sheep-print pajamas in some last-ditch attempt to make myself look at least semi-presentable.
I can do this. I just need to tell her I don’t need an intervention. I need space. I need time.
“Open up!” Piper’s muffled voice shouts through the wood.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I scramble out of the kitchen, square my shoulders, and swing the door open, plastering on my best 'I'm doing fine' smile.
“Pipes,” I start. “I don’t want to go to Mom and Dad’s house. I don’t need an—”
She barges past me, ponytail flicking against my face, before stopping in the middle of the living room. “Where is Malachi?”
“He’s... he’s just in the kitchen,” I stammer quickly. Then, the weight of the question hits me, sending an uncomfortable sensation whirling through my gut. “Wait. How do you…”
There’s a blur of dizzying motion as Malachi plants his massive frame directly between me and my big sister.
“Eden,” he growls. “Get back. Now.”