Chapter 16 Malachi #3
“I am,” she cut in, and her voice was breathless with laughter, not fear.
She leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn’t tentative. It was hot and certain. My restraint lasted one heartbeat, then I deepened it. I adjusted our angle so we didn’t tip, then I kissed her back, slow enough to make her feel it and controlled enough to make her understand I could have taken more and chose not to.
Her mouth softened under mine. Her hands gripped my jacket.
Somewhere behind us, somebody whooped. The DJ laughed into the mic and said something playful about love on eight wheels, and the crowd clapped. Nyx’s cheeks went hotter, but she didn’t pull away.
She pulled back first, breathing hard, eyes wide, lips swollen. “That was my first kiss with you,” she said.
“It won’t be the last if you keep choosing me,” I replied.
She swallowed and lifted her chin, stubborn even in happiness. “And that’s all you get in public,” she added.
“I know,” I said. “I’ll take what you offer, and I’ll wait for the rest.”
Her gaze sharpened, then softened, and I saw the war inside her for what it was. Joy wanted to stay. Survival wanted to run.
A ripple went through the rink. Not the music this time. Something else, a shift in the air that didn’t belong to the beat.
I felt it before Nyx did. My security along the wall straightened. The men who knew how to read danger stopped laughing first.
Nyx’s smile faded a fraction as she followed my gaze. A man had drifted too close, not skating, just cutting across the floor. He was watching Nyx. I didn’t like the look in his eyes at all. His feral gaze running all over her curves.
He reached out.
His hand brushed Nyx’s lower back, and it wasn’t an accident. It was a claim, casual and entitled.
Nyx jerked, the old reflex snapping through her body. Her shoulders went tight, and the joy in her face tried to die on the spot, replaced by that familiar flat mask.
My restraint burned out.
I moved in one clean motion, skates cutting hard. I caught his wrist before his fingers could slide lower, and I twisted just enough to make him feel pain without making a scene yet. His eyes widened, not with fear, but with offense.
“The hell,” he started.
“You do not touch her,” I said, voice low. The music kept playing, but the people closest to us heard, anyway. They felt it in my tone.
He tried to pull back. I didn’t let him.
“She ain’t yours,” he said, and it was the disrespect that made my blood go cold. He looked at Nyx again, licking his lips.
Nyx’s chin lifted. “I’m not yours either,” she said, and her voice was steady. It wasn’t bitter. It was clear.
He smiled at her. Then his gaze slid to me, and the smile turned ugly. “You her man,” he asked, loud enough for attention now, because he wanted an audience.
I leaned closer. “I’m her consequence,” I said.
His other hand dipped toward his waistband.
My security shifted. I felt the pop of tension. The rink didn’t notice yet, but the men on the walls did, and that mattered more than neon lights.
Nyx’s breath hitched, and her body shifted, remembering being cornered. She didn’t freeze this time. She moved, stepping back the way I taught her, knees bent, center low, eyes up.
Good girl, my alpha tried to say.
I strangled the thought before it could become hunger.
The man’s fingers cleared fabric.
I did not hesitate.
I drove him backward into the rail, hard enough to rattle the boards. My grip stayed on his wrist, and my other hand went inside my jacket and came out with my gun already leveled, already steady. The sight of it changed the air, and the people nearest us went silent.
It hadn’t. The DJ was still playing, still talking, because he hadn’t realized what was happening at the far end yet.
The man’s eyes went wide. “Yo, chill,” he started.
“No,” I said, and I meant it.
A second man stepped forward, fast, like he’d been waiting. He moved wrong. He moved like a partner, not a bystander. He had a piece in his hand, low and hidden like he thought he was slick.
My security drew at the same time. Three weapons came up in a blink, angled away from Nyx, away from the crowd as much as possible, but violence was messy even when you tried to keep it clean.
Somebody screamed. The rink finally noticed.
The DJ’s voice cut out mid-sentence. The music kept going for a beat, then the track skipped and died, the sudden silence so loud it made Nyx flinch.
Shots cracked.
It wasn’t a war. It was quick, controlled, brutal. My men were trained. The two idiots who thought a skating rink was the place to test Meridian were not.
The second man dropped first, a sharp sound and a hard fall. He slid across the floor on his back, wheels scraping, eyes empty before his body stopped moving.
The first man tried to run. I didn’t let him.
He jerked his arm, frantic, and the gun in his waistband clattered to the floor. His eyes darted to it.
I stepped on it, pinning it to the rink surface, then I grabbed his collar and hauled him close.
“You put your hand on her,” I said, and my voice was quiet enough that only he and Nyx could hear. I wanted her to hear it. I wanted her to understand what my courtship meant.
His breath came fast, panicked. “I didn’t mean nothing,” he gasped.
“You meant entitlement,” Nyx said, and her voice surprised me. It wasn’t shaking. It wasn’t small. “You meant you could take.”
His eyes flicked to her, and he did something stupid. He spat near her skates.That was his last mistake.
I shot him once, clean and final. I did it low, angled away from the crowd, because I was not here to spray chaos. I was here to end a threat.
He collapsed.
For a second, there was only the sound of breathing, skates rolling, people scrambling toward exits, security yelling, and the distant echo of someone sobbing near the snack bar.
The smell of powder hit the air and mixed with popcorn and sweat and winter coats, and the contrast made my stomach turn.
Nyx stood still.
Her chest rose and fell fast. Her eyes were wide, but she wasn’t frozen. She was looking at me in disbelief.
This was what I was.
A man who could give her purple laces and a kiss, and also put a body on the ground for touching her.
My alpha leaned forward. I kept my hands to myself.
“You okay,” I asked, voice low.
Nyx swallowed, then nodded once. Her gaze dropped to the man, then to me, then back to the exit.
“I’m,” she started, then stopped. She inhaled, slow. “I’m here. I’m not gone.”
I watched her shoulders lower by a fraction as she said it. She was choosing to stay in her body. She was choosing not to leave herself behind.
“That’s good,” I said. “Stay with me.”
“Don’t say it like that,” she murmured, but her voice didn’t carry bite. It carried shakiness, and something else too.
I stepped closer, not touching. “Tell me what you need,” I said. “Right now.”
Nyx’s gaze flicked to my hands, then to my face. She licked her lips. “I need,” she said, and her voice cracked on the edge of anger. “I need to not be looked at like I’m the reason people get stupid.”
“You’re not,” I said. “They get stupid because they think you’re easy to take.”
Her throat bobbed. “And you,” she whispered. “You’re not… you’re not easy either.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m not.”
My security closed in around us, forming a wall without crowding her. They moved with respect, not because they were kind, but because they understood who she was to me now. That was its own kind of toxicity, a pack learning her value because it belonged to their leader.
Nyx noticed. Her gaze moved over my men, then back to me. “You just killed somebody,” she said, and she didn’t sound horrified.
“Yes,” I answered. “Because he reached for you.”
She exhaled, and the sound was shaky. “That should scare me,” she said.
“It can,” I replied. “But it should also teach you something. You are not unprotected in my presence, and you are not a toy in public.”
Nyx’s eyes narrowed. “Is that protection,” she asked, voice quiet, “or is that ownership.”
I held her gaze. “Both,” I said. “I’m not going to lie to you and pretend I’m gentle. I’m going to be honest and let you decide what you can live with.”
Her mouth parted. Then her shoulders dropped again, and she looked down at her purple laces.
“I need air,” she said.
“You’ll get it,” I replied.
I guided her off the rink without touching, positioning my body between her and the chaos as people shoved toward exits. I kept us moving. I kept her in sight. I kept my tone calm, because panic spreads, and I wouldn’t let it crawl into her bones.
Outside, the cold hit. Snowflakes stuck to Nyx’s lashes and melted. Her breath fogged in front of her face, and the air cleared the powder from her lungs. She stood with her hands on her knees for a second, breathing hard.
I crouched beside her, not close enough to crowd, close enough to be present. “Look at me,” I said.
Nyx lifted her head. Her eyes were glossy, but she was still there.
“Name five things you see,” I said.
She blinked, then focused. “The streetlight,” she said. “The snow on your jacket. The blue sign. Kairo’s car. The purple laces.”
“Good,” I said. “Now breathe with me.”
She did, and on the third breath her shoulders stopped trembling. Her body settled into the cold.
“My cousins would have laughed,” she said suddenly, voice quieter. It wasn’t random. It was grief wearing a smile. “They would have said, ‘Nyx, you really can’t go nowhere without drama.’”
I watched her face soften at the memory. “They sound like they loved you.”
“They did,” she whispered. “They still do. They just don’t know where I am.”
Something tightened in my chest. Nyx didn’t talk about herself. She didn’t offer pieces.
She was offering one now.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, and I let the words exist as they were, not dressed up, not sharpened.
Nyx’s gaze snapped to mine. She looked suspicious first, then tired. Then the softness rose again, reluctant.