Chapter 16 #3
Panic ensued as darkness threatened to pull me under.
“Malik, you’re hurting me,” I gasped. “I know you don’t mean this. The darkness inside you is controlling you. Please—stop.”
I fought to focus on the man I knew, not the abyss swallowing him whole.
“We have this inexplicable bond,” I pleaded, my breath growing shallow.
His grip remained unyielding, his gaze vast and vacant, as though he had drifted a million miles away. His fingers, like iron bands, crushed the breath from my lungs, his strength terrifying, unnatural.
My vision blurred. My pulse weakened.
“Malik, stop,” I wheezed, forcing the words out before I lost the ability to speak. “This isn’t you. It’s the monster inside you. I know you can feel me—feel my pain.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. Hesitation.
His grip loosened slightly.
“Olivia?” His voice was hoarse, uncertain, as though he were waking from a nightmare.
I swallowed hard. “That’s right. It’s me. Olivia.”
A deep furrow formed between his brows as he stared at me, confusion cracking through the fury. Then, suddenly, his expression twisted.
Malik turned away from me, his whole body going rigid. His breaths came in ragged, uneven gasps, his muscles coiled like a beast on the brink of snapping.
Then, his gaze locked onto Vincenzo.
And the darkness surged back.
“You!” Malik roared, his voice a force of nature, shaking the air.
With the ferocity of a panther striking from the shadows, he lunged.
Vincenzo had no time to react.
Malik slammed Vincenzo to the ground, straddling him, his hands clamping around his throat like a steel vice.
Vincenzo thrashed, his eyes bulging in terror. His gasps turned into horrible, strangled wheezes as Malik bore down, his grip tightening.
Then—suddenly—Malik eased up, just enough for Vincenzo to suck in a ragged breath.
“How can I find Costa?” Malik’s voice was low, lethal.
Vincenzo coughed, one hand clutching his throat. “He… he is hosting his annual masquerade, my lord. You can find him there. He’ll probably have the blade on his person.”
Malik lowered himself until his face was mere inches from Vincenzo’s. He grasped the man’s jaw, his fingernails biting into the skin, his grip a silent promise of violence.
“If you ever speak of this incident,” Malik whispered, “you won’t live to see another day.”
Vincenzo squeezed his eyes shut, trying to turn away, but Malik held him firm.
“I won’t ever speak of it,” he croaked.
Malik gave a satisfied nod. “Good.” With one last shake of Vincenzo’s jaw, he was gone.
I barely had time to register his movement before I felt his presence beside me, his grip firm as he ushered me toward the carriage.
I gasped. Malik’s ability to move through time and space so effortlessly unnerved me.
I clambered onto the carriage seat beside him, my body rigid, my pulse still erratic.
The silence between us was thick, suffocating. I refused to look at him, staring instead at the road ahead, my mind a flurry of emotions.
Anger. At how he had nearly lost control—at how he had nearly killed me.
Disgust. Whatever I had once felt for him was now tainted by the suffocating truth—Malik was the darkness, and when it came down to it, he could snuff me out without a second thought.
He clucked to the horses, and the carriage lurched forward, carrying us away from the villa.
I waited. I waited for the tension in my chest to ease, for the swirling tempest inside me to settle into something manageable. I finally spoke only when Vincenzo’s home had faded into the distance.
“Who is this Raul Costa?”
Giovanni’s death. The Sun Dagger’s disappearance. Malik’s hands around my throat.
The only thing keeping me from unleashing all my rage upon the man beside me was the one glimmer of hope that burned inside me like a beacon—
Roman was nearby.
And soon, I would see him again.
I caught Malik’s gaze, and his face contorted with a dangerous emotion.
“He’s not someone you want to mess with,” he said darkly. “He’s a Timehunter. His society is the one that held me prisoner for years.”
He snapped the reins, urging the horses into a faster trot.
I gripped the seat as the carriage jolted over the uneven road. “How is that possible? Nothing can hurt you, weaken you, or kill you. Only the blades we’re searching for can—”
“There is still much you don’t know, Olivia.” Malik’s voice was grim, his gaze fixed straight ahead. “But know this—Raul Costa is a Timehunter who will want to kill you.”
A shiver ran through me. The danger around me felt suffocating.
Malik’s lips curled in a sneer. “And that fool Vincenzo speaks of the masquerade, confronting Raul and getting back the blade as if it were simple. Ha! That fucker.”
I studied his profile. His jaw was tight, and his muscles coiled like a predator on edge. He wasn’t afraid, but something was wrong.
I stayed silent the rest of the ride, tension knotting in my stomach. The world blurred past me, but I barely noticed.
When we pulled up to Malik’s palatial home, a groomsman stood ready, waiting to take the horses.
Malik leaped down from the driver’s seat and strode toward the house, his movements restless.
He didn’t wait for me.
Didn’t offer me a hand down.
Didn’t even glance my way.
My frustration mounted as I followed him inside.
Once in the grand foyer, I hesitated. Should I see Emily? Disappear into my room?
Before I could decide, Malik whirled around, suddenly standing before me.
His presence was overwhelming.
“I don’t understand why your husband isn’t following my orders,” he growled.
My stomach lurched. “What? When did you talk to Roman?”
He waved his hand, dismissing my question. “There is something you should know about Timehunters.”
I instinctively took a step back. His intensity was suffocating.
“What are you talking about?” My voice barely came out as a whisper.
His gaze hardened, his eyes darkening into something near-black, like the void itself.
“They are the most wicked of all creatures,” he murmured, his voice like a death knell. “The embodiment of death and destruction. Their touch can steal the very breath from your lungs, twist your mind and soul, damage your body beyond repair.”
A long silence stretched between us, suffocating and thick.
Then, his next words came and rocked the foundation of my world.
“But they also have the power to weaken the darkness itself.”
A chill shot through me.
Malik held my gaze a moment longer as if daring me to understand the meaning of his words.
Then, without another glance, he turned and disappeared into the house’s shadows.
I stood there, frozen, a whirlwind of emotions battling inside me—fear, confusion, anger, uncertainty.
One truth rang loudest in my mind.
If Timehunters could weaken darkness… what did that mean for Malik?
And—what did that mean for me?