Malin – Receiving Line #2
He shouldn’t be here. This was the man who taught her to ride a bike and held her hand at Caelum’s funeral. But he was also the monster who ordered Enforcers to hunt her, the man who pumped her mother’s veins full of microscopic, mind-controlling machines.
As Victor drew close, a warm, paternal smile crossed his lips, and he extended his arms for a hug.
The man responsible for her mother lying in a coma, only floors above, expected an embrace.
A low, vibrating growl ripped from Aeladar’s chest. In a flash of terrifying speed, her biological father shifted his massive frame, stepping squarely between Malin and the man who raised her, his posture radiating lethal intent.
Behind Aeladar’s back, Malin’s body betrayed her.
Panic flooded her veins, and her traumatized siphon magic violently snapped its leash.
The power ripped outward, desperately trying to pull life force from the packed crowd to defend herself.
She tried to slam the mental cage shut, but the magic wouldn’t listen.
Staring at Aeladar’s broad back, she silently pleaded for help.
As if feeling her spiraling panic through the air, Aeladar subtly dropped his hand, sending a localized, invisible pulse of his nullification power over her.
The frantic pull of her magic instantly died, severing the draw and leaving her gasping in the sudden, quiet void.
Her magic contained, the adult Malin finally clawed her way back to the surface.
She was not the powerless human he had last seen.
She had devastating magic and was a Duchess of House Trillium.
With Aeladar an immovable fortress at her side, she lifted her chin, locking her spine into iron-straight Elven protocol.
Victor halted, his arms dropping. He rubbed his jaw, his forehead suddenly scrunched in confusion.
For a single second, his mask of supreme authority dropped; the steel in his posture crumpled into something brittle and almost human as his eyes went glassy, as if Aeladar’s protective stance had physically struck him.
But Victor regained his composure with practiced, terrifying speed. He offered a rigid bow. When he rose, his eyes locked onto hers, shining with an unreadable dampness.
“You look well, Malin,” Victor said, his voice betraying a faint tremor. Then, his gaze swept over her sapphire silks and her position on the dais, genuine bewilderment breaking through his facade. “Why are you in the reception line?”
It was instantly, terrifyingly clear that her mom never told him the truth.
His love for her as a child had been real.
Malin swallowed past the sandpaper dryness in her throat. Forcing her shaking legs to obey, she stepped out from behind the safety of Aeladar’s broad back, squaring her shoulders.
“I am here with my father,” she stated, her voice ringing with a newfound, steely pride. “Lord Aldrik Rauno of House Trillium, General of the Mellyrn Armies.”
Victor’s jaw flexed. A flash of genuine, unmasked pain crossed his face as the word father registered, followed immediately by the cold, hard calculation of a man realizing he had been lied to for decades. He promptly stiffened, smoothing his features back into a mask of authority.
“The Council asked me to attend,” Victor said, his tone clipped.
“With your mother no longer on the Media High Council, they requested I fill her position to open trade negotiations with the new Queen.” He glanced around the regal, magic-infused room, then locked his eyes back on Malin, his voice dropping to a low, demanding register.
“Where is your mother, Malin? When you left together…”
“Mr. Neldoreth,” Aeladar interrupted. His voice was a glacier, heavy with measured, lethal contempt.
He didn’t extend his hand for a traditional greeting; instead, he placed a heavy, claiming palm on Malin’s shoulder.
“Your presence here is no longer acceptable. Mellyrn will not be opening negotiations with Media until your region ends its barbaric treatment of those with powers and its exclusion of non-humans. You will leave.”
Victor sized up the towering General, the tactical calculation naked on his face. “I was invited by the Council of Houses as a diplomatic courtesy.” He refused to break eye contact with Malin. The heavy, invisible gravity of his gaze asked her to choose his side.
“The person on the Council will be dealt with accordingly. They are obviously unaware of your heinous acts, including your treasonous actions against our Queen and my family. I shall rectify that immediately,” her father countered, his voice rising just enough to catch the attention of the surrounding guards.
“As General, second in line to the throne, and cousin to the Crown, I confidently state that you will leave. Given the current state of my mate, you are incredibly lucky I have not already gutted you on this amber floor and sent you back to Media in pieces.”
The threat was absolute. Victor finally broke eye contact with Malin, sweeping his gaze across the room to calculate his odds. Finding none, he looked back to Aeladar.
“I have only ever wanted what’s best for her,” Victor said smoothly. The sincerity in his voice made bile rise in Malin’s throat. How could he mean that? She wanted to scream at the audacity of the lie.
Without flinching, Aeladar said, “I will not dignify any additional discussions with you. You had your chance. Now leave. Quickly.”
Victor’s lips flattened into a thin, bitter line. “I see.”
Looking at Malin one last time, a masterclass mask of tragic disappointment settled over his features. He offered a stiff bow to Aldrik, as if the reluctant respect of one apex predator to another.
“I’ll be waiting,” Victor said softly, aiming the words directly at the terrified little girl still living inside Malin’s chest. “When you are ready to come home. I had wondered...” His gaze swept back and forth between the towering General and her.
Cold calculus worked behind his eyes, comparing them until the biological reality finally settled over him.
“You will always be my baby girl. This changes nothing for me.”
For a moment, Malin forgot how to breathe. She clung to Aeladar’s arm, her fingers digging into his muscles hard enough to bruise, but the General didn’t flinch. Only when Victor’s pristine suit finally disappeared into the crowd did she realize her entire body was violently trembling.
“He will not trouble you again,” Aeladar murmured. He gently lifted her chin, forcing her to break her thousand-yard stare. “Are you alright, Noor’wyn?”
She nodded, though the motion was brittle. “I don’t know. But I’m so glad you were here.”