Malin – Meant to Be #3
He laughed, a real one this time. “Well. I heard you were mostly human. I haven’t had much luck with humans. Just… Most people don’t handle the unknown this well. You’ve got something in you. I’ve heard stories of your mother. Maybe it’s the General, or maybe it’s you.”
The heavy air between them lingered for only a second before Jacien let out a low chuckle. His arrogant persona slid right back into place, a blatant, intentional pivot to break the tension. “Well, I suppose that is just one more way you are completely different.”
Malin raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“You are the only woman I have ever met who can walk behind me for this long without her pheromones spiking. It’s honestly a little unusual. It’s a good thing you’re family, and I respect Aldrik too much.”
“Unusual that I wasn’t interested in you?” Malin scoffed, her voice dripping with dry amusement. “You have clearly been meeting the wrong type of women. Good to know my senses are perfectly intact.”
This prompted a short huff from him.
They walked for nearly an hour, and the frost only deepened, glassing the grass and turning the ditches into icy, moonlit gutters. The sun rose slowly as they moved, warming the air. When the sky finally started to pale, they crested a low rise and saw the little town for the first time.
Four Winds was smaller than she expected.
It was just a knot of houses and shops strung along a pair of intersecting roads.
The buildings were timber and stone, each with steep-pitched roofs weighed down with ice, and banners hanging limp in the still air.
A few visible guards were wandering through town, their blue and black uniforms catching what little light the sun gave.
The place was quiet, with only a few people milling around at this early hour.
Walking into town felt like stepping into a waking dream.
Malin drank in every detail, matching reality to her memory.
There, at the intersection, was Bratha’s Teahouse.
The curling letters on the weather-warped wood and the black-and-blue diamond flag beside the door…
all exactly as she saw it. Even down to the worn, cat-shaped doorknocker.
In the window of the door was a sign that said, “Closed.”
“There’s a tavern over there,” Jacien said, gesturing toward a wooden sign swinging on rusted chains at the end of the street. “It’s early, but they’ll have food.”
The air inside The Slippery Minx hit her face like a warm blanket. Scented heavily with roasted meat, spilled ale, and crackling woodsmoke, the cavernous room should feel welcoming, but an eerie silence hung over the half-dozen occupied tables.
Only five or six of the tables were occupied in the cavernous room beneath the exposed beams and iron chandeliers. Magic hummed casually through the space.
Malin’s boots sounded too loud against the worn floorboards, where a faded tapestry depicted a battle of some kind.
Around them, a woman casually ignited her pipe with a snap of glowing fingertips, while across the room, a bearded man in a velvet cloak summoned his soup bowl through the air with a lazy circular motion of his hand.
While she tried to tread lightly, her boots sounded painfully loud against the floorboards. Refusing to sit with her back to a room full of strangers, Malin took a seat right beside Jacien, who slid into a booth.
He immediately adopted the persona of a bored, arrogant mercenary, propping his boots up on the chair across from him.
“There are rooms upstairs,” he remarked, his eyes glittering with a spark of something. “You could rest before visiting the teahouse.”
“What are you inferring?”
Jacien lifted both hands in mock surrender, an unrepentant smirk playing on his lips. “Hey. No issues. I’m not inferring anything. They have rooms with two beds. I told ya… I am not pushing anything. I’ve never had to beg, so no pressure. You clearly aren’t interested.”
“I’m not,” Malin said, her voice dropping into a flat, icy calm that instantly kills the joke.
With thoughts on Will and their bond, Malin stopped and faced Jacien squarely.
“I would like to ensure there is no misunderstanding between us. I’m soul-bonded, pregnant, and I have kids.
I do appreciate your help, but there will never be anything more than that. ”
His silver eyes smiled. “We are clear. I would never take advantage of family, nor have I ever had the need or desire to push myself on anyone. From here on, consider me your cousin.”
She spotted the servers moving between tables like ghosts.
Three of them: a weathered old man with calloused hands, a hollow-cheeked woman whose eyes never lifted from the floor, and a boy no older than sixteen with a healing bruise across his cheekbone.
Each wore a thick iron collar that sat too snug against their skin, leaving angry red marks where the metal had chafed.
Faint blue-green runes pulsed along the collars’ surfaces, emitting an almost imperceptible hum that made Malin seethe with internal rage. They moved with the careful precision of prey animals, shoulders hunched, flinching at the scrape of a chair or the sharp laugh of a patron.
Her muscles tensed, ready to rise as the young server staggered beneath the weight of a keg that was clearly too heavy for his thin frame.
She gasped at the sight. Before she could stand, Jacien’s fingers found her knee under the table, pressing down with gentle warning as he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
He leaned in close, his breath warm against her ear. “If your mission matters. Interfere now, and we’ll be thrown out before you find what you came for.”
Malin’s jaw tightened. Every instinct screamed to help, but logic told her he was right. Her fingers curled into fists beneath the table.
The old server stumbled, his worn boots catching on an uneven floorboard.
The pitcher in his trembling hands tilted, sending amber liquid cascading onto an expensive-looking sleeve at a table where mages sat laughing.
The laughter stopped. The mage, a sharp-featured man with rings on every finger, didn’t raise his voice or his hand.
Instead, his eyes drifted deliberately toward the bar, where he met the tavern keeper’s gaze and indicated the spreading stain with one languid finger.
The tavern keeper’s finger traced a rune carved into the bar top.
Across the room, the old man’s collar ignited with crimson light.
His body crumpled to the floor, spine arching at an impossible angle.
Though his mouth stretched wide in a scream, no sound escaped.
Helpless, she stood frozen as he desperately scratched his fingernails against metal, clawing at his neck.
Malin’s body jerked forward before her mind could catch up, a soft golden glow of her healing magic already beginning to pulse beneath her skin.
Jacien’s hand found her wrist in an instant, fingers digging into flesh as he forced her arm flat against the rough wood. The table’s edge cut into her stomach as he leaned close, his mouth a hairsbreadth from her ear in what would look like an intimate whisper to anyone watching.
“Stand down. Those mages could incinerate us where we sit. I’m always happy for a fight, but we’ll vanish through my portal the moment it turns ugly, and your mission ends right here.” The harsh words he delivered felt like ice water down her spine.
His fingers tightened around her wrist. “Worse, they might just execute that old man and add his replacement to our bill. It would be a simple business transaction for them.”
The golden glow faded reluctantly. She forced herself to remain seated, each muscle screaming in protest. The crimson light extinguished.
The old man rose on trembling legs, tears tracking silently down his weathered face as he mopped the spilled ale.
The mages resumed their conversation, the incident already forgotten.
Malin’s stomach churned. The reports about Fellspire’s slave practices were taught to all the people of Media. The threat of being captured if someone left the walls was a major concern, keeping many residents safely inside. Seeing it with her own eyes was something else entirely.
The hollow-cheeked woman set steaming plates before them.
Typically, she would have dug right in on the roasted meat, glistening with fat, and the root vegetables, swimming in butter.
Given the circumstances, Malin’s stomach twisted as the woman’s collar caught the firelight.
Across the table, Jacien tore into his meal, shoveling food into his mouth between gulps of ale.
He paused, fork midair, noticing her untouched plate.
His eyes flicked to her abdomen. “You’re eating for two now. Eat,” he murmured. “For the little one.”
Malin choked down each bite, the food turning to ash in her mouth. As soon as the last bite was down, she counted out coins with trembling fingers, desperate to escape.
On the way out, Jacien’s arm encircled her shoulders.
To the rest of the tavern, it was a gesture that appeared affectionate.
Reality was, it was the restraint she needed.
The magic within her pulsed, hungry for vengeance, begging to reduce the tavern to cinders and to placate her lust for life-force.
It took every ounce of control to keep it from draining them all.
Once outside, the crisp morning air hit her face. Malin wrenched away from his grip, her chest heaving as her blinding fury collided with a reluctant gratitude for his intervention.