Chapter 33 #2
Reeve took her hand into his own on top of the table, holding her shiny new ring on display, and the game began.
“I’m not sure how anyone could let such a gem slip from their fingers,” said Reeve.
Maeve remained calm, holding tight to that warm thread of Magic between herself and Reeve that helped her heartbeat remain reasonable. Mal maintained his unaffected expression.
Reeve’s lips pressed down on her fingers, kissing them gently, but his eyes swirled wildly. Wickedly.
He was already doing his damndest to make Mal come unglued. And when Reeve’s mouth slipped around her thumb, her mouth fell open and she realized he hadn’t been bluffing when he said he intended to win.
Reeve’s fingers slid to her wrist, wrapping it completely. He yanked her sideways, with little concern on his face, as she toppled out of her seat. He guided her perfectly onto his thigh, his other arm snapping around her waist, forcing their noses just an inch apart.
Maeve swallowed hard. Fear was a complex emotion when she was held in the arms of someone like Reeve.
Someone who never showed the holy power that dwelled inside him.
Whose stare told you he could turn you to mist with a blink.
Someone who had all the ability to be nasty, vindictive, and cruel at his disposal, but who never let any of it touch her.
The contradiction blurred her line of reason, giving her a false sense of safety.
She reckoned even Reeve could admit to that.
He’d been patient, but beneath it all was still a man with his own agenda, desires, thoughts, and goals.
Still a man with secrets he held against her.
He proved her right immediately as he pulled her false sense of safety right from under her.
Reeve’s fingers pressed into her spine, arching her towards him.
“Tell me, Malachite, how will she like it best?”
Maeve’s eyes widened. She stared at him in horror.
“On her back? On her knees?” Reeve continued, his fingers trailing up her spine.
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes narrowed, hatred boiling deep in her belly as his vulgarity put her on bare display. She may as well have been naked, spread across the table.
That thought may have been a bit too loud.
Reeve growled lowly, the vibration from his chest seeped into her own.
“Why don’t you find out for yourself, Reeve?” asked Mal, his scowl deepening. “Waiting won’t make her any less of a snake in your sheets.”
“I like to play with my quarry, Malachite,” said Reeve with a grin. His free hand grabbed his goblet, and he tossed the entire contents of the liquor back and sighed, satisfied. “I’m certain you can understand that.”
Reeve’s hand moved to her face, trapping her jaw in his large hand.
He fixed his gaze on her now forcefully puckered lips.
“I like that she doesn’t know when I’m going to snap and take her.
” His grip tightened, drawing a whimper from her.
“I enjoy watching how completely wrecked she is, with nowhere else to turn but to me.”
Maeve’s brows pulled together, her eyes frantically searching his for any sign his words were part of the lie.
But her stomach tightened the longer he held her trapped.
His voice was too genuine and too smooth with desire to be an act.
When his eyes lifted from her lips to her pale eyes, a smile developed across his face in pure devilish pleasure.
“Just look at her,” he purred, angling her head back and forth in his iron grip.
“It’s like she forgets part of me isn’t man.
Like she doesn’t know the fear seeping from her pores fills my mouth with saliva.
That the more she runs. . . the more I want to make it hurt when I catch her.
” Reeve’s hand on her back braced, hitching her hips directly against him.
“You’ll look so pretty covered in my sin, won’t you, kitten? ”
The word “foxglove” was at the forefront of Maeve’s mind as she fought the urge to push her palms against Reeve’s chest in protest. But she froze, the word never traveling down her bond with Reeve, because something else, no, someone else’s Magic, slammed between them in invisible power, attempting to separate them.
Maeve’s eyes widened. Reeve angled her head towards Mal, forcing her to look at him at the other end of the table. Mal sat, one elbow on the table, propping up his cheek with his other hand coiled in a fist.
The air in Maeve’s lungs tightened. The Magic pressed between her body and Reeve’s was indeed Mal’s. Distinctly Mal’s. Not Shadow’s.
Reeve’s fingers heated, nearly turning an uncomfortable temperature against her skin. His voice carried too much sincerity, too much venom, as he said to Mal, “She’s still infuriatingly yours, though, isn’t she?”
Too much jealousy; not enough lie.
Reeve gripped her hip, adjusting her until she faced Mal fully.
His broad hand remained at her jaw, dominating her throat.
Mal’s Magic swelled between them as Reeve settled her between his spread legs, forcing icy cold beams of possessive rage between them and keeping him from pressing her against himself fully.
Mal’s face was so cold, she wasn’t sure if he even knew what resonated from him was his own Magic. But his eyes were locked on hers.
She hated them. She hated their color. She hated the way they were an unavoidable reminder of her failure. Her defiance. And the costly errors of her own ego. Even the scar, running down his beautiful face, was hers to carry.
She was to blame.
She was the catalyst of his fall.
Only when wetness pooled between her skin and Reeve’s fingers did she realize that silent and angry tears streamed from her eyes and coated her cheeks. Electric Magic trickled down her arm, scattered and unstable.
“Mal,” she cried, unable to keep silent any longer. The words spilled from her lips like a broken and begging prayer, soft and defeated. “I’m so sorry.”
Her words landed like a physical blow.
Mal recoiled, his eyes closed sharply, and his face twisted in agony as his fist raised and slammed against the table. Magic rippled in multiple pulsing waves as he stood. Reeve kept them all from landing on himself and Maeve, pulling her flush against him at last.
Mal’s arms raised, and he hunched violently over the table, palms slamming flat against the surface. His fingers retracted in torment, scraping as they clawed into the wood. His eyes were feral as he looked up at them.
But they were not green.
They were dark as night.
Maeve’s chest swelled. Reeve had been right. She had been right. Mal, her Mal, was buried beneath Shadow’s possession, and her Mal’s desire for her was alive, furiously fighting.
Maeve didn’t hesitate. “She’ll drain you dead if you don’t wake up, Mal. Break free of this—of her!”
Mal’s Magic burst from him, encasing the room in a vortex of swirling death.
The crystal walls splintered beneath the weight.
The force of the winds pinned her to Reeve and dried her mouth as she tried to call out to him once more.
Mordred tried to advance to Mal’s side, but was pushed outside the swirling tornado of Magic.
Her arms gripped at Reeve’s, desperate to escape his hold, to comfort Mal, this Mal that finally surfaced. To take his face in her hands and aid him in expelling Shadow’s talons from his mind. She’d slice her palm again and again, she’d bleed out all over again for him—
“My blood,” she rasped, freezing. “My blood,” she repeated, now frantic to slip from Reeve’s grasp. “You can drink my blood, Mal! Take all of it!”
The violent winds of untamed Magic drowned out her desperate cries, but Reeve tensed behind her, his hold tightening, as though he had no intention of letting her do such a thing. His devilish smile had vanished, replaced by the face of a diplomatic warrior, ready to protect.
“Then you could end her! You could unleash Maxius’ power without her influence over you!”
Her pleas, if he heard them, were futile.
Mal’s head dipped back, shielding his face from view.
A horrifying call blasted from his lips, overtaking the continuous rumble of wind.
A scream so furious that Maeve’s darkened veins hissed in approval.
A scream so violent that when his head tipped forward again, and his cold expression returned, his green eyes were more catastrophic than ever.
The room plunged into silence as Mal’s furious outburst contracted back into him.
The temperature dropped so significantly that ice cracked across the table towards them, freezing the decanters and pitchers of drinks.
Maeve’s exposed skin shot to life. Her lungs burned in the intense freeze.
Her bones shook beneath her chilled skin.
Reeve’s heat flared against her, attempting to warm her.
The silence broke as Mal made a singular sound: one of amusement.
It slowly grew louder, like it was occurring to him what had just happened, until it bubbled into a hysterical, all-knowing laugh.
The unsettling sound continued as he lifted his hands from the table and ran them through his dark hair, pushing it back from his forehead.
He stood tall. “You want my obsession, my possession, so badly, Maeve?” he asked, still amused. He pointed a single finger at her, palm up, and beckoned her. “Then come.”
She shook her head, pressing back into Reeve.
To her horror, Reeve’s hold lifted. “Go to him.”
I will not let him hurt you. But you must go to him, he spoke into her mind.
She shook her head again, her eyes locked on Mal’s deadly ones.
Reeve’s hand palmed her exposed back and pushed her into a standing position. The betrayal of his supposed protection stung as he forced her into Mal’s certain cruelty. Still, she did not move towards Mal.