by Liz Meldon
Malachi Saevitia gouging out a demon’s eyes, his thumbs buried knuckle-deep in the creature’s skull.
She would remember that day for as long as she lived. Longer, even. It was the kind of memory that imprinted on your soul.
Moira’s wings had a knack for drudging it all back up, even if they were the cutest little wings of the bunch. Only about two feet across, they were baby soft and light grey, like a newborn chick’s first set of downy feathers. The house sometimes teased her about the look, calling them baby feathers, chick fluff, the works.
But they were growing. Hardening. Slowly but surely changing color, flecks of gold and white woven into the velvety grey. Toward the final days of summer, Moira’s physical appearance had started to shift again, taking her closer toward the extremes of an angelic appearance. No one dared comment on that—not until Moira could acknowledge it herself.
“You made me so beautiful,” Moira gushed, enveloping her in a slightly too-tight hug. Ella grimaced as Moira’s bony arms crushed the air out of her lungs, but she did it with a smile. When her friend retreated, she sucked in as subtle a breath as she could before Moira squished her face in both hands. “Thank you.”
“Y’r w-l-cme,” she mumbled, cheeks smooshed, lips pursed. Giggling, Moira went back to the mirror, studying the shading in more detail, and Ella started gathering her makeup supplies strewn across the counter, half-destined for her daily bag, the other for the makeup tower under the sink.
“So,” Moira said as Ella dusted off one of her larger brushes. “You plan on telling me what the fuck happened between you and Malachi anytime soon?”
The mere mention of his name had her cheeks fiery, and Ella turned away under the guise of grabbing something else to wipe the brush off with. Toilet paper? No. Well. Just to look busy—sure. “What?”
“I know you guys butted heads the last time he was here, but this is… weird.”
She nibbled her plump lower lip. It was weird, and everyone seemed to know it. Malachi had been so stupidly tense around her that even when she tried to play it cool, like their last encounter in June hadn’t fazed her, it was downright impossible. Embarrassment clung to her like a second skin, making the backs of her knees sweat and her temper spike just by looking at him. He had been back in the house for a grand total of, what, twenty-six hours, and Ella had wanted him gone within the first five minutes.
Especially if he was going to be all weird and tense and distant with her.
Like—how else was she supposed to feel? Humiliated. That was it. Not just embarrassed, but downright mortified. Since he’d left, Ella had been burying herself in work. First came graduation from her one-year master’s program, plus a string of pointless first dates with men who bored her to tears, then teachers’ college, and now this new job. If it was all go, go, go, go, then she couldn’t dwell on that shitshow of a night.
Embarrassment had kept her from spilling her secret shame to Moira, but from the way her friend eyeballed her in the mirror, the jig was up. Alaric had already made his guesses, detecting the slight shift in her demeanor anytime Malachi’s name came up in conversation. But… Damn it, sometimes certain stories were meant to stay dead and buried.
“It’s nothing,” she said, her forced nonchalance painfully obvious. Moira’s eyes narrowed in the mirror before she turned around and hoisted herself up on the counter, thin porcelain legs crossed at the ankles.
“Ella.”
She tapped her blush brush against her palm. Even with all the makeup, Moira’s face was downright impossible to deny. They had each mastered the same expression as teenagers, that I Know Something’s Up, Just Tell Me I Won’t Judge You look that usually made the dam burst.
“He…” Her stomach looped as humiliation licked down her spine, leaving her hot and flustered, palms clammy and the back of her neck broiling. Fucking massive hair certainly didn’t help with that. She winced, gathering it all up and holding it away from her skin. “We kissed.”
Moira’s eyes rounded, her jaw all but dropping in dramatic cartoon wolf fashion. “What?”
Fuck. Ella swallowed hard, settling on the closed toilet and fanning herself with her brush. “It was the night you guys went to the resort. After you and I got off the phone, I was just… I was messed up. Learning about what happened to—” Mom. The word died in her throat. Moira’s mom had been more of a maternal figure in Ella’s life than her own mother, and to discover the gruesome way she had died—no, been killed—had broken a piece of her that would never fully heal. “Anyway. I got drunk. Like. Shitfaced drunk, and somehow got up to the roof. Malachi came up to find me at some point, and I don’t remember a lot of it, but I think we talked for a bit… and then suddenly we were kissing. I kind of remember wanting to do more, like…” Fuuuuck me. She cleared her throat, bracing herself for the inevitable fallout of this news. “I can recall being on his lap, like hardcore making out, and unzipping his… Oh god, his pants. Uhm. But he stopped me, said I should sober up. Then… Then I vomited over the side of the building, which, you know, was great.”
Of all the things she didn’t quite remember, puking was one of the crystal-clear images that had stuck with her all these months later. Her hands dropped to her lap, body racked with an unsettling blend of icy fear and white-hot humiliation. A hesitant glance up showed Moira studying her with an odd look, a look suggesting it hurt that Ella hadn’t told her this sooner. Right. That was the look she should have prepared for, not, well, whatever insane fallout she had been expecting. Moira was her sister. They shared everything, big and small.
And this—this was huge.
In a flash, however, Moira’s expression shifted to something gentle, her pale blues warm and soft as she said, “Oh, honey, that sucks, but I mean—you threw up on his shoes the first time you met him and he was still all over you. I really don’t think a bit of puke bothers Malachi.”
That had never occurred to her. Cue further humiliation. “Yeah, I know, but—”
“And he kind of held your hair back with me that time you puked in the elevator at Seraphim Securities—”
“Yes, thank you.” Her eyes narrowed when Moira’s grin turned teasing. “So, that’s three times I’ve emptied my guts in front of him. Fantastic.”
No wonder he’d bailed.
“This was… different,” Ella continued weakly. They had just sucked face. And from her spotty recollection, it had been a good face suck. “He helped me downstairs, then got me McDonalds while I had a shower. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed at like noon, surrounded by cold french fries and no Malachi. He just left. No note, no nothing. Gone.”
And at the end of the day, that had been the most embarrassing of all. He hadn’t said anything to Alaric or Cordelia at the time either, vanishing into the dawn, but they hadn’t just drunkenly made out with him—and then tried to do more, only to be rejected by a demon with a somewhat questionable moral compass.
“Oh.” Moira slipped off the counter and crossed over to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“It’s…” Ella leaned to the side to avoid smudging all her hard work. “I’m fine. It isn’t the end of the world. This shit happens—but I guess I’m still really embarrassed about it, and he’s being all weird.” At her celebratory dinner last night, they had all learned Malachi was only back in Farrow’s Hollow because an angel had summoned him there for some meeting. No further details had been offered, not even when pressed for by Severus and Alaric, but one thing was certain: the chaos demon was not here to see her. “I just want to forget it happened, you know?”
Her bestie nodded. “But he’s making it kind of difficult with the whole…”
Moira tensed, lifting her shoulders so that they lined up with her ears, her overly serious expression the perfect Malachi impression. Ella snorted.
“Right? Ugh…”
“Yeah.” Moira snatched the blush brush out of her fidgeting fingers. “Look, we’re gonna
have so much fun tonight that you won’t even remember why it’s awkward with you two. Anytime you need to escape, I’m your girl.”
“I know.” Loyal to a fault, Moira would probably set Malachi’s tight, gorgeous ass on fire with her angel light if Ella asked. “Thank you.”
After one last hug, Ella finished tidying up her scattered makeup, then tugged her black wool socks up to her knees and tucked her pressed white dress skirt into her pleated grey skirt.
“Okay, I’m going to go check on the guys… Make sure they’re actually wearing their costumes.” While Moira had been all too excited to be the Buckbeak to Ella’s Hermione, Alaric and Severus had had to be coaxed—maybe even a little threatened—into their Halloween costumes. But, seriously, what was Hermione Granger without her Ron and Harry?
The pair had been even less impressed when she ordered them authentic Hogwarts robes right alongside hers. Cordelia, meanwhile, had been thrilled to learn that all three of them would be going out as witches tonight, even fictional ones who were always the good guys—and whose skin didn’t split and scar every time they cast a spell.
“I should probably put some clothes on,” Moira muttered as she checked her phone. “We’ve got like two hours before doors open at the Inferno.”
“Enough time for nachos and beer pong.”
“Preach, girl.”
Over her shoulder, she spotted her bestie angling herself in front of the mirror for a bathroom selfie, one Ella couldn’t resist hopping in on. Some twenty minutes and a hundred photos later, she was tiptoeing down the stairs in her socks, a pair of her old, clunky uniform shoes hanging off her fingers.
As she rounded the bottom of the stairs, padding onto the second floor with nacho prep running through her head, said shoes slipped from her fingers, their double thump-thump paired with the sound of her own horrified scream.
For standing there, next to the coffee table, in front of Alaric’s huge TV, was Cordelia.
A naked Cordelia.
A naked, bloody Cordelia.
A naked, bloody Cordelia with her throat slit.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” Nausea and vertigo hit like two colliding freight trains, leaving her weak-kneed and breathless. Ella staggered forward just as footsteps thundered across the floor above, accompanied by a second set racing up the staircase from below. The demonic witch smiled, breasts perky, skin flawless.
“Fear not,” she crooned, gesturing down to herself with a flutter of her black lashes, the usual dose of crazy in her eyes. “It’s my costume. I am a human sacrifice.”
Ella collapsed back against the thin metal railing, hand to her pounding heart, head spinning. “What the fuck—that looks so real.”
Cordelia offered a coy one-shouldered shrug as Alaric jogged up the last of the steps to her left. “Magic, darling.”
“Ella?” To the right, a panicked Moira came flying down in a pair of pajama shorts and a sleeping tee. “What’s…” Her wide-eyed gaze landed on Cordelia. “Whoa. What the fuck?”
“It’s her costume,” Ella said, weakly motioning toward Cordelia. “She’s… She’s…”
“A human sacrifice,” the witch clarified. “I’ve just been sacrificed. Throat slit. Blood offered to the dark lord of the night…”
She pressed the back of one delicate hand to her forehead, slumping onto the coffee table with a giggle. In unison, Ella and Moira looked to Alaric, who wasn’t in his costume but was nursing a beer. The hybrid shrugged, his sweatpants and T-shirt an affront to Ella’s Halloween sensibilities.
“Looks great. Very authentic. She did a lot of research. And, you know, watched a few human sacrifices over the centuries.”
Ella pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, that’s horrifying.”
Ugh. How was this her reality? After exchanging a somewhat helpless look with Moira, she pushed off the railing and cleared her throat.
“Okay, so, uhm, I appreciate the authenticity as much as the next… person.” She blew a curl out of her face, hot all over as Cordelia smeared some of the still-wet blood around a very pebbled nipple. “Uhm. But, you know, you can’t go out like that.”
The witch looked up sharply, her dreamy smile falling away. “Why? I am told Hallows Eve is as gory now as it once was.”
“Yeah, but you’ll probably get arrested for indecent exposure,” Ella insisted. “So… Maybe…” She glanced at her bestie. “Moira and I can find you a different costume. Not better. Just different—right?”
Moira nodded slowly. “Uh, yeah. I think that’s for the best.”
Alaric swirled his beer. “I like it—”
Ella held up a hand to silence him, which was met with a snort. “Okay. I’m thinking… I’m thinking…” What the fuck kind of costume did you give a demonic witch who thought this was appropriate? “Wednesday Addams?”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” Moira said, suddenly extra cheery when Cordelia frowned. “She’s this badass kid who cuts the heads off dolls and threatens preppy mean girls at summer camp… You’ll love her, and I have the perfect dress for you to wear. Ella will do your hair.”
She nodded, having no issues with plaiting two thick braids into Cordelia’s wild, tumbling black waves—provided she was clothed and clean.
And the much, much too realistic slit on her throat was closed up. Yuck. Ella appreciated special effects. Hell, she had even considered a career in it before deciding on teaching. But this—that wound—was nauseating.
Decision made, Moira escorted Cordelia upstairs, Ella close at their heels. Halfway up, she leaned over the railing and pointedly cleared her throat, eyes narrowing at Alaric.
“Get your costume on now, Ronald Bilius Weasley.”
The hybrid let out a defeated little sigh. “Yes, dear…”
“This is fucking ridiculous.”
Malachi stiffened when her voice carried over the din. Seated at the far end of the dining table, fingers drumming on the dark wood, he swirled his tumbler of bourbon and downed the rest of it as Ella straightened in front of the stove. A whole world stood between them, his brother, his cousin, and Moira clustered around the little countertop peninsula jutting out from the wall, chatting amicably over their seventh round of vodka tonics. Some obnoxious tune hummed from the speakers attached to Moira’s musical rectangle, and to his left, Alaric had just come thundering down the stairs, dressed in the same black robes as Severus and Ella, a lion crest on his breast.
All this commotion, this pint-sized chaos, and yet to him, Ella Thomas was the only creature in the room. He heard her every movement, her every breath, and it was driving him fucking mad.
All Hallows Eve. In theory, this was his night to shine. A night of masked men and gruesome tales told around a fire—or, in this century, demonstrated over the television. Chaos demons lived for such wanton depravity, a night when the human world expected madness and tricks.
And yet here he sat, present for what Ella had labeled a “pre-drink”—present but separated, a great yawning cavern stretching between him and the occupants of this house. While the others were dressed in costumes, none save Moira’s particularly frightening, Malachi hung back in one of his perfectly fitted suits—a deep, lush burgundy, his dress shirt black, his cuffs the classic Saevitia rubies and gold. He had left his hair wild, thinking it a festive touch for the season, only to find himself surrounded by bland getups—what the fuck was the purpose of the lightning bolt on his brother’s forehead?—and merriment.
Merriment. On a night designated for debauchery and villainy.
How rare such a night occurred on Earth. Demons across Hell fought for the very limited number of travel permits just to go topside tonight.
Yet here Malachi sat, his glass empty once more, lamenting his companions’ choice of attire—and trying desperately to tune out the one creature he ought to have forgotten by now.
“Seriously,” Ella grumbled as she crossed the kitchen with an enormous cast-iron skillet in hand, the damn thing positively ove
rflowing with chips and flavored meat and roasted vegetables and melted cheese. “I live in a house with five of you supernatural shits, and I still have to cook by hand? This is a travesty.”
She plopped the skillet onto the counter, the others crowding around it like vultures, and then huffed a rogue curl out of her face.
“Thank you,” Moira crooned, leaning over to press a kiss to the human’s cheek. “These look delicious.”
“Wait, they’re really—”
“Yes—nachos!” Alaric grabbed a particularly cheesy chip off the top and popped it between his lips, only to immediately start hopping about, mouth open. “Ah—’ot, ’ot, ’ot!”
“Hot,” Ella finished, her arms crossed, her grin just a little too satisfied. “Give them a minute.”
Through the slight gap between Severus and Moira, those honey-brown eyes landed on Malachi. They burned across his features, starting at his forehead and headed southbound to his lips. He wet them without meaning to, black gaze scorching back at her, and he caught her sharp inhale before she turned away, her cheeks pink.
This was absurd.
Absurd.
A chaos demon—cowed by a mere slip of a thing, a woman who barely reached his shoulders.
A human…
Who looked positively fuckable in that little outfit, her pleated skirt cutting off midway down those luscious thighs, the knee-high socks highlighting toned calves. The dress shirt with one too many buttons undone, her throwaway tie just begging to be coiled around his fist.
Absurd.
He shouldn’t have come here.
The summit was a mere two and a half weeks out, and the Malachi who had spent the last year in Hell negotiating, bribing, and threatening his fellow demons to get precisely what he wanted would have chosen a penthouse hotel suite to bide his time.
Instead, this Malachi, the sentimental, lonely old fool who had endured four hundred and eighty-nine long years dealing with family squabbles and his mother’s death and that big empty Saevitia estate in Hell—well, he’d decided to spend this time with his brother. He and Severus had only recently reconnected, and he’d wanted to nurture that bond, all the while getting to further know the angel hybrid who would undoubtedly be a Saevitia in the near future. He and Moira had become acquainted on the battlefield, yet loath as he was to admit it, there was more to life than war.