by Liz Meldon
“Well,” he started, “I suppose at the beginning it was purely physical. I saw you at the hell-gate and thought… I could fuck her. I would fuck her.”
“Great,” Ella muttered, arms crossed, gaze flicking down to the snowy street. Malachi chuckled, unperturbed by her reaction.
“Yes, but you see—then I met your smart mouth.” It had quickly become clear that she possessed a barbed tongue, that she was a modern-day woman who suffered no fools. It had only made him desire her more. “I much prefer a woman who can spar with me.”
In Lucifer’s name, was his ass ever frozen. The cold had started to seep into his thighs now too, slowly binding him to the rooftop by the seat of his trousers. He shifted back and forth to get the blood circulating again, smirking at the innuendo bubbling up his throat.
All that melted away when their eyes met. Suddenly, Malachi was on fire and nothing else in this fucking realm mattered. His eyes snapped to black, and Ella’s throat dipped with a gulp, her plump lips parted just enough to be a fucking tease.
In an instant, some of his smirking façade—the kind he wore like armor—disintegrated.
“Then I saw your bravery,” he said roughly, recalling how she hadn’t even flinched when three figures emerged from the hell-gate the first night they’d met. All that had mattered to her was Moira; she had withstood the horrid scent of the gate to ensure her best friend was well, so much so that she’d spewed all over his shoes. The thought had the corners of his mouth kicking up again. Ella’s bravery, and perhaps a touch of recklessness, had been solidified in his mind when she stabbed him clear through the hand with a kitchen knife—just so he would give her some space. “I saw your loyalty to the ones you love, your selflessness. All three are qualities I prize—qualities I strive for in my own existence, but perhaps seldom ever attain.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, touched by a quiver that he knew had nothing to do with the cold. Malachi shrugged and turned his attention to snowy rooftops across the street. For once, he had no desire to talk about himself.
“If all that isn’t reason enough, why you,” he carried on, gaze wandering the distant skyline as his words fell without thought, without calculation, “then know that I saw you… In the face of adversity, you endured brilliantly. Beautifully. That’s why, Ella Thomas. That’s why you.”
She sniffled softly at his side, and he caught her wiping under her bloody eyes.
“Wow,” she said with a watery laugh. “I was expecting something a lot less… complex, actually.”
His eyebrows shot up as he grinned. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Something about my ass, or my boobs, or—”
“Well, they are rather attractive assets,” Malachi noted, leering for good measure. “But I’m afraid…”
Afraid that for once the physical attributes of a breathtaking woman paled in comparison to what was on the inside. Ella nudged him with her shoulder, her eyes still glossy with bloody tears, her smile teasing.
“Afraid of what?”
Malachi drew in a soft breath, noting how her expression faltered when he didn’t mirror it with something equally playful.
“Why me, Ella Thomas?” he asked, unsure if he truly desired the answer—unsure if he could handle the devil’s honest truth. His query had her folding in on herself, retreating. While their thighs still nestled side by side, Ella’s hands threaded together on her lap, and when she leaned away, his heart plummeted to the pit of his stomach.
“Because…” Because he fed her, gave her his blood. Because he was handsome and could fuck her to completion. There. Malachi had answered for her. She glanced down at her clasped hands, the knuckles deathly white, before firmly meeting his black gaze with a determined little lift of her chin. “Because, Malachi Saevitia… You make me feel alive, and I think you always have, even before.”
That… was unexpected. His chest tightened to the point of pain, and he fought the urge to clasp at it, to look down and confirm that it wasn’t collapsing in on itself like a dying star.
He made her feel alive?
Well. That was certainly a reason, wasn’t it?
He opened and closed his mouth, but once again Ella had rendered him at a loss for words.
Made her feel alive…
How simple. How succinct.
How right.
The laughter, the mirth, the mischief had up and died, leaving them both encased in an unfamiliar seriousness. Malachi yearned to shatter it, but he didn’t know how without spoiling this moment of raw earnestness.
Ella did it for him. She came back to him, her cool, dead aura buzzing in his personal space as she leaned in, her eyes watering once more, and traced his face with curious fingers. Up his neck, along his jawline, over his cheekbones—down to his lips. Her gaze followed the slow, sensuous movement, lingering on his mouth before darting up to his eyes.
His breath hitched and his inner demon snarled; neither could read her expression. Sorrow and desire and pure, open affection blended into one—and Malachi just didn’t understand it. So he kissed her to make it go away, to tell the sorrow to fuck off, to coax out her desire to play.
Because at least Malachi understood desire, carnality, lust, need.
Sorrow… He’d tasted enough of it in Hell when his family had turned on each other. He needed no more sorrow in his life.
Taking hold of her firmly by the chin, he delved into her sweet little mouth with a groan. While Malachi yearned to devour every inch of her, he succumbed to the unhurried pace of their kiss, to the depth it implied. He tasted her deeply, marking her with his tongue, his teeth, his lips as her trembling hands fisted in his shirt. She seemed to wilt beneath him, unfurling her beautiful, deadly petals as his free hand explored her figure—lazily, possessively, like the generous peaks and valleys were his and his alone. Ella bloomed in their kiss, her eyes gently fluttering shut, her moans ever so soft and delicate.
Malachi had never been one for sweetness, for tentative touches and slow exploration, yet he could have kissed her like that for hours. Days. Months. Fucking eternity.
An option they had now—forever—if they so chose it.
His little vampire surprised him, however, when she climbed onto his lap, using his collar for leverage as she swung one leg over to straddle him. How quickly those hands wandered into his hair, tugging and tangling. His smile turned predatory, dangerous—their kiss turned violent, passionate. Malachi tasted blood; he fucking reveled in it, in her husky moans, her cruel mouth. She tipped his head back, using his hair for reins, and Malachi encouraged her to really ride him, grinding her against his cock, against an erection that refused to be cowed by the cold.
As thoroughly as he enjoyed her writhing figure atop him, Malachi couldn’t spend a single second more seated. With some difficulty, he stood, clumsy enough to make the woman in his arms giggle, and then stumbled across the roof. Ass asleep, his legs threatened to follow suit, buckling just enough to send him careening into the wall of the neighboring building. Ella’s back took the brunt of the collision, but she still arched and mewled against him, mouth on his, desperate and bold. Malachi growled, kissing her greedily, plundering what belonged to him.
A soft moan and a slight push at his chest had him slowing, and Ella tore her mouth away. Loath as he was to admit it, Malachi actually missed how their kiss had once made her breathless, but he found delight in her eyes now, hunger twinkling back at him, and he decided he much preferred that instead. She swallowed hard again, stroking the backs of her knuckles up his cheeks, then down to his lips as he pinned her to the brick.
“Are you cold?” Ella whispered, thumb trailing over his quivering lips. “Oh god, I didn’t think…” She shifted against him, as if to wriggle away, the hunger retreating. “Let’s go inside—”
“Shut your smart mouth, little vampire,” he growled, claiming that smart mouth forcefully, brutally, like it was the last mouth he would ever claim so he had better make it worthwhile. She
squeaked, rubbing her hips against him as she struggled to keep pace. Her fangs nicked his lower lip, his tongue, and hellfire rose from her center, palpable even with all the layers of fabric between them. Against the brutal night chill, the embrace of this vampire was a fucking inferno.
He released her luscious thighs, biting at her swollen lip with a snarl when his hands found the button and zipper of her skintight jeans. Ella fumbled to help him, on her tiptoes to hold the kiss, and Malachi ducked low to rid her of her troublesome trousers. He broke the kiss for her cotton panties, teal and practical and drenched, tearing them down her thighs. Hands planted on his shoulders, Ella squirmed out of them, hurriedly lifting her legs to help, and Malachi tucked them away in his pocket for safekeeping.
And other sordid deeds.
Half-naked and slick with desire, Ella went for his belt next, scrambling to open it without ripping the leather in two. While he would have preferred as much skin-to-skin contact as possible, Malachi would probably lose a limb if he went as bare as her, and instead dug his cock out, all the blood in his body gathered in his swollen shaft. Ella eyed it appreciatively, the hunger back and stronger than ever, and he shoved her against the wall, closing in with a growl.
Wearing a savage grin, Malachi hoisted her up and speared her with a single thrust, stabbing her to the wall, his groan mingling with her sweet, clear cry. His eyes all but rolled back as he sunk home.
Ella arched and writhed beneath him, and as he gripped her bare ass, shielding it from the brick, ready to shred his knuckles to the bone for her, his little vampire scrambled to kiss him again. Her hands wove into his hair as his mouth opened to her bold tongue, her deadly fangs.
Malachi took it all, drowned in it: her furious kiss, her vicious bite, her brutal hands tearing into him. Smirking against her, the chaos demon descended into a devastating pace, brutal and frantic, desperate to see her utterly ruined by the time she came. He angled his hips to ensure that eventuality, catching her clit with every ferocious thrust.
Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise him if he pounded her clear through the wall and into the apartment on the other side. Could the human occupants hear them and their violent lovemaking? Would Cordelia’s magic shield Ella’s squeals, her cries, her moans?
He certainly hoped not. Malachi desired all the world to hear her shriek his name. He wished they could see the wilds of her eyes as he did, how beautiful and raw, how savage and delightful.
In fact, Malachi almost wished the others could see her like this, see the woman she had become since she turned, but they wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t understand the beauty in the chaos.
But Malachi did. And he loved every brutal glimpse, every animalistic cry, every drop of blood she tore from his flesh—everything.
“M-Malachi…”
She was close. He had made her come enough times by now to feel the difference, the clenching of her core, the deep furrow in her brow, the brutality of her talons tearing into him. Had she been human, perhaps she might have blushed, her skin a delightful crimson. Here, she was pale, washed-out, the bit of makeup she had used to humanize her appearance mussed and smeared.
She had never been more beautiful. Never.
Blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, his lip bleeding, Malachi flashed a hint of teeth in his cruel smile, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened when his pace quickened, her little hands clutching at his, her noises muffled beneath his palm as he drove her ever closer to the abyss.
Ella came undone with a screech, eyes clenching shut, fangs ripping his palm open. His hips stuttered as her cunt rippled around him, his own pleasure reaching its crescendo. Too soon. No. No, he could last longer. He could—
Her eyes snapped open, brazen and deviant, ever the little hellion as she consumed him, as her sex shuddered through her climax—and Malachi was fucking gone. Gritting out her name, he ripped his hand away and replaced it with his mouth, tasting an intoxicating blend of nightshade and his blood on her tongue as he spilled himself inside her.
The kiss softened when his cock finally stopped twitching, his hips jerking through his climax. Ella cupped his face, blood smeared everywhere—on him, on her, on their clothes. Leaning back against the brick, she snagged her lower lip between her teeth as Malachi fought to catch his breath.
“You are an exceptional little thing, aren’t you?” he rasped, and her mouth lifted in a smile.
A smile tinged with sorrow.
No. No, he had fucked that away, hadn’t he? Bracing himself with a hand on the wall, Malachi straightened—only to discover that his teeth had decided now was the appropriate moment to start violently chattering.
“Let’s get you in a hot shower,” Ella suggested, rolling her hips against him with a minxy grin.
“Only if you join m-me,” he whispered, the cold in his marrow now. Ella nodded, coiling her arms around his neck, their bodies flush together.
“Deal.”
Yet as he carried her over to the snowy rooftop door, the sorrow remained, her smile unnervingly sad.
And after what he considered the best sex of his long life, Malachi hadn’t the slightest idea how to make it right.
It was hot as Hell in Ella’s cluttered en suite bathroom, and Malachi wouldn’t have had it any other way. While their time beneath the scalding spray had been fleeting, with his little vampire avoiding the onslaught for the most part, it had been precisely what he had needed.
The water and the woman.
A dripping wet Malachi emerged from the glass shower stall a different demon, no longer some shivering slave to the cold, but proud and tall as always. Glistening, even. Ella had already slipped away, all smiles and shy glances after he’d dragged her through another pulse-pounding climax with naught but his mouth and fingers. As he dried himself with the enormous lime-green towel left next to the sink, he hadn’t exactly expected her to be standing in the steam, waiting for him.
“Ella?”
But he had expected to find her in her bedroom, fretting over the rest of the household. No doubt the sex had been a wonderful distraction, but Malachi wasn’t foolish enough to think that it would sidetrack her completely. He had seen the worry in the thin lines across her forehead, the downturn of her otherwise pouty lips. She feared for Moira, for all of them, and there was only so much a good climax could do to take away from that—from the sorrow.
Squeezing the wet out of the ends of his hair, he strolled into an empty bedroom, the dim corner lights on, her bed empty. As it stood, it was nearly nine o’clock and the house was quiet.
Save for the quick, short jingle of keys downstairs.
“Damn it, woman,” he growled, looping the towel around his waist as he stalked out of the room and thundered down the stairs. Two sets later, Malachi finally found her: at the front door, her shoes on, her phone in hand, her purse hanging off her shoulder, and her hand on the goddamn doorknob.
Her eyes rounded as he stomped the rest of the way down, the little droplets of shower water scattered across his muscular frame catching the first-floor lights. “Look, Malachi—”
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded, thrusting his chin at the door. She turned the knob and opened it, allowing for a fresh assault of frigid winter air; his nipples hardened almost painfully, and this time his balls threatened to jump right back up into his body.
“He keeps saying he’ll hurt my friends if I don’t—”
“Ella.” Malachi forced himself to take a deep breath, settling both his temper and his inner demon, who was positively beside himself at the thought of confronting Serafino directly. Insatiable bastard couldn’t be happy with spectacularly rough sex, right? Needed a bit of bloodshed to really tie the night together. “Don’t be absurd.”
“I don’t have a choice here.”
“There’s always a choice,” he snapped as he stalked from the base of the stairs to the door and slammed a fist against it so hard that it ripped clean out of her hand, closing wi
th a echoey slam. Ella glared up at him, but behind the indignation, he saw it again: the sorrow.
The resignation.
And her resolve.
Malachi situated himself between her and the door, his heart sinking at the sudden realization.
The sex hadn’t been a distraction for her.
It was her way of saying goodbye. She had already decided to sacrifice herself to Serafino—for the sake of Moira, her housemates.
Maybe even for him, which was fucking ridiculous. He of all demons didn’t need that kind of sacrifice from her. Not now, not ever. But after hastily banishing the shock of her decision, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t said anything of it to him, Malachi decided this seemed like something Ella would do. Selfless. Brave. Loyal. All these traits he had admitted to admiring, now come back to haunt him.
Anyway. Not that her core programming of selflessness, bravery, and unflinching loyalty made her decisions any better.
Or rational.
Not when she had options if she had only sought to ask. He was on her side, after all. Malachi would rather see her with a sword in her hand than hiding inside this invisible house.
“The world doesn’t need another martyr,” he snapped when she started toward him, as if to take another stab at the doorknob. Malachi ducked down to meet her eyeline, arching a challenging eyebrow. “Think twice. You’re strong, little one, but nowhere near strong enough to overpower me.”
“Well, that’s not the only way out of this house.”
“The only way out of this house,” he rasped, fighting a grin and adoring her defiance, “is through me.”
“Malachi.” She all but stomped her foot in her desperation to make him see. Little did she realize, he did.
Case in point: while she was clearly passionate about leaving, about surrendering herself to the bastard who had ruined her life, Ella’s tears had vanished. Not so much as a tinge of watery red rimmed her eyes, nor did they spring forth now as he barricaded her inside. She wasn’t conflicted. Ella had made up her mind, her resolve unflinching.