by Kresley Cole
Malkom dreaded that possibility. "No, I have not. But what I have seen is damning enough. Why would you behave like that?"
She shrugged casually. "A lot of reasons. I was single—unbound—and it was exciting. I'm not shy, and our culture is fun-loving and free. Plus, I get power from it."
Now it was his turn to be shocked. "That is your source?"
She nodded. "Happiness. Revelry. They give me power." She tilted her head at him, her green eyes appraising. "Malkom, I'm not going to apologize for that, or for anything I've done."
When his scowl deepened, she said, "You're four hundred years old. I'm not yet fifty. So don't judge me for having fun when I was young and single. And don't judge me for securing power that's there for the taking."
Don't judge her? Who the hell was he to ever judge another? "Would you intend to continue doing that?"
"Only the week directly before Ash Wednesday." At his frown, she explained, "It's a citywide celebration. Wild revelry. And I'd hope you'd be right there with me." She eased in closer to him. "If you've seen my memories, then it's only fair that you tell me about yours." She traced her fingers over the scars on his wrists.
When he recoiled, she drew her hand away. "You will never learn to trust me, will you?" Her expression grew saddened. "So it's not that you assume this island is a better place to live—it's because you're afraid I'll betray you once we get back? You had no intention of ever going to search, did you? No intention of ever helping us off this island?"
"No. I did not."
She gasped. "Do you expect me to keep this torque on forever? To live helpless and vulnerable without any magic? I am a witch, Malkom!"
"Vulnerable? You have my protection—I pledged it. And no matter what, you would be in less danger here than in your world, amidst your wars."
"Will you ever move past this anger?"
He shrugged.
"Damn it, demon, tell me. Will you ever trust me again?"
"I do not know."
"Just answer me!" she cried. "Yes or no?"
Old fears died hard. "No."
Her hand flitted to her forehead. "Then you're going to continue to freeze me out? Distance yourself? You're treating me like my parents did." She gave a bitter laugh. "At least I've given you reason to."
So that's how she viewed his behavior? Likening it to her cold and haughty parents? His first impulse was to deny being anything like them. But hadn't he been cold?
At least I've given you reason to. ... He was treating her as they had. How could he, when he knew firsthand how heartsick their neglect had made her?
What was his neglect doing to her now?
She'd done nothing wrong with them, nor was she truly culpable for what she'd done to Malkom. She'd sought only to save an innocent child, the little girl he too wanted to call his own.
"We can't be trapped here because you fear I'll leave you once we return home," she said. "Did you never think I could leave you here?"
His body tensed, and he bared his fangs. "Try it, witch. Always I will come for you. For you both. Nothing will stop me!"
She dropped her face into her hands. "What is wrong with me?" He barely heard her mutter, "Falling for someone who can't love me back."
"Love?" he spat. "You want that from me?" His heart seemed to stop.
Maybe he should tell her everything. If he dreaded her reaction, then he should just get this out of the way. She was going to forsake him eventually. And I will not care because she has already betrayed my trust.
She raised her head. In a deadened tone, she said, "Yes, Malkom, I want you to love me."
"You know nothing about me! But you will." He would reveal his sordid past, sparing no detail, so she could understand the male she'd wed. "After tonight, you will know everything."
Chapter 42
You will know everything. ... His expression was cruel, as if he planned to hurt her with whatever he was about to reveal.
But he was already hurting her. He believed their relationship hinged on his past and how it affected him. Instead, it should be about their pasts, shaping their future together. And just as he had difficulty trusting her, she had difficulty being driven away, ignored, rejected....
"Then tell me, Malkom. I want to know."
Though his demeanor was aloof, his irises flickered black, belying his calm. She knew in an instant that he'd never told another what he was about to confide in her.
"My mother was a whore," he began. "I have no idea who my father was."
Carrow had already known that. She debated telling him, but decided to hear it from him. "Go on, please."
"When I was a boy, she sold me to a vampire master who used me for blood." He looked to the right of her as he added, "And for ... sex."
Ah, Hekate, was that why he'd killed his mother?
"She knew what that vampire would do to me. And still she made me his slave." Lips drawing back from his fangs, Malkom said, "And the master raped his slaves repeatedly."
"Malkom, I—"
"Let me finish," he snapped.
"I'm sorry, go on."
"But that was not enough for the vampire. He shared me with his sick friends. He liked to shame me, to make me shame myself in front of them. In time, I hated myself even more than I hated him."
Carrow's heart was breaking for this demon. She'd suspected he'd been abused like that, but hadn't imagined to what degree.
"I did whatever that vampire wanted of me," he told her. "I was his whore, and in time, he believed I was an eager one. If I felt pain, I ignored it. If I knew disgust, I learned to hide it."
His expression grew even more haunted, his eyes now fully black, as if he were reliving that misery. Carrow wanted to hold him, but she knew he wouldn't accept comfort from her now.
"Never did the master see how much I despised him. And still he eventually kicked me out to starve in the streets. I was stunned, could not comprehend what I had done wrong. 'Twas years before I realized I'd grown too tall and big to please him."
"Wh-what happened then?"
"I healed, I survived. Somehow my body even thrived. But my mind was never right. I knew I had to kill him." He'd begun speaking in a monotone voice, as if reciting a logbook of events. But she could feel the pain he'd buried so deeply. "The last thing the master saw in his life was my face. After that, I killed a lot of vampires. I loved to do nothing more. Soon Prince Kallen heard of me. We became friends." Malkom added in a mutter, "I could not believe he wanted to be my friend. I'd never had one before. Or since."
Don't cry for him—he'll hate you for it.
Wait, they'd been friends? Carrow dreaded hearing more, knew the ending to this story from the dossier: Malkom had assassinated Kallen the Just.
"Kallen was aware of my lowly birth and that I'd been a slave. But it mattered naught to him. He was the first person who ever gave a damn whether I lived or died. For years, we fought the vampires, side by side as brothers, until we were captured because of a traitor—Ronath the Armorer."
Ronath? Then he'd died too quickly.
"The vampires' leader, the Viceroy, made Kallen and me into abominations. Scarba. Then he imprisoned us together with no food—or blood. He told us that only one of us would ever leave that cell. The one who drank, or the one who killed."
Hatred for those long-dead vampires seethed inside Carrow. How much Malkom had suffered at their hands.
"Kallen was not as strong as I was, not as used to hunger. He needed blood more than I did. I should have realized that then, should have given him what he needed. I have never regretted anything more than what I did in the cell that night."
"He tried to drink from you?" So the prince had succumbed to bloodlust and turned on the man who'd looked up to him, who'd loved him. And Malkom thought he was in the wrong.
"Of course he tried to drink from me! We were maddened with thirst. Kallen was my best friend, and I destroyed him—"
"Malkom, he didn't leave you a choice."
"There is always a choice!"
"You just said you were maddened by thirst."
"I did not drink him, witch—I killed him, because I thought he had betrayed our friendship. I've never drunk anyone before you."
Never before me? He'd resisted that long? "How did you escape the Viceroy?"
"He wanted me to become loyal to the Horde, to become more vampire than demon. He tried to force me to drink from demons. I resisted for years, withstood his torments. But one night, he presented me with the neck of a demon boy, one who was my age when I'd first ceded blood. I could sense the child's fear, could scent it, and it felt so familiar. A rage such as I've never known rose up in me, and I gave myself over to it. I broke free, slaughtering that vampire."
Torments? For years? And then she'd turned Malkom over to Chase for more....
"Last came Carrow Graie," he said softly, his voice full of menace, "a witch as beautiful as she was deceitful. She made me care for her, then tricked me, luring me into a trap to be enslaved yet again."
Ah, gods, he considered her no better than the others.
"Anyone who has ever betrayed me has paid with his life. With my bare hands, I killed the master, the Viceroy, Kallen, and Ronath."
"And your mother?"
"When I was grown, I visited her hovel to show her what I'd made of myself, to make her regret. When she served me poisoned drink, I forced her to finish the cup."
Carrow's heart fell when she recognized why Malkom had returned to see that demoness. He'd still been seeking a mother's love, even if he hadn't realized it then—or now. And his mother had answered his longing with a deadly poison.
Malkom mistook her silence. " 'Twas no less than she deserved! Now all of them are dead but you."
"D-did you want to kill me?"
His gaze held hers. "I thought about it. Had you not been my fated one, I would have."
She understood so much more about him now. His reaction during their bath in Oblivion. Why he didn't want to impregnate her.
How could he trust Carrow with a child of his when he'd been left by his parents to be brutalized again and again? His own mother had sold him as a slave and tried to murder him. Why should he expect different from Carrow?
Malkom had the deepest, most far-reaching trust issues of any person she'd ever known. And Carrow had betrayed him, a male who'd been shaped by betrayal.
She glanced at his wrists. He had far worse scars on the inside. And I've ripped them wide open.
"Now what does the witch think of her husband?"
Chapter 43
Malkom braced himself for her disgust, even as he knew he shouldn't give a damn what she thought. She had wronged him.
Still, as he watched her seeming to formulate a response, he regretted telling her. He could not take her disgust, could not bear it from her—
"I appreciate your confiding in me about your past," she finally said. "It explains a lot. But it doesn't affect my feelings at all."
He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Then his anger fired. "How can you say that?" he snapped. "Your words are false, meant to deceive me again. How could you not be disgusted?"
"I'm not. I feel pain for what you've suffered and want to comfort you, but my feelings for you haven't changed in the least."
Maybe she didn't understand how bad it'd been. How dishonorably I behaved. "I scavenged refuse, eating from filth. I murdered my best friend, the only one who was ever good to me in my entire life." He grated, "I behaved as if I loved every second the master violated me, acted as if I were eager, craving whatever he and his friends did to me."
Though she didn't gaze away, her eyes watered. "I wish I could have saved you from that. Could have rescued you from him."
He shot to his feet. "What is wrong with you, woman?" He ran his hand over his face. "No, I know. You treat me just as I treated my master, feigning love to gain protection, acting as if I do not disgust you."
"I'm not feigning anything, demon! You were a child! You did what it took to survive. And thank the gods you did. You grew into the noblest, bravest man I've ever known. Because of your strength and will to live, you were here to save me and an innocent little girl from dying."
Noblest? Malkom shook his head hard. "You said the mortals wanted me, a Scarba, because I am unique. You and the girl might not even have been taken but for me."
"I may have been a pawn, but I believe they wanted Ruby anyway. She was going to be captured regardless. And if not for you, she would have died that night. Why don't you remember events like that?" She gazed at the sky, then turned to him once more, her eyes stark. "I regret hurting you, but I do not regret being sent after you. The very thought of never knowing you makes me feel sick inside."
He clenched his fists. It does me, too. What would it take for him to lose this knot in his gut, this bitter doubt?
I do not want to feel this way anymore....
When he didn't reply, she rose. "Malkom, I'll go. But there's something you should know." She waited until he'd met her gaze to say, "If you told me these things to drive a wedge between us, then you've failed. All you've done is make me care for you more."
Which makes no sense to me! After dredging up all these memories, he ached inside. He wanted to hurt her, to shake away that mask of concern and empathy. I will never believe again.
As she turned back for the cabin, his hand shot forward, snagging her ankle to pull her to the sand. "I'm not done with you, wife."
She twisted around to face him. Instead of being outraged or wary, her expression was fierce. "Good, because I will never be done with you, Malkom." She eased her hand to his face, resting her palm against his cheek. Her eyes began to soften as she gazed up at him.
Every time she looked at him like that, his rancor grew. "The only reason you accept one like me into your bed"—he forced her hands over her head, pinning them with one of his—"is that you know you will be vulnerable without my protection." He recognized this as well as he would his own harsh reflection in a pool. "And when you are safe in your home, you will have no need of me."
"That's simply not true."
"Prove it," he said, his voice cruel. "Prove to me why a highborn woman so fine as you"—he clawed her shirt open to expose her breasts, giving each a brusque squeeze—"would want to lie with a male like me."
"Malkom, I want to lie with you because I desire you so much."
At her ear, he rasped, "You truly crave the bastard son of a whore rutting betwixt your pale thighs?" After tearing off his own shirt, he shoved her skirt up to her waist, baring her sex. "Wouldn't you be suspicious, if you were me?" He yanked his pants down to his knees, then maneuvered his body over hers.
"I crave you. I always will."
When he positioned his cock at her entrance, she began panting, growing wet for him, which only infuriated him more.
"You like being fucked by a Scarba?" He wrapped her hair around his fist. "Look at me! Truly look. Tell me what you see that others cannot!"
"I see my husband."
With a yell of frustration, he entered her with one unrelenting stroke. Though his thoughts were in turmoil, pleasure rocked him. He threw back his head, biting back a groan.
She gasped at the intrusion, sucking in a breath. Then she whispered, "I love you."
He stilled, gazing down at her. "What did you say?"
The demon's body was a mass of tension, like a bomb about to explode, but she still repeated, "I love you, Malkom."
"Shut up!" He shoved inside her so hard, her teeth nearly clattered.
"But I do."
"Stop saying that," he commanded, bucking his hips, driving his shaft deep within her. He looked down at her as if he hated her, as if he wanted to punish her for loving him—even as she could sense his emotions, could sense how much he yearned for her too.
"Are you trying to hurt me?"
He quaked above her. "It'd be nothing more than you deserve." His flickering eyes were filled with more pain than
she'd ever seen in another. Then his gaze fell to her neck. "If I bit you, would you still tell me you love me?"
Yes, always. "Try it and see."
"You'd probably come for me again. Isn't that right, witch?"
But instead of taking her neck, he went to his knees, releasing her hands. Gripping her ass with splayed, clutching fingers, he positioned her so he could sink even farther inside.
Seated deep, he pumped inside her like a piston, his rigid muscles flexing under sweat-slicked skin. She tried to raise her hips up to meet him, seeking his next determined thrust, but he was too strong.
The friction ... his growls of pleasure ... the thick heat swelling within her.
Just watching his body move like this was about to send her over the edge. Her hands were drawn to him, palms caressing his sheening chest, then dipping down his torso.
With each of her strokes, with each of his relentless plunges, tension built inside her, spiraling, until she throbbed. "Demon!" she cried, desperate for release. Her head thrashed as the pressure within her gathered, readying to explode.
At last, the pleasure seized her. Scorching. Boundless. "Ah, gods! Malkom, yes!" Her back arched, her nails digging into his hips, wanting more, wanting him even deeper.
"I feel you," he bit out between clenched teeth. "Feel you coming round me." At the last minute, when she was certain he'd remain within, he jerked his hips back.
With an agonized yell, he shoved his shaft over her belly, mindlessly grinding atop her for his final shuddering throes.
When he collapsed over her, she gazed above him at the misty sky, tears welling as she hurt for him—hurt with him.
At her ear, he grated, "I'm still not done with you, wife."
When Carrow woke just before dawn, a cocoon of fog had wrapped around her and Malkom. The last time she'd checked on Ruby, it'd been raining. Now all was still and soft.
Malkom remained asleep, which wasn't surprising. He had to have exhausted himself in the previous hours of sweating, frenzied—and, she hoped, cathartic—sex.
Yet never once had he hurt her.
And at the end of the night, he'd turned on his side so he could enfold her in his arms, clasping her tightly to him. His body still shuddering, his voice raw, he'd said, "A witch holds my life in her palm. Ara, I live or die for you."