by Melissa Marr
“Stop.” Kaleb growled this time.
At the sound of his very not-human growl, Mallory froze. She stayed completely still in his grasp. “I don’t know where it is, but if you tell me what he took, I might be able to help you get it, and then you can give it to them, and—”
“I know what he took,” Kaleb interrupted. “I’m not going to give— I’m not here to help someone else, Mallory. I’m here for you. I meant it when I said I would stand beside you.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth.” Kaleb kissed her chastely.
Her lips were motionless under his, and he had to remind himself that they had a connection even if she was denying it. She was his wife, and even if she didn’t know yet, she would. A swell of panic filled him at the thought of her fate—and his—if she refused to accept him as her mated partner. Marchosias would kill him and give Mallory to another daimon.
Calmly, Kaleb said, “I came here even after the witch threatened to kill me because I want to be with you. You know he was ready to kill me, but I’m here. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
MALLORY’S INSTINCTIVE—AND FOOLISH—desire to trust Kaleb vied with years of her father’s lessons. Those lessons had never concentrated on daimons manipulating her. In Adam’s myriad lectures, the focus was on the fact that daimons were crude brutes she should kill at first chance. He spoke of their strength, their cruelty, their history of brutality against witches. He didn’t tell her they would kiss her and promise to help her. He didn’t tell me a lot of other things, a guilty voice reminded her. She wanted to believe in him, but he’d kept secrets, spelled her, and, despite his assurances yesterday, he’d not come home to give her the answers he’d promised. She floated between worry that the daimons had found him and the possibility that he was avoiding her.
She wasn’t going to share her doubts with Kaleb though, so she said, “When my father gets here—” Her words were cut off as the window beside the door shattered.
An arm reached through the broken glass toward the dead bolt—and then, in an almost simultaneous moment, went still. The arm drooped, and she heard a thump outside the door.
“Shhhh.” Kaleb held up one finger in a wait gesture.
She nodded.
He released her and mouthed, “Wait.”
Then he walked to the living room window and pulled back the edge of the curtain. He turned to her and said quietly, “Stay inside. I’ll take care of this.”
“What happen—”
“I’ll take care of it,” he repeated. “You stay inside.”
Then he left.
The 9mm still in her hand, she peeked between the blinds—and saw Kaleb carrying someone down the street. At least she thought she did, and then a moment later it was as if she had imagined it. She stared at the street and saw absolutely no one. No Kaleb. No body. Mallory clutched the gun and glanced at the window. The window was intact, as if the wards were still in place. Working wards would stop any entry and repair the entry point. How did Kaleb get in then? She walked over to the window, laid her hand on the perfect pane, and shook her head. She lowered the gun, but still held it loosely in one hand. She stepped backward—directly onto the broken glass all over her floor.
She glanced at the window again. The details didn’t add up. If Kaleb had been in the street, he wouldn’t disappear. Do daimons vanish? If the window was unbroken, the wards should have stopped Kaleb too. She glanced at the red numbers on the microwave. And if it’s this late, my father should be home. Gun still in hand, she walked over to her phone, picked it up, and checked for messages. There weren’t any.
A sound at the door made her lift the 9mm again. She raised it up, ready to fire, and tensed. The door opened.
As he stepped inside, Kaleb held up his hands, palms out in a halt gesture.
She let her breath out in a sigh. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” She lowered the gun again. “I’m standing in my house, holding a pistol, wondering why there’s glass on the floor if the window isn’t broken . . . and wondering why you disappeared. My house’s wards kept whoever that was out, but not you. My father isn’t here. You’re a daimon . . . and is that person-witch-daimon dead?”
For a moment, Kaleb looked very much like the sort of person who could calmly dispose of bodies—which could be because of their current circumstances or because of the blood on his jeans. This was not the boy she’d been falling for the past month or so. This was a daimon who had lied to her and misled her.
“You did just carry a man down the street, didn’t you?”
Kaleb sighed. “Yes.”
“Someone tried to break in, and the wards stopped him,” she said. She knew it. The proof was on her floor and on his jeans, but she wanted to hear the words too.
“Yes.”
“Is he—”
“Mallory,” Kaleb interrupted.
She looked at the window again. “You walked through the wards that killed him. The wards worked, but not on you.”
He turned his face away then, looking at the window or maybe through it into the street.
They stood silently for a moment, and then he asked, “Do you have a dustpan?”
Mallory followed his gaze back to the floor.
“A dustpan,” she repeated. “Someone just died, and the daimon in my house wants a dustpan. This is insane.” She walked away from him, trying not to notice the tiny pieces of glass that were embedded in the undersides of her slippers.
Mallory rummaged around in the kitchen until she found a dustpan and broom. The reality was that someone had tried to break into her home. It didn’t occur to her to call the police: her father’s injunction against letting strangers into the house included the police.
After handing the broom and dustpan to Kaleb, she picked up her cell phone. There still weren’t any messages—or missed calls. It was charged, but her father hadn’t called.
“Call him.”
“What?” Mallory looked down at Kaleb.
He didn’t meet her gaze. “Call Adam. Tell him whatever you want. We need to know if he’s safe or not, and if he is safe, he needs to know about this.”
Kaleb finished sweeping up the broken shards of glass and poured them into the trash while Mallory called her father’s cell phone, office phone, and then, when she had no answer on either of those, she called the building receptionist.
“Stoneleigh-Ross.”
“I’m trying to reach my dad . . . Adam Rothesay.”
“Mr. Rothesay didn’t come in today.”
“Are you sure?” Mallory sat down unsteadily. “Maybe—”
“I’m the only one on duty, dear, and I’d have noticed Mr. Rothesay if he had signed in, so yes, I’m sure. Hold on.” The sound of papers shuffling was all Mallory heard, and then the receptionist came back. “Some of the staff had an emergency. Perhaps he is with them. You should’ve had a call from the division coordinator if so.”
“I didn’t.”
The clacking of keys filled the pause, and then the receptionist said, “I’ve entered a note for an update call to be sent to this number. Is there anything else, Miss Rothesay?”
“No. Thank you.” Mallory disconnected. She kept the phone in her hand, but she wasn’t sure what to do next.
When Kaleb came to stand in front of her, she looked up at him, and she saw that he’d heard her side of the conversation with the receptionist. He said nothing, but he brushed her hair back.
She flinched away from his touch. “He’s not answering his cell phone, but the receptionist said there was an emergency. I guess they were to call me, but didn’t.”
Kaleb sat down next to her on the sofa. He didn’t put his arm around her, and she didn’t move closer to him. On the table in front of them was the gun that she’d held only moments prior.
“I’ll be here for you. Whatever it is, I’
ll be here. You can trust me.” He sat so stiffly that she wondered who the real Kaleb was: the one who casually carried a body away or the one she had first met. He seemed like two different people.
She glanced at him and wondered what sort of person disposed of bodies without question.
He’s a daimon, not a person.
Beside her, Kaleb looked at her expectantly, and when she said nothing, he stood. “I need to wash the blood out of these before it sets in.”
He was halfway down the hallway when she admitted, “I want to trust you.”
Kaleb stopped and turned back to face her. “I want that too, Mallory.”
CHAPTER 29
HE DIDN’T WANT TO be the one to tell her the truths Adam had hidden from her. More to the point, he wasn’t sure he could tell her without being cast out of her house, and unless Adam was here to keep her safe, Kaleb wasn’t about to say anything that would make her try to send him away. Of course, if Adam came home, there was no need to tell her anything yet.
At least until she finds out that she needs to leave this world.
Tonight’s events had a decidedly dampening effect on his brief fantasy of a life in which he could stay in the human world and get to know his new wife better. Aside from fight days, he had no reason to live in The City for the next year. He’d still need to go to The City occasionally to earn money to support himself and Zevi, but after he won the competition, he’d be highly sought after, so mask-work would pay more. He’d do a few jobs, exchange the coin for human money, and then he could stay mostly in this world. After the year, he’d have to take Mallory—and their child—to live near her father, but until such time, he’d thought they could remain here.
Assuming the witches don’t kill me. Kaleb wasn’t sure whether it was better for Adam to come home or to have vanished. Either way, there were more problems to resolve, and doing so without his wife’s trust was far more complicated than he’d like it to be.
He tugged off his jeans and stepped out of them. He only had a few articles of clothing, and he had no human currency to buy more clothes. That meant getting the blood out of his jeans so that he could wear them without attracting the kind of attention that blood spatter would. He turned on the water, looked down, and caught sight of the blood on the bottom hem of his shirt. He removed the shirt too. Jeans first. He could sleep without a shirt, but he wasn’t about to sleep in only his shorts. Not here.
“Is there a brush or sponge of some sort I can use?” Kaleb called through the door. “Mallory?” He waited for a moment, but when she didn’t reply, he repeated, “Mallory?”
Panicked at her silence, he yanked open the door to find her standing there. Hurriedly, he held his jeans in front of him and started to close the door.
She held out a sponge. “Here.”
“I didn’t hear you, and I worried—” He took the sponge. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . I . . .”
Mallory stared at him. “You’re sorry for . . . worrying? For carrying away that dead man so calmly? For what this time?”
“Not any of that.” He held his pants lower, blocking her view as best he could, and immediately felt ridiculous. He was a cur who had sold his body to earn money for food and shelter, not an inexperienced human boy, but Mallory made him feel different. He wanted what they had started to share to be special. He wanted all of the secrets to be already out and resolved so they could move forward—not because it would be better for a plan or for anything other than the simple fact that he wanted her to be happy.
“I love you,” he whispered.
He’d heard the words exchanged, but he hadn’t quite understood them the way he suddenly did. Her happiness mattered more than his; her well-being mattered more. He had already defied Haage and Adam, but Kaleb realized then that he would defy anyone if it kept her happier, if it meant she was protected. He said it again, louder this time. “I love you, Mallory.”
She stared at him. “What did you say?”
He stood in the house of a witch in the human world. He was bare-chested and barefoot, clutching a pair of damp jeans, and his wife was staring at him like he had just spoken to her in a new language. He repeated it again: “I love you.”
“No, you don’t.” She walked down the hallway.
He tugged his jeans back on and followed her to where she stood at the formerly broken window.
Without turning to face him, she said, “I’m upset, and maybe you’re just trying to make me feel better, but you don’t need to make crazy promises. You can’t love me. Love means knowing each other. It takes time, and . . . you don’t love me.”
“I do. I love you, and I’ll do anything I can to support you,” he promised. He wished he could tell her everything. He wanted to assure her that he’d always be there because they were legally wed, but that would open up a discussion about daimons, about laws, about the fact that she was something other than human—and none of that was going to help her trust him.
Mallory turned around then. “Tell me what he took. What are the daimons looking for? If they took him, maybe we can trade whatever he stole to get him back.”
“We don’t know that he was taken,” Kaleb pointed out.
She scowled. “If he wasn’t, he’s still in danger. So am I. The Watcher found me. You found me. Someone else tried to break in. I need to know what they want. You know, don’t you?”
“I’ll keep you safe, Mallory. For now, that’s the most important thing.”
“My father—”
“Might not be missing,” Kaleb finished. “You’re right about the threats, but that doesn’t mean he’s been taken.”
“If he was—”
“If he was taken, I’ll tell you everything I know, but Adam is already determined to keep me away from you, so let’s see if he returns before I spill his secret. Once we find him or he comes home, he can tell you what he stole.” Kaleb didn’t claim to understand the witch’s logic in stealing Marchosias’ daughter, but he was certain that Mallory had been safer here than she would’ve been in The City. And because of it, accessible to me. The reality was that she wouldn’t have been in his reach there. Maybe if he’d won the competition, she would’ve still been the prize, but he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure what she’d have been like then either. He’d tried to imagine her as a ruling-caste girl, as someone who had looked down on him—or worse still, as one of those who wanted him because of his propensity for violence.
Kaleb slid his hands down her arms, trying not to feel desperate when she flinched. “I know you care for me, Mallory. Trust yourself. Somewhere inside, you know you can trust me.”
She didn’t run, but she didn’t move closer either. “If he’s hurt, I don’t know what to do. If you help me find him, tell me what he took, help me negotiate with them if they do have him, I’ll . . . try to believe you.” She didn’t cry, but her eyes glistened with tears. “He’s not perfect, but he’s my father, my own family. He’s run from them for years, and even if they don’t have him, he’s in danger.”
Whether she realized it or not, Mallory had already made steps toward accepting him. In her words, she had separated him from “them”—the daimons who’d pursued her father. She’d asked for his help instead of lumping him in with other daimons.
Kaleb wanted to hold her, to ease her fears, and to promise that everything would be all right. He couldn’t do any of that—not yet. Kaleb didn’t want her to know what she was yet, didn’t want her to know how different their world was, didn’t want her to see him the way he was there. She was raised by witches to hate daimons. Even without that, he lived in a cave and killed for his coin. Mallory was so far removed from the world he knew that he couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing him that way before he had more of a chance to overcome her bias against daimons.
He gave her the only words he knew for sure he could offer. “You have my word, my vow, that I will help you find Adam and do everything in my power to find a way that he can stop running from th
e daimons he stole from. I will help you through this . . . and anything else that comes.”
Mallory turned away again to stare out the window. She folded her arms over her chest and kept her back to him, as if that would hide the tears he heard in her voice as she said, “Daimons aren’t to be trusted, and—”
“Are all witches the same?” he interrupted. “Are all humans? Why would all daimons be the same then? Some of us are horrible. There are those who would kill you, but I’m not one of them.”
She said nothing for several moments. The only sound was the soft sniffles of the tears she was barely trying to hide now. Finally, she said, “Dad said that the one person I can turn to is Evelyn, his sister, but she hates me.”
“She’s a witch,” Kaleb said.
Mallory nodded.
If Evelyn knew what Mallory was—and Kaleb suspected that she must if she was Adam’s sister—she probably hated Mallory for the same reason that she would hate Kaleb.
“You do have someone else to turn to. I’m here for you,” he promised again.
Her tears had evolved into shallow sobs, so much so that he couldn’t allow the pretense that he didn’t know she was crying.
He stepped closer to her. “If you didn’t know what I was, would you let me hold you?”
Mallory didn’t answer, so he pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. She trusted him despite what he was, despite her prejudices, and from that trust, they would build something strong. All he had to do first was find the witch she considered her father, survive his wrath, figure out how to be in the human world to keep Mallory safe, and in the midst of it all convince her that she wanted to marry him—without her discovering too soon that they already were wed.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, hoping desperately that he wasn’t lying to either of them.
CHAPTER 30
THE NEXT DAY ADAM still had not returned. Mallory stayed home to make phone calls while Kaleb went back to The City. If Adam was in the human world, the witches would be able to locate him; if he wasn’t in their world, he was either dead or in The City. Kaleb wasn’t sure if Marchosias would send someone to snatch Adam or not. Now that Mallory was Kaleb’s, Adam was just another witch. He had stolen from Marchosias, and it stood to reason that there would be consequences. The only way there wouldn’t be was if Marchosias decided not to alienate his daughter even further. Kaleb wasn’t sure what to think.