The Secret

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Yes,” Jaron said.

  “And he needs our help.”

  The angel’s face was blank.

  Ava asked, “Why should we help you?”

  “Volund masterminded the Rending,” Jaron said.

  A vein pulsed in Malachi’s forehead. “And you had nothing to do with it?”

  Jaron smoothed the hair back from his daughter’s face. “I didn’t stop it, but I refused to use my sons to participate. I knew the Irin would kill many of our children, even in a surprise attack. Volund and his allies didn’t agree. I suspect they had some deal with whatever Councilors had power at the time, though I hardly think the Irin knew the extent of his plans.”

  “You lie.”

  “Do I?” Jaron asked. “Are your elder scribes so incorruptible, son of Mikhael? Are they not hungry for power?”

  “We are not Fallen,” Malachi said.

  Jaron only smiled.

  “You didn’t participate in the Rending,” Ava said. “But you found me. You were looking for Fallen daughters in the human world. Why?”

  “After the Rending, I began to see a way I could use the loss of the Irina to usurp Volund’s power,” Jaron said. “He had grown very powerful.”

  Malachi said, “It wasn’t revenge for your daughter?”

  “I didn’t have a daughter then. I simply saw the females as an asset.”

  “How?”

  “The Irin had lost most of their women. The Fallen had women it didn’t want, some of whom still clung to their fathers out of loyalty. How better to gain power over our only adversaries in this world than by giving them the females they so desperately wanted? Females we could track. That we had influence over.”

  Ava’s stomach turned. “You were going to use them like cattle. Pawns for your political games.”

  “Yes.” Jaron’s expression was unapologetic. “I was well on the way to putting my plan in place—ferreting out the Grigora who had filtered into the human world—when my daughter was born.”

  “Did you change your mind about using them?”

  Jaron blinked. “No. I had no plans to use my daughter. She was to be protected.”

  Ava shook her head. Typical.

  “What about me?” she asked. “Did you plan to use me when I came to see you in Istanbul?”

  “You were unexpected. I had connections all over the world searching for women with Grigori traits, but I didn’t expect my own granddaughter to be one of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Your human guardians had always seemed quite protective. The fact that they let you travel surprised me.”

  “I used Jasper’s money. They really couldn’t control me after I got that.”

  “Ah.” A slight smile lifted the corner of the angel’s mouth. “And we come full circle. Volund’s son draws you into the game, no matter how much I try to avoid it.”

  “He’s your grandson too.”

  Jaron’s face grew cold. “He is an abomination. No one like him should exist. My daughter’s torment will not be repeated.”

  “Of course not,” Malachi said. “Because if you convince the Irin to take in the daughters of the Fallen, you know we’ll protect them. We may not be perfect, but we value our women. And we won’t let even the daughters of our enemies become victims.”

  Jaron cocked his head. “You’re very predictable. It’s useful.”

  “And to protect them, we’ll even help you kill Volund.”

  “He did mastermind the slaughter of your innocents.”

  “Volund needs to die,” Ava said, her eyes glued to the sleeping form in Jaron’s arms. “He has to. Not only for killing you and masterminding the Rending. When Volund dies, your daughter might finally live.”

  III.

  “WHAT NOW?” VASU WORE the face of a petulant child. Thin and black-haired, he kicked at the post that stood innocently on the sidewalk.

  Barak was walking along a curb, his arms held out for balance. That morning, he wore the face of a French schoolboy, waiting at the bus stop. “He’s told them everything.”

  “What will they do?”

  Barak shrugged his small shoulders. “They’re flying to Vienna now.”

  Vasu scowled impatiently and a car traveling the road near them swerved on the icy road.

  “Well, what can we make them do?”

  “Nothing,” Barak said. “They are not our children. They have free will.”

  “That was the Creator’s mistake, giving the Forgiven’s children free will. What was he thinking?”

  Drifts of snow began to fall on the dirty sidewalk. Barak lifted his head to the sky and opened his mouth to catch one.

  “Gifts given freely are more precious,” Barak said, staring into the cloudy winter sky. “And our children are capable of love.”

  Vasu watched a girl walking along the sidewalk across the street. She hurried, perhaps late for school. Her breath fogged in the morning air.

  “What are we capable of?” Vasu said.

  “Watching,” Barak answered him as he stopped his movements to follow the girl with his eyes. “Waiting.”

  The car took the corner too fast. Barak heard the driver’s panicked thoughts when he spotted the little girl in the bright green coat. She wasn’t looking at the road. Hadn’t noticed the ice. She was a child. She was thinking about her mathematics test.

  The two boys watched impassively as the car spun in the road and jumped the sidewalk, crushing the little girl beneath its wheels in a sickeningly quiet thump. Shopkeepers rushed out of their buildings, crying and screaming. One wrenched the driver’s door open. The human was pale and shaking.

  “We watch and wait,” Barak said.

  Silently, Vasu crossed the street, stepping between the cars that had halted in the road. His hands were shoved in his pockets. Nobody noticed the solemn-faced boy in the grey coat as he crouched down next to the wheels of the car and reached out.

  The little girl in the green coat smiled at him and took his hand. Standing next to Vasu, she watched the crowd with a small worried frown until the dark-haired boy tugged her hand. Then the two children walked up the sidewalk, Vasu holding her hand as old women cried over the dead child’s body and sirens started to wail.

  “And some of us still serve,” Barak whispered as his eyes followed the archangel wearing the face of a child.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MALACHI CLOSED HIS EYES and dreamed of Constantinople.

  Cobbled walkways under his feet as he strode the paths his ancestors had followed. Sun-warmed stone and the smell of the river in his nose. The familiar streets were a comforting respite from the tumult of his waking hours.

  Ava reached out and took his hand.

  “Where are we?”

  “When,” he said, taking a deep breath and pulling her to his side. The heady scent of the spice market teased his senses. “When are we? These are my memories, canım. This is Constantinople when I was young.”

  Malachi heard the echo of horses clopping on the streets and vendors calling to bargain, but they were alone in the streets of the city he’d loved as a young man. The city where he’d met her.

  “We’re dreaming,” Ava said, her face spreading into a smile. “We’re in your dream instead of mine.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I like it.” She ran her fingers along the carvings of a wall as they passed, and Malachi could see the ancient words rise beneath her fingers like shadows reaching for long-dead eyes. “No, I love it. Your dreams are so much clearer than mine.”

  “I don’t feel him here.”

  “Jaron? No.” She turned and brushed a kiss on his cheek. “I like the privacy.”

  “So do I.”

  They walked for a while longer, enjoying the empty streets where the voices of long-dead residents clamored. He hadn’t known dreams could be like this. It felt lighter. Brighter. Like a pleasant memory they could enjoy together.

  “When this is finished,” she said, “I want to come
back here.”

  “To Constantinople?”

  “Istanbul, remember? They changed the name a while ago, old man.”

  “So they did.” He pinched her side and felt her squirm as she laughed, her body as real to his hands as if they were awake on the plane heading to Vienna.

  “Why do you think we’re in your dream and not mine?”

  “Maybe because I’m remembering more.”

  “Are you?” She pulled him to a park bench along the Hippodrome, and Malachi heard the echo of wings as pigeons took flight. She pushed him down, then straddled his lap and faced him.

  “What do you have in mind, reshon?”

  Her words came shyly. “I want to sing to you again.”

  “Yes, please.”

  He waited, eyes closed in the sunlight as his mate put her hands on his cheeks and began a tentative song. It was an old poem he remembered his mother singing when she wanted to center herself. A focusing ritual before more complicated magic was sung.

  “Relax,” she whispered in English before she began the halting words.

  Malachi resisted the impulse to correct her pronunciation as she sung the spell. He wouldn’t interfere until something became dangerous.

  Before, Ava had commanded him, a heady, forceful magic intoxicating to the senses. This time she coaxed. The words were lighter, more playful. A sunny, teasing spell that made him want to smile. Even the burn of the talesm on his shoulder and collarbone felt more like a tickle than a knife.

  “Ava.” He hummed her name when her lips tickled his ear. His hands smoothed over the curve of her hips, up her sides, and wrapped around her shoulders, drawing her body into his. Overhead, he heard the flap of bird wings again, but nothing in the sunny dream could distract him from the desire that coursed under his skin.

  “Sir.”

  “Don’t stop,” he whispered into Ava’s ear as her song died down.

  “Sir, I’m afraid you have to stop.”

  That wasn’t his mate’s voice.

  He came awake with a start, the disapproving flight attendant staring down at him and trying to block the view of the other passengers.

  “Really, sir, if I wasn’t sure you were sleeping…”

  Malachi realized his hand was up Ava’s shirt, her body splayed over his as they reclined in the airplane seats. Ava was still asleep, her hand heading in a southern direction as his headed north under her sweater. Though they had a blanket thrown over them, he realized they must have been giving the other passengers quite a show.

  Slowly, he drew his hand away and nudged Ava over into her seat, ignoring her sleepy protests.

  “I do apologize,” he muttered.

  The flight attendant took an impatient breath and opened her mouth—no doubt to offer some other warning—when her eyes widened in alarm. “Are you well?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your chest. What happened?” She pointed down and Malachi caught the edge of blood welling up through the fabric of his collared shirt. “Do you need a doctor?”

  “I’m fine.” He reached for the scarf he’d shoved in Ava’s purse. “I apologize. It is an old cut that must have opened as I moved. I’m quite all right.”

  “Malachi?” Ava blinked her eyes open. “Where are—” She saw the bleeding. “Oh, babe. I’m so sorry. Does it hurt?”

  She sat up, and then Malachi had to deal with two females fussing over him.

  “I’m fine,” he protested. “It’s nothing.”

  Luckily, the bleeding from his reformed talesm distracted the formerly annoyed attendant. She rushed away to retrieve some first aid supplies while Malachi tried to calm his body’s natural reaction to the rush of magic and endorphins his mate had produced.

  Ava must have caught the tent in his pants, because he saw her hiding a smile.

  “You are in so much trouble when we land,” he muttered.

  “I’d apologize, but—”

  “Don’t.” His command was hoarse. “Never apologize for that.”

  Her smile was wicked. “You may come to regret telling me that.”

  “Just as long as I come.”

  Her eyes widened. “Someone’s in a mood.”

  Malachi growled and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her in for a brief kiss. “I want to disappear somewhere with you, not go to Vienna.”

  Her smile fell. “Me too.”

  “If we go back to sleep, do you think we can avoid the whole mess?”

  “Probably not. And we might get in trouble with the flight attendant.”

  “Damn.”

  THEY landed in the early evening; the sun had already set. Luckily, taxis weren’t difficult to find. Rhys had e-mailed Ava an address near Judenplatz, within the Innere Stadt, the oldest part of the city. They would be within walking distance of the Library that served as the council chambers, but far enough away to afford privacy. They’d also be near St. Rupert’s Church, one of the few places in Vienna Malachi felt didn’t drip with ostentation.

  “Has Damien told anyone about me yet?” she asked as they waited in the taxi queue. “Or about us?”

  Malachi shook his head. “He’s been trying to meet with different elders every day but isn’t having much success. While Sari’s presence in the city has caused some speculation, the Irina question is still being debated. The council is still treating the battle in Oslo as an isolated incident. And since so many of Volund’s Grigori were killed, they consider it a victory.”

  Ava’s mouth dropped open, but a car was pulling up. Malachi grabbed her hand and walked toward it.

  He helped her into the taxi and loaded their luggage in back, happy that his mate packed with the economy of a seasoned traveler.

  She’d already given the driver the address by the time he closed the door and settled into the cab.

  “Volund wasn’t even in Oslo,” she whispered, well aware that most taxi drivers in the city would speak English.

  “I know that,” he said just as quietly. “But Brage was. And he was taken out. As Volund’s oldest and most feared child, the council considers that a victory. Remember, they don’t target the Fallen. In all my time as a soldier, I only remember hunting one angel. Grigori? Hundreds. But the Fallen are out of our reach. Of course, I don’t remember everything, so don’t take that as a complete picture.”

  “That’s just…” She sputtered and shook her head.

  Malachi could hardly argue with her. Underestimating the Grigori threat was ridiculous. And yet he was unsurprised that Damien hadn’t found success. Watchers had been pleading for years to take a more aggressive stance against the Fallen, but it was a difficult argument in a city that hadn’t seen a Grigori attack in centuries.

  Now Jaron wanted Irin help to take out Volund. How he expected Malachi and Ava to convince the council of that was still a mystery.

  Malachi was desperate for his memories. Without them, he was playing this game in the dark. He tried not to take his frustration out on Ava. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t remember. And he still worried about pressuring her into the mating ritual. Though it would make him stronger, it could weaken her, and that was the last thing he wanted.

  The fear of losing her was his biggest weakness.

  Ava fell asleep on his shoulder just as they reached the Ringstraße. The days of scattershot travel around the continent had worn her out. He was tired as well, but he’d not be able to relax until he had his mate safe and was reassured that no harm would come to him while he rested. Their unpredictable travel had allowed them to remain anonymous for weeks. But now they were in Vienna. It was a spiderweb of politics, and a man only had to touch one wrong thread to attract dangerous attention from the wrong eyes.

  THE next morning, they were lying in bed and Malachi was dozing in the grey dawn. The flat Rhys had let for them was small and tucked into a quiet corner of the neighborhood, away from the more lively restaurants and bars. He’d heard the crowds when he helped Ava to bed the night before, but the noise died
down quickly. That morning, the only sounds that met his ears were the street sweepers and dog walkers below. The smell of coffee and bread drifted on the air, and his mate was curled safely into his side.

  He was as content as he could be. Malachi had no idea whether Ava had traveled to Vienna before. She seemed to speak of more rural locations than urban, which would make sense with her previous inability to avoid the voices of the humans around her. As he lay there, smelling the bread and roasting beans from the kaffeehaus down the street, a few pleasant childhood memories intruded.

  The first visit with his father to the Library where the elders met, the gallery above crowded as scribes clustered to observe the quiet work of their elders below. A tour of the archives that held the wealth of Irin history within its plain walls. Hearing his mother sing a story at the house of a friend, the walls echoing with laughter.

  His mother had loved Vienna.

  Perhaps they would have a few days to explore before Damien and Sari drew them into political maneuverings.

  Probably not.

  “Malachi?” Ava whispered.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “A little.”

  Ava’s body didn’t know what time it was. She’d woken after midnight, greedy for him. They’d made love with quiet intensity. She’d muffled her cries of pleasure in his shoulder, then fallen quickly back to sleep with his scent on her skin.

  “I was thinking.”

  Malachi twisted a strand of hair around his finger. “Tell me, canım.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about my grandmother.”

  It was the first time she’d mentioned it since France. Malachi had tried not to bring it up. He’d come to learn she needed her silence. She’d speak to him when she was ready.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She took a deep breath. “Seeing her was like a vision of all my worst fears made real.”

  Her power still frightened her. Ava had spent the majority of her life fearing her own mind, constantly questioning her perceptions. If she was ever to fully access her power, she would have to accept it, but accepting it meant not hiding from the darkness inherent in her nature.