Chapter Fifty-Three
Malek wasted no time in taking what he’d decided he would claim the moment he’d laid eyes on Angela Clemens. She’d been fighting a werewolf at the time, pulled in on the same job every available warden was assigned to. The prison break in the Unseelie Realm that had caused the commotion in the first place was his doing.
He’d done it for her. For two reasons.
He’d needed the Terror to do his bidding. And he’d wanted to get closer, wanted to know more about her. And it worked.
Now he pulled her precious, rare blood out of her body and into his with barely measured impatience, but as he did, it dawned on him what he’d done.
He realized his mistake.
No, he thought, and now it was his turn to tremble in fear and desperation. How could he have been wrong? She felt so good in his arms, and she tasted exquisite. A healer’s blood now flowed through his own veins; it was absolute bliss.
But with the added boon that coursed through him like liquid happiness came torment. For despite the blood, despite Angel’s defiance and ultimate surrender, despite her immense inner beauty and strength … she was not the one. She was not his Kindred.
Only the Storyteller could be so cruel.
With immeasurable control, Lord Malek Taal allowed his small captive to experience the release he had so cruelly kept from her. She shook in the cage of his embrace as it moved over her, and he held her tight so he could feel it too. It really was a kind of ecstasy for him, even though it was all hers.
Then, very carefully, he withdrew his teeth from her throat and used his magic to heal the wounds. She collapsed against his chest, her eyelids fluttering, her body going limp as she passed into unconsciousness. She was utterly and completely spent, and he was to blame.
“Forgive me, little warrior. I will make this right.”
Without hesitation, he sank his fangs into his own wrist, opening an ancient and powerful vein. He hadn’t taken enough of her blood to force a Taal turning, so it wouldn’t matter if she tasted him. His blood would simply heal her, refuel her, and return to her some of the strength he had so selfishly stolen.
It was the least he could do for her.
Malek hated himself in that moment as he raised his wrist to her lips and willed her to swallow. He watched her throat work and wondered what his blood felt like to humans. He’d never had occasion to learn.
Angel had taken several swallows from him when Malek sensed the cavalry coming. He exhaled through his nose in irritation and lowered his arm. The wound healed at once.
He’d known it would only be a matter of time before they made their appearances. Allowing the two Monsters members to live when he’d finished with them all but ensured that Cain would find him eventually. But it didn’t make the intrusion any less annoying.
Malek gently lowered Angel to the ground and stood up. But he’d barely gotten to his feet when more than a dozen different portals sliced through the sanctity of his very warded chamber, depositing Monsters in his midst.
The men stood silently in a circle around Malek as their individual portals vanished behind them. All thirteen of them were there. Surrounding him.
Cain’s presence was the one that drew Malek’s attention first. He slowly turned to face the leader of the Monsters clan, whose very old eyes were glowing a very powerful blue. “Cain,” Malek greeted. “It’s been far too long.”
“Agreed,” said Cain, whose gaze slipped to the sleeping woman on the ground at Malek’s feet. “If I’d come sooner, perhaps this could have been avoided.”
Malek could feel the fury of twelve inhuman males directed at him just then. Despite the number of years he’d lived, he had to admit it was an unfamiliar sensation. Not since the Goblin Wars had he felt so much offensive magic, so much raw power held at bay, ready to be unleashed upon him. But one man’s anger was considerably hotter and sharper than that of the others.
And as Malek slowly turned to face Jacob Crow’s starkly glowing green eyes in the darkness to his right, he wondered whether it might have been a very big mistake after all to leave the man alive.
Believe me when I tell you that you made the right choice, Malek. Cain’s voice sounded in Malek’s head. The Taal king raised his chin in stark admiration. The Monsters leader had never actually spoken in his mind before. It took not only tremendous strength, but tremendous audacity to do so. Cain was showing him the slightest glimpse of the true depths of the man’s power.
Malek, right now it’s only the fact that Crow is my second that keeps him from attacking you outright. And it’s only due to Caliban’s edict that we hold back here tonight. The Unseelie King wants to deal with this himself. Otherwise we would settle this here and now, Cain mentally explained. It wasn’t a threat, nor was it some kind of dark promise. Cain was simply telling it like it was. He made the situation very clear.
As it is, he went on, I had to promise Crow that if Angel was harmed in any way, I wouldn’t stop him from setting things right. And every man here would back him up.
Malek continued to study Crow in silence. The vampire had strong generational magic in his veins. It had taken a very expensive spell cast on expensive bullets to get anywhere near the man’s mind. And then holding it hadn’t been easy. There were a few times when Malek had felt Crow nearly break free of his influence. Which was highly impressive. No one had escaped Malek Taal before.
All in all, he was fairly certain the vampire could not single-handedly destroy him… but then again, love makes a man do crazy things. And Malek was sure Cain was right; Jake would also have the help of every Monster here.
She means that much to him, Malek mused.
She means that much to all of us, Cain told him. “She’s one of us, Malek,” he said aloud, probably for the benefit of everyone there. “Know that as of this moment, Angela Clemens and everyone she cares for is officially under the protection of the Monsters.” He waited a moment before he lowered his head, and his fierce blue gaze pierced through the darkness to strike Malek deep. “You know what that means.”
Malek Taal took a deep breath. When he let it out, he nodded and stepped back, putting distance between himself and Angel’s sleeping form. “I do.”
It didn’t matter anyway. Angel hadn’t been the one for him. Somewhere out there, his soul mate yet waited. He had no idea how to find her, where to even start. But tonight was not a night for further advances. Instead, it was a night for making amends.
He continued to watch Crow, knowing full well the greatest danger was from him. The vampire’s hands were loose at his sides. There were no clenched fists, no bared fangs. All of Crow’s rage was internal. Malek knew enough about that kind of seething, male dominant wrath to recognize that Crow was exercising impossible restraint. The vampire was probably tearing Malek apart six ways to Sunday on the movie screens of his mind.
So he addressed Crow specifically when he spoke next. After all, this concerned him directly. “Angel is completely unharmed,” Malek told him. “She only sleeps, in fact. I know I will most likely never fully rectify what has transpired tonight. But I’m going to try anyway, and in a show of good faith, I am going to tell you something, Crow.”
Now Jacob Crow smiled. The smile was very slow, it was very dark, and it actually brought Malek up short. Crow took an equally slow step forward, breaking the circle to gradually approach the Taal king.
“Oh yeah?” the vampire asked softly, so softly. There was ice in his voice. It crackled frostily on the edges of his words. “What’s that?” Crow quietly asked as if he were terribly amused. Malek stared into those piercing green irises and was certain he knew what Crow was thinking right about then. It was most likely along the lines of, … Because nothing you could say to me, Malek Taal, will ever change how I feel about you. If it weren’t for the Unseelie King’s hand in this pot, I would flay you alive for touching her. Or die trying.
So Malek got right down to it. “I’m not your enemy, Crow. I mean Angel no harm. But heed me now.”
The shadows in the room stretched, his magic at work on them on an unconscious level as he prepared to divulge his secret. He could sense that the other Monsters members noticed the change – a thickening of the magic in the air. But Crow never broke eye contact with Malek. In fact, the man never even blinked. There was more rage in the man’s veins at the moment than blood.
“But she is not safe. For there is another who very much does.” He lowered both his head and his tone and the realm grew very quiet as he delivered his final and crucial bit of information. “And it isn’t who you think.”
Then Malek wordlessly called forth his magic – and transported away – leaving thirteen Monsters and one dreaming warden behind in the shadows of his chamber.