“Why, so you can have her?” Conah’s tone was bitter.

“Fucking hell, you have it bad, don’t you? Does Kiara know how you feel? It’s only a matter of time until she figures it out.”

I could hear them perfectly. How thin were these doors? No, wait. The door was solid. It was my hearing. My senses were sharper. Eavesdropping had never been my thing. Okay, so it totally was, and I wasn’t even ashamed as I tuned back in to listen.

“I won’t hurt her,” Conah said. “Kiara is important to me.”

“Is that why you almost had your tongue down our delectable Dominus’s throat a moment ago?”

Silence.

“Oh, fuck,” Mal said softly. “You don’t love her, do you? Does she know?”

“I do love her,” Conah said. “She’s my soulmate.”

“Uh-huh, and what would you have done if I hadn’t interrupted you just now?”

“She pulled away. Nothing happened.”

“At least she has the decency to back off. Fucking hell, brother. You’re the key to peace. You fuck this up, and there will be war.”

“I know. I won’t. I’ll stay away.”

“You fucking better. We don’t know what effect another trauma could have on her.”

Huh? Were they talking about Kiara or me?

“She’s not broken,” Conah said. “She’s the strongest woman I know.”

“Oh, boy.” Mal sounded disgusted. “Pull your shit together, tuck your dick into your pants, and man the fuck up.”

Fuck, he was headed this way. I turned and ran.

I made it back to the courtyard before him, but I was still breathing heavily when he joined me.

He looked at me strangely.

I made a meh face. “I did a couple of laps.”

He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

“I want to say bye to the children first.”

“Luena has made it clear you’re not to spend time with the demon spawn.”

My heart sank. “Mal, they need me.”

“No, Fee, they don’t. This is the way we do things, and you need to fall in line or stay away. The reapers aren’t simply soul collectors. We are Lilith’s army. We’ve seen many wars, and any peace is always tentative and temporary. This works, so leave it be.”

Just because it worked didn’t mean there wasn’t a better way of doing things. I opened my mouth to say as much, but Mal held up his hand.

“Enough, Fee. You have a fucking job to do. How about you focus on that, eh?”

Once again, shame stung my cheeks. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms stiffly around his neck.

“Let’s go.”

My body was tense, thrumming with frustration. His sigh echoed through me, and then he wrapped his arms around me and held me. My brain froze, and for a moment, I didn’t comprehend what he was doing.

And then the reality of this moment filtered into my shocked brain. Mal, arrogant, cocky, loved-himself Mal, was hugging me.

He was hugging me, and I had no idea what to do with that.

Chapter Four

Neither of us spoke on the way to the human realm. It was that time of the week where I checked in on the house. The house I’d bought outright. The one that I’d paid Lucas wads of money for so I could keep.

The house had been unlived in all month, and it would probably remain that way because Mal had been right about life never being the same again for me.

The fact that my life was linked to Lilith’s wellbeing, which in turn was linked to Azazel being successful at keeping me breathing, meant that living in the human realm held too many risks for me.

The human realm was where the Dread spent most of their time. It was where the vampires that could wound and weaken me, and the mouths that could tear me to shreds hid out. I was stronger than before, faster, and I could throw a great punch, but I wasn’t up to par with the Dominus. Not yet. But I was determined to get there.

In the meantime, this house would have to be rented out.

The first set of prospective tenants stood on the doorstep as Mal and I approached the gate. Wait a second … The guy looked familiar.

Lucas turned to glare at me from the porch steps. “Hello, Fee.”

Oh, shit. “What are you doing here, Lucas. You got your money.”

“You think this is about the money?” he asked.

“I doubt you came for a social visit. What do you want?”

“The house. This house. I backed off because I thought you loved it, that you were going to raise a family in it, but imagine my horror when I saw it up for rent.”

He’d booked the viewing appointment? I grit my teeth to stem a curse. “You didn’t back off, Lucas. You were offered a buyout, and you took it. And whether I rent out the house or live in it is none of your fucking business.”

“It is when you’re making money off it,” Melody said.

Lucas shot her a look of reproach.

She paled and took a step back.

He was pissed off that he’d been paid only enough to put a down payment on a house, a huge down payment, but he probably still had a hefty mortgage to pay. Whereas I didn’t. I owned this house outright now, and any rent was more money in my pocket. Not that I needed it. Conah had shown me the Dominus bank account. All the fucking zeros.

“You owe me, Fee,” Lucas said. “You owe me for being the one that wasn’t adopted. You owe me for the years I spent struggling.”

His words were a slap in the face. Aunt Lara had decided against adopting him because of me. Because she’d thought Lucas and I would become a couple. Was this my fault? If I hadn’t loved him, would Aunt Lara have adopted him? Would things have turned out differently for him?

Mal pressed a hand to the small of my back and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “What do you really believe, Fee? Tell him what you really believe.”

Lucas’s gaze flitted to Mal for the first time. He frowned as if he wasn’t sure where Mal had come from.

“Different guy,” Melody confirmed smugly. “The other one was blond with blue eyes and pouty lips.”

Someone had paid close attention.

Lucas snorted. “What happened? Did the other guy dump you?”

Anger swirled in my chest and stole my voice as I struggled to hold it in check.

“No,” Mal answered for me. “She upgraded.” He smiled amiably. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, sweetheart?” He looked from Melody to Lucas and shrugged. “Some of us get the crème de la crème while others sip from the sewer.”

Lucas’s lips turned down. “Listen here, mate—”

“I’m not your bloody mate.” Mal’s tone dropped, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention.

I may not want to lose my temper, but I doubted Mal had any qualms about unleashing his wrath.

I stepped between the two guys. “Please, just leave, Lucas. You have your money, and the rest isn’t my problem. Aunt Lara was her own boss, and her decisions were hers alone.”

“Was it her decision to crash the car?” Lucas asked.

Ice rushed through my veins. Had he really just brought that up? If I hadn’t already made peace with Aunt Lara, then maybe his words would have provoked a different reaction from me, but unluckily for him, all he elicited was pure unadulterated rage. It swelled inside me, pushing against my skin and burning out of my eyes to sear him with a glare that had him taking a physical step away from me.

“You and I are done.” My voice shook with rage. “Don’t come here again, Lucas. If you do, I won’t be responsible for my actions. Do you hear me?”

My hold on the rage had slipped, and it now wanted out. A red haze tinged the edges of my vision. My breath came faster. Shit. I was going to lose it.

“Go!” I snapped.

Lucas looked like he wanted to argue, to stand his ground, but his fiancée had more sense. Her face paled. She grabbed his arm and tugged him down the steps and out of the gate, giving Mal and me a wide berth.

I took deep breaths. It should be retreating now. Calming down, but the rage was spiraling upward, ready to explode.

“Mal …” My voice was a rasp.

“Fuck.” He grabbed my shoulders, turned me to him, and then pressed his lips to mine.

The rage faltered as a new kind of heat began to bloom in its place. Mal kissed my top lip, and then my bottom lip. He licked the seam of my mouth, urging me to part my lips.

“You don’t want to be pissed off, Fee. You want to kiss me.” His voice was a low thrum that vibrated through me, settling at my core.

Anger still simmering in my veins, I grasped his shirt and tugged him close. I parted my mouth to accept his tongue, to wrestle it with mine, to nip and bite and suck on his full bottom lip. He wasn’t manipulating me. My shields were up. This was all me, and damn, it felt fucking good.

I channeled my anger into that kiss, into bruising and claiming, and gradually, increment by increment, the rage leeched from my blood, and my body relaxed against him. The kiss softened and morphed into something all too intimate. The devouring melted to savoring and tasting. My pulse grew sluggish. My head grew light, and my stomach filled with moths. What the—

I pulled back sharply and covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry.”

Mal’s expression was dazed, his eyes pools of forbidden desire. He swept his tongue across his bottom lip, licking away a droplet of blood. Had I done that? Had I bitten him? I tasted the copper in my mouth.

Yep. I totally had.

We stood face to face. A foot apart. Both breathing unevenly.

I didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t mean to …”

He was the first to recover. “No worries,” he said. “Feeling better?”

The rage was gone, but my body was in an altogether different state of high alert now, the kind that involved a bed and nakedness.

A slow clap interrupted the moment.

I stared at the teenager in the beanie hat standing on the opposite side of the street.