The truth reaches out and slaps me in the face. “You want to share me for more than just blood.”
He holds my gaze. “Wolf and I fuck, Mina. We have since we were teenagers.”
I don’t ask how long ago that was. The bloodlines have been dying out for a very long time. Malachi could be a hundred years old, or he could be five hundred. The gap between us already feels miles long without adding age to it.
I try to think, try to understand what he’s saying and not saying. “So you’re going to keep fucking Wolf, but you want to fuck me, too, and you’d be into me also fucking Wolf,” I say slowly.
“More or less.”
“I—”
“You don’t need to say anything now.” He releases me, and despite the fact he’s still pressed against me, I feel unmoored. “I just wanted to clarify where things stand.”
“Are you going to fuck him tonight?” The question pops out before I can think too closely about why I want to know.
Malachi carefully lifts me and sets me back to my place on the couch. “That’ll depend on what Wolf has to say when I talk to him later.”
That wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either. Something like jealousy flickers to life in my chest, even if it’s a foolish emotion I have no right to. Malachi isn’t mine. I didn’t choose him. Even if I did, Wolf has a claim which precedes my birth, let alone this week.
It’s too much. I don’t know what to think, what to feel. “Oh.”
He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “No matter what Wolf acts like, he won’t touch you without permission.”
“Permission from you,” I say bitterly.
Malachi snorts. “How quickly you forget you told him to bite you, little dhampir.” When I open my mouth to protest, he beats me there. “It doesn’t matter why you did it. The fact remains that you did, and so he bit you. If you hadn’t, he would have backed off.”
It seems to defy belief. “He had me pinned to the couch.”
“Mmm.” He looks at the fire. “It changes nothing. Wolf will manipulate if it suits his purposes, though, so if you don’t want him to fuck you, be careful what you say when his fangs are inside you.”
This conversation has taken too many strange turns for me to keep up. I study his profile. “And if I have sex with him?”
Malachi meets my gaze. “Someday, you’ll believe I’m not your father. I have no desire to own you, Mina.” His hand snakes out and he grasps my chin. “I simply want you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
I don’t know why I’m so determined to push him, to shove my way through his carefully cool exterior, but I can’t seem to stop. I lean into his grip on my chin. “And what happens if Wolf knocks me up, Malachi? If he gets there first because you’re too busy being noble to take what you want?”
His eyes flare and I hear the fire hiss behind me. “Do you want me to fuck you, little dhampir? All you have to do is ask. All you’ve ever had to do is ask.” He leans forward, easily holding me immobile. “But you do have to ask. We started things poorly, and I’m not interested in playing the part of marauding beast any longer. If we do this, it’s because you’re choosing it, not because I forced the issue. Until you’re ready to admit that, it’s not happening.”
Damn him. That’s exactly what I’m not quite ready to admit. No matter how much I hate it, it’s easier to pretend I don’t have a choice. How else am I supposed to hold onto my rage, the only thing that’s kept me alive this long?
To avoid answering, I say, “You really were starving when I got here, weren’t you?”
“Vampires can’t starve to death.”
No, they just turn into dried out corpses without blood. It’s one of my father’s favorite ways to punish the vampires that cross him. When I was ten, he freed one that had been locked up for nearly a hundred years. I had nightmares for weeks. “Not to death, no, but you can starve.”
Malachi looks away. “My condition makes no excuse for attacking you.”
Maybe not, but it creates a bridge of understanding I’m not sure I wanted. If Malachi is trapped here with a blood ward, he’s entirely reliant on my father for blood. The last sacrifice was sent before I was born. Even if she lasted a few years, when I showed up Malachi had gone without blood for at least twenty years. The fact he had the restraint not to drink me dry, to try to prepare me for what was coming, is a little astounding when taken with that perspective.
He strokes my bottom lip with his thumb and drops his hand almost reluctantly. “Go to bed, Mina.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask him to fuck me. I want it. I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t. I might even like this vampire, though it seems impossible to wrap my mind around. But in the end, I can’t speak the words that will unlock us from this stalemate.
I climb to my feet on shaky legs. “Goodnight, Malachi.”
“Goodnight, Mina.”
9
I can’t sleep. I should have known it was a lost cause before even trying, but hope springs eternal. Even now. I can’t stop thinking about all the new information this night brought, trying to puzzle through it to figure out what’s true and what’s manipulation. The possibility it might all be true is…
I don’t know what to think.
Even though I know I should stay in the relative safety of my room, eventually my rushing thoughts demand movement. If I can just work off some of this frantically circling energy, then maybe something will make sense.
Or that’s what I tell myself as I pad barefoot down the hallway. Dawn already lightens the horizon, another night having passed with us at a standstill. I press my forehead to the thick glass of the window and breathe slowly. The coolness does nothing to douse my thoughts, my feelings.
I want Malachi.
It takes so much to admit that truth to myself. I don’t like it. It’s inconvenient and messy, but it is the truth. I meant what I said before—there is no way for this thing between us to play out that doesn’t end in heartbreak. It’s an impossible situation.
But then, my entire life is an impossible situation. I’ve had no choice, no recourse, nothing that was mine and mine alone. Every single thing I’ve done is a reaction with the intent to survive.
What if I simply… said yes? Took what Malachi is offering? Took my chances with this small slice of pleasure?
I lift my head and sigh. I’m looking for an excuse to fuck him. Maybe I just need to stop trying to reason my way through it and simply do it.
I don’t make the decision to head for the stairs. My body simply moves on its own, each step taking me closer to Malachi’s bedroom on the third floor. Am I really going to do this? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
A sound cuts through my inner turmoil. A soft grunt. I stop short. It almost sounds like someone’s in pain, but even without much personal experience with it, I know what fucking sounds like. I should turn around. Should take the humiliation heating my cheeks and let it increase the distance between me and Malachi’s room.