“Why do you care, Scribe? She’s the daughter of your enemy.”
Malachi ignored the taunt and knelt down next to Ava, his eyes on the trembling woman in Jaron’s arms.
“I have seen trauma like this before, Jaron, usually on the faces of Grigori victims. Who hurt this woman?”
Ava reached for his hand, strangely comforted by the anger in her mate’s voice. The thought of someone hurting a stranger might not have roused another man’s protective instincts, but Malachi wasn’t other men. Even the daughter of a Fallen angel was someone to be protected.
He brushed a kiss over her temple and waited for Jaron to answer.
Jaron said, “Yes, she has been hurt. In ways you cannot imagine.”
Her grandmother—it was hard to think of her as a grandmother when she looked the same age as Ava—twisted in her father’s arms. Her mouth opened in a wordless groan.
“Who hurt her?” Malachi asked.
Jaron raised his eyes to meet hers, and Ava saw the truth in the rage and betrayal in his gaze.
“It was one of the Fallen,” she said. “One of the others. Who else would be able to hurt your daughter?”
The angel nodded and let out a heavy breath, more human in that moment than Ava had ever seen him. “Unlike my brothers, I doted on my daughter with no thought of hiding it. I’d only ever had sons, then after she was born… I indulged her. She was quite spoiled.”
Her grandmother’s features twisted in pain before Jaron put a hand on her forehead and she settled again.
“Her mother was a lover I held in some regard. Atefah was descended from royalty. Beautiful. Spirited. A worthy lover for me. She survived the birth, mostly because I forced her to let my older sons care for their new sister. No princess was ever more pampered. Unfortunately, Ava’s mother did not survive a second child. She died giving birth to a son.”
“Did you love her?” Ava asked.
“Love?” Jaron frowned. “No. The Fallen are not capable of love. Atefah loved me. Quite desperately. I should have sent her away, but Ava was attached to her mother. So she stayed and died, along with the child. She was the last human lover I took and the only one who gave me a daughter.”
“And that’s why you care about Ava,” Malachi said. “You may not call it love, Fallen, but I can see your regard.”
“As others did,” Jaron said grimly. “It was my own failing. Ava was the first being in thousands of years I held some… affection for. She amused me. If I have a personality in this realm, she reflected it. Perhaps that is why I care for her still.” He looked up with sardonic eyes. “Everything is vanity, after all.”
Vanity, maybe, but Jaron appeared to be fiercely protective. What idiot would have risked his wrath to hurt her?
“Volund,” Jaron said, reading her frown.
Ava’s eyes grew wide. “Volund?”
Jaron’s daughter jerked in his arms.
Malachi picked up the connection immediately. “This is because of your damned rivalry? That was why he targeted my Ava. Why he killed me.”
“It’s about power.” The gold fire in Jaron’s eyes was a banked rage. “Everything is about power in our world. Volund was expanding his territory. He had eliminated his competition in Northern Europe. My allies. He had ambitions to hurt me, though I was a far more difficult target. He hurt my daughter to make a point. She was nothing more to him than a political maneuver.”
“I don’t believe you.” Malachi’s voice was low. “This was more than political.”
“Perhaps it is more correct to say it began as a political move.” Jaron’s hand tightened on his daughter’s back. “But he became… curious.”
A knot formed at the pit of Ava’s stomach.
Malachi asked, “About?”
“It was the Irin who gave him the idea.”
“What idea?”
Jaron shook his head. “Volund—”
“Nooooo!” A shriek from the formerly silent woman startled them all. Even Jaron.
She shouted and scrambled away from her father, huddling in a corner, her eyes sweeping the room. She was frantic. Ava wasn’t sure her grandmother saw anything more than the demons in her mind.
“Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop it. Don’t speak his name.” The words poured out of her, a river of tormented pleas. “Please, Bâbâ, no!”
“Ava—”
“Bâbâ, Bâbâ, no.” A torrent of what sounded like Farsi poured from her lips. Ava wasn’t fluent enough to decipher it. But the strange energy pouring from her grandmother was familiar. Ava knew she could reach her if she could only catch her attention.
Ava crawled forward, ignoring Jaron’s warning to crack open the door in her mind.
“Grandmother?” she said. “Ava.”
Their eyes connected.
Jaron’s daughter held a trembling finger over blood-red lips. “Shhhh.”
Ava listened, but the only thing she heard was a twisted cacophony of pain.
Her grandmother stared at her, gold eyes transfixed on Ava’s face.
“It’s a secret,” she whispered. “Like me. You can’t tell a secret.”
“You can tell me.”
The tormented woman tore at the shining hair that fell over her face and shook her head. “Demons play tricks,” she muttered. “Don’t. Can’t hide. Not even in my mind.” A haunting singsong voice. “My mind, my mind.” A bitter laugh. “If I lose myself, not even he can find me. Hide in the woods—don’t dream! Don’t sleep. He can’t see the visions I keep.” A high, keening laugh. “Bâbâ…”
“I’m here, Ava.” But Jaron stayed in place, as if touching his child might hurt her. A low hum filled the air, and Ava’s grandmother rocked back and forth, hitting her head against the wall.
Ava moved closer.
Malachi said, “Canım, be careful.”
“She’s hurting herself.”
The woman stopped rocking. Her eyes rose to Ava’s.
She stared at her, and for a brief moment, Ava knew her grandmother was completely sane.
“Be careful,” she said, her voice low and calm. “I cannot force him out. Do you understand?”
“I have your blood,” Ava said. “Don’t tell me. Show me.”
Ava caught the dark flicker in her grandmother’s eyes a moment before her vision went black. Her body froze and her muscles locked as her mind raced through the vision Ava sent her.
A lively street market in Beirut. A boy with seductive eyes.
Temptation.
“Just for the night. My father…”
Ropes. He had tied her. Why had he—?
Bâbâ!
Gone.
Where were her brothers? They were gone. Her father…
Why couldn’t she feel her father? She could always feel her father.
“Let me see her.”
A darker, deeper power hovered over her, blocking her from the light.
“Beautiful child…”
Such darkness.
Anger.
Pain.
“Mine.”