“We need to go, Ava.” Malachi tugged her hand.
Ava froze, and the smell of fetid water filled her nose.
“Ava!”
Brage’s body bursting out of the water. Malachi’s face shimmering gold before it dissolved.
She could hear her own voice screaming.
“Ava.” He squeezed her hand. “Canım.”
“I don’t want to go in there,” she gasped. Her heart pounded, and the still-seductive whisper of Brage’s black soul called her toward the house.
“Ava?” He bent down and captured her eyes. “Look at me.”
“I don’t want you to go in there, either.”
“He’s waiting for you. He wants you. Which means that I am going to kill him.”
“No.”
“Ava.” His voice was implacable. “He will not hurt you.”
“But you—”
“Or me.”
She didn’t say anything. The terror muted her.
“He will not rob us twice. Do you understand?”
Ava shook her head.
“I will not allow it, Ava.”
Tears welled in the corner of her eye. She’d imagined killing Brage so often. Had yearned for it. But Malachi had been dead then, and the thought of risking her life was nothing. Now, the sheer terror of loss paralyzed her. She wanted to live so badly. Wanted her mate to live.
“I can’t lose you again,” she said.
He gripped her chin and laid a fierce kiss on her lips. She drank it in. Drank in the heat and the life and the burning presence of him. His arms wrapped around her, and his voice rang in her mind, brighter and stronger than the others. Stronger than it had been. A song whispered in the back of her mind and she breathed it into his mouth, her lips moving against his, not in passion, but in words she barely recognized.
Malachi breathed in the magic, and his skin heated under her hands. She pulled away and looked down; his talesm were glowing.
His head had dropped back, and she could see his throat working to pull in air.
“Malachi?” Had she hurt him?
He shook his head, his eyes closed. “Wait.”
The silent furor in the house behind him continued unabated. Grigori voices snuffed out over and over. Irin voices. And threading through it all, Brage’s seductive whisper.
“Come…”
Malachi’s eyes opened, as if he’d heard the call, too. They were bright with magic, and she blinked in surprise.
I gave him that.
Ava knew it without question.
He took a deep breath and released her, holding out a hand that she clasped with her own.
“Take me to him, Ava. Now.”
Once they entered, Ava could see that the old house rose four stories, with rooms branching off the stairwell and going back into the house. More like an apartment building than a house, and silent voices filled every corner, Grigori and Irin mixing together in almost-silent chaos. A low hum filled the air as singers worked magic. She could feel it like a tremor along her skin.
A low scuffling from the left.
The door burst open and Damien tumbled into the hall, bashing the head of a Grigori soldier into the ground, over and over. Gold dusted his shoulders, rising when he reached the open air of the stairwell. It drifted toward the doorway, escaping like a ghost. Another soldier escaped the apartment and leapt on Damien’s back before Sari walked out, sweeping her staff under the soldier’s abdomen and flipping him off her mate.
Malachi ignored them and tugged Ava’s arm. “Where?”
“Shouldn’t we help—?”
A choked gasp cut off Ava’s words as Damien plunged a knife into the back of a Grigori soldier. Almost immediately, Sari kicked another to her mate’s feet, and he killed that one, too. Gold dust rose around them, filling the air as Damien claimed Sari’s lips in a ferocious kiss before they plunged back into the dark room they’d come from.
Malachi looked down at Ava. “I think they’re fine.”
“Up,” she said. “He’s up. I think.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Too many!” She was already becoming overwhelmed by the clamor and resisted using the spells that would close the door, still hoping to be able to track Brage.
They started up the stairs but had to stop on the second landing when three Grigori burst out of a doorway, knives bared. Malachi pushed Ava behind him and attacked. Ava pulled out the knife he’d given her and looked for a target, but the crowded landing made positioning herself difficult.
The three Grigori had come from above and they had the advantage. Malachi was just as fast as he’d always been, but she noticed he didn’t heal as quickly. The cuts they gave him were open and bleeding. Blood splattered from the throat of one soldier as Malachi sliced his throat, then used him as a shield to attack the others.
The scent of urine, sweat, and blood surrounded her. From the corner of her eye, she saw a hand shoot out as a Grigori ran from below and reached for her. Ava grabbed his arm on instinct and pulled, jabbing the knife into the cord of muscle on his bare skin. When the knife pierced his flesh, a shot of pure adrenaline lanced through her system. Her heart sped. Her vision cleared. The thrum of voices dropped to the back of her mind, and Ava could hear him again.
“Yes…”
A low laugh cut off by Malachi shouting her name.
“Ava!”
A strangled curse and shout. She was shoved back into the banister as Malachi pulled the Grigori closer and plunged a silver knife into his spine. The dust rose, clouding her vision. Then Malachi was there and pulling her with him.
“Come.”
“He’s upstairs,” she choked out, blinking the dust from her eyes. “I can hear him again.”
“This is a madhouse.”
“We’re killing more of them than they are of us.”
He didn’t ask how she knew.
They climbed the stairs. One flight. Two. Three.
“He’s above us,” she said. His voice was no longer whispering, but a thin thread of his presence lingered.
“There has to be a roof,” Malachi said, sweeping his eyes from one hallway to the other.
The majority of fighting was going on below them. Ava could hear Renata shouting for Max. Then she screamed and a man roared in anger.
Ava ran toward the stairs, searching for her friends.
“Ignore them!” Malachi shouted. “We need to find Brage.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her down one hallway, but there was no exit. They went back the way they came. At the end of the other hallway, there was an exterior stairwell and a pocket of frigid air. The door had recently been open. Malachi ran through it and Ava followed. He held knives in both his hands, loose and ready at his sides. Ava watched him with pride. Possession.
Her mate.
Broken. Lost. And still every bit the warrior that he had been. With his talesm glowing in the dark and a shot of her own magic running through him, Malachi did not hesitate.
Snow dusted the rooftop. It swirled in fat flakes as salty wind blew off the fjord and twisted around them. It was a rooftop garden, bedded down for winter. Heavy furniture lay covered with thick canvas, tied off against the weather. A few evergreen trees sat in pots, their branches a festive white.
Oblivious to the cold, Brage lounged in one of the chairs, its canvas cover thrown off. He was impeccable in a pure white shirt and black slacks, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow as he balanced a dark metal blade on the back of his hand.
“It’s about time you arrived.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? So perfectly balanced,” the Grigori said as they approached. “But of course, it was forged in heaven. Or hell. I’m honestly not sure what I believe at this point.”
Malachi said nothing, trying to place the blade. He knew he should know what it was. There was something…