“You are insufferable,” he murmurs, looking out at the water.
“And yet you are about to tie yourself to me forever,” Aerin doesn’t exactly hold her tongue in the way she means to. This Shifter form is smug, feeding off Aerin’s pride.
Malice stalls on the bridge. Aerin can see it was the wrong thing to say. That everything she’s said has been the wrong thing. Her gut twists as she watches war wage across his features. It’s the most expression she’s ever seen on him. Disbelief. Then pain. Finally anger.
“I used to think all the great mistakes of my life were behind me. But as it turns out, coming here was the greatest of them all.” His voice is low, his tone, brutal.
It cuts Aerin like a knife.
Regret crosses his features before he steels them from her. He storms past her, speaking as he goes. “Please, grant me this last reprieve and don’t speak again until the bonding ceremony.”
Indignation burns brightly inside of Aerin, but she snaps her mouth shut.
19
MALICE
Malice’s words sour as soon as they hit the air, and they both suffer in the stench of them as they walk in silence.
It’s easier to endure Aerin’s jabs when they’re lined with vitriol. Today they’d been offered with a hint of teasing and a glint of playfulness that Malice didn’t know what to do with. So, he crushed it in his fist. It was a stupid and vicious response to the surprising feeling of fondness that overcame him as she teased. Malice can’t possibly be fond of her. Selfish, vapid, reckless—he repeats it again.
It's impossible to reconcile all the sides of Aerin he’s been exposed to. Aerinisreckless, with her friends, drinking, drugs, and sex. Yet she is completely in control, juggling a thousand secrets. Like a curtain pulled back, Malice sees her for what she is: a mastermind. No longer a vapid, immature party girl but rather a puppeteer, controlling what he does and doesn’t see of her. Aerin’s played him like a fiddle, kept him so focused on their little games, he hadn’t stopped to wonder if there’s something else to see.
Now it’s painfully obvious. Aerin has done things with her magic that should have been impossible for a Fae of her strength. Ending the fight between Malice and the Tiger, ripping him from his half-shift, flying on wings she created out of nothing, fully transforming Malice to appear as an Ursine shifter while she also transforms herself. All of it is far beyond the “mostly useless” magic the King, her brother, and the press have spent years dismissing.
Not to mention Aerin knows how to sneak out of Valtara, a secret shared with Malice in exchange for a lot of money in a seedy bar in Zeneith.
Worst of all, she tailed him, forcing Malice to reveal the one part of himself he could not share. She put him in a position he never wanted to be in.
[Bond with her. I want to bond with her,]Reikan adds unhelpfully. He’s been repeating it all morning. Malice shoves the Dragon out of his thoughts, shutting and locking the door between them with such vigor he gives himself a headache.
Too many lives rely on this secret being kept for Malice to simply trust the Princess with this information. He couldn’t trust her before, and now? With every secret and every lie stacking up, he would be a fool to trust her word. As bonded-mates, it will force her hand. Aerin will be obligated to keep the secret as just that.
Everything inside of Malice thrashes at the inevitability of becoming tied to Aerin Tolvare. He’s been in chains his entire life, bound to Reikan, to his bloodline, to this secret. He isn’t eager to add another. But he will do whatever it takes to keep the Dragon inside of him, even if it means going to extreme, permanent, lengths. There is no pain he won’t suffer to stop the Dragon from being passed on.
And so, Malice stalks through the front door of Aerin’s apartment building and punches the elevator button. They gethalfway to her floor before he realizes Aerin released her magic. He ruffles his wings before pulling them tight to his body.
When Aerin strides out of the elevator, Malice does everything possible to not look at any part of her. Her golden hair cascades down her back, ponytail long lost. Her hips sway as she strides forward. The memory of how her hips felt under his grip makes him painfully aware of his hands. Malice clenches them into fists as he follows Aerin into her closet of all places. He stands back as she gathers things she has hidden.
His eyes drag up her long legs, hovering at the junction between her thighs and ass which is just barely covered by her shorts. Malice looks away, swallows, chastises himself, wonders how long he can keep acting like he doesn’t want to rip her clothes off and ravage her.
Malice is distracted by his thoughts when Aerin speaks for the first time since he blew up at her. She holds a key, one she grabbed from behind a picture frame.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” she asks, looking at him like she’s trying to read him. Malice holds everything close, locked away. Behind one of the many doors in his mind. He gives her nothing.
“Once I use this key, there is no going back. No changing your mind,” she warns. Unfortunately, Malice believes her threat. He realizes that with the strength she possesses, Aerin could simply force him to take the blood oath. That she could have forced him when she first proposed this idea weeks ago. Malice still doesn’t even knowwhyshe wants to be bonded.
He feels like he’s being led to slaughter. To his execution.
The Dragon huffs in Malice’s mind, back at the forefront despite Malice’s efforts.[She is mine. Ours. Bond with her. Bond with her.]
Malice wants to snarl at the Dragon, rail against him, smother him in his sleep. If only it was possible to do such a thing.
Instead, he tries pragmatism.[We will be giving her access to our magic.]
[Tomymagic,]Reikan says haughtily.
[You’re an asshole.]
