Then he sees Newt.
Then he sees the blood on Newt's lip and the way Newt is curled on the floor and the men standing over him and the expression that crosses Malik's face is not the careful neutrality that Newt has learned to read. It is not the raised eyebrow or the quirked lip or any of the controlled tells that Malik wears when he's managing his reactions. It is rage. Pure, uncomplicated, incandescent rage, and it transforms his face entirely, strips away centuries of composure in the space of a heartbeat, and the men who were laughing a moment ago are not laughing now.
They're backing up. They're running. They scatter toward the gymnasium door, boots scuffing on the warped floor, and they're gone, and Malik is on his feet and his body is angled toward the door and Newt can see it in every line of him, the coiled intent, the predatory calculation, the demon deciding how many pieces to leave them in.
Newt grabs his wrist.
His fingers close around Malik's wrist and hold on and Malik doesn't stop. He takes another step toward the door, dragging Newt's arm with him, and Newt's grip tightens and the pain in his ribs flares white and he gasps.
"Malik, wait!"
"Let go." Malik's voice is not his voice. It is something stripped and raw, something that has had years of composure peeled off it, and he is not looking at Newt. He is looking at the gymnasium door where the men disappeared and every line of his body is pointed toward it. "Let go of me, Newt."
"No."
"I'm going to find them."
"Malik,please." Newt's fingers tighten on his wrist. He can feel Malik's pulse under his fingertips, hammering, faster than he's ever felt it, and the bond between them is flooding with something so hot and so violent that Newt can taste metal in the back of his throat. "Please just take me home."
Malik turns his head. He looks down at Newt on the floor, at the blood on his lip and the hair in his face and the hand wrapped around his wrist, and his expression is terrible. It is fury and something underneath the fury that Newt cannot name, something that looks like it is costing Malik a great deal to hold inside his body.
"Theyhurtyou," Malik says, and the words come out like they've been bitten off, ragged at the edges.
"I know."
"I'm going to—"
"They're not worth it." Newt's voice is steady. He doesn't know where the steadiness is coming from, because everything inside him is shaking, but the words come out even and clear. "They've never been worth it. Please. Malik. Take me home."
Malik stares at him. The fury is still there, still burning, and Newt can feel through the bond how much he wants to go after them. How much he wants to take them apart. How much the wanting is costing him to resist. It is vivid, incandescent, a heat that pulses through the tether between them with every heartbeat, and Newt holds his wrist and doesn't let go and waits.
The moment stretches. Malik's jaw works. His free hand is a fist at his side, the knuckles white, and Newt can see the decision being made behind his eyes, can see the war between the part of him that wants blood and the part of him that is looking at the small hand on his wrist and choosing to listen to it.
Malik leans down.
He slides one arm under Newt's knees and the other behind his back and lifts him off the gymnasium floor as though heweighs nothing. As though Newt is a thing made of paper and air, not a person with bones and bruises and a split lip that's dripping blood onto Malik's shirt. Newt is scooped up and held against Malik's chest and his face goes scarlet, even through the pain, even through the throbbing in his ribs and the ache in his cheekbone, because he is being carried by an incubus in an abandoned elementary school and the indignity of this is somehow worse than the beating.
He stares at Malik's shoulder. He cannot look at his face. If he looks at Malik's face right now he is going to see something there that he is not equipped to process, so he stares at the fabric of Malik's shirt and the silver hair falling over it and presses his forehead against the curve of Malik's neck and breathes.
Malik's arms tighten around him. Just a fraction. Just enough.
He turns, and carries him through the portal that Newt made, the portal that Newt summoned without chalk or candles or incantation, the portal that Newt opened by reaching through the bond and pulling Malik to him with nothing but his magic and the thought of Malik's hands.
The portal closes behind them with a soft, clean snap.
Chapter 16
He has been angry before.
Incubi do not, as a rule, have a great deal to be angry about—they feed on pleasure, they deal in pleasure, they live in the warm languid margins of other people's appetites—but demons always find something, and Malik is no exception. He has been furious, in his time. He has been the kind of angry that leaves monuments in the desert, the kind of angry that ends bloodlines. Once, in Alexandria, he walked a library to ash because a man had harmed a woman he had grown fond of. He does not think about it often. He tells himself he has grown past it.
He has not grown past it.
He is seeing red. Literally, actually red—there is a rim of it at the edges of his vision, a faint crimson halo around everything, and he does not know if it is the rage or the magic Newt has pulled out of him or the blood beating in his own temples, and he does not care, because there are bruises on Newt.
There are bruises on Newt.
He has brought them back through the portal and the portal has closed behind them with a whispering hiss that Malik barely hears. They are standing in the middle of Newt's bedroom and Newt is in his arms.
