The Secret (23 page)

THE next morning, they were lying in bed and Malachi was dozing in the grey dawn. The flat Rhys had let for them was small and tucked into a quiet corner of the neighborhood, away from the more lively restaurants and bars. He’d heard the crowds when he helped Ava to bed the night before, but the noise died down quickly. That morning, the only sounds that met his ears were the street sweepers and dog walkers below. The smell of coffee and bread drifted on the air, and his mate was curled safely into his side.

He was as content as he could be. Malachi had no idea whether Ava had traveled to Vienna before. She seemed to speak of more rural locations than urban, which would make sense with her previous inability to avoid the voices of the humans around her. As he lay there, smelling the bread and roasting beans from the
kaffeehaus
down the street, a few pleasant childhood memories intruded.
 

The first visit with his father to the Library where the elders met, the gallery above crowded as scribes clustered to observe the quiet work of their elders below. A tour of the archives that held the wealth of Irin history within its plain walls. Hearing his mother sing a story at the house of a friend, the walls echoing with laughter.

His mother had loved Vienna.

Perhaps they would have a few days to explore before Damien and Sari drew them into political maneuverings.

Probably not.

“Malachi?” Ava whispered.

“Hmmm?”

“Are you awake?”

“A little.”

Ava’s body didn’t know what time it was. She’d woken after midnight, greedy for him. They’d made love with quiet intensity. She’d muffled her cries of pleasure in his shoulder, then fallen quickly back to sleep with his scent on her skin.

“I was thinking.”

Malachi twisted a strand of hair around his finger. “Tell me,
canım
.”

“I can’t stop thinking about my grandmother.”
 

It was the first time she’d mentioned it since France. Malachi had tried not to bring it up. He’d come to learn she needed her silence. She’d speak to him when she was ready.

“What are you thinking about?”

She took a deep breath. “Seeing her was like a vision of all my worst fears made real.”

Her power still frightened her. Ava had spent the majority of her life fearing her own mind, constantly questioning her perceptions. If she was ever to fully access her power, she would have to accept it, but accepting it meant not hiding from the darkness inherent in her nature.

Malachi had to remind himself how young she was. When he was her age, he was still in the middle of his training, the reality of battle years away. Ava had been picked up and thrown into a war that had been raging for centuries, and she’d lost the first battle when her mate had been killed. Both of them were still recovering.

“Your grandmother’s mind was broken by violence,” he said. “And by a continued violation she has no way of stopping.” He put a palm to her temple. “You never have to fear that. The only one allowed in your dreams is me.”

“Volund could get in.”

“I don’t think he could.”

She rolled toward him. “If Jaron wasn’t shielding me—”

“But he is.” He kissed her forehead and whispered, “We will find a way to free her, Ava. Volund is powerful, but so is Jaron. There must be a way. And we’ll find it.”

She blinked away the shine in her eyes. “But his evil is still in me. And it’ll never go away. I have his blood.”

He knew a lifetime of fear couldn’t be washed clean in a single year or with a single revelation. They were both works in progress.
 

“Do you remember our dream on the plane?”

“Of Istanbul?”

He nodded.

“Yes.”

“That was your magic touching mine. Healing me. And there was nothing evil about that. That was beautiful.”

“But—”

“I’m not saying you’re all sweetness and light.” He smiled when she narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t want you to be. And you
are
Jaron’s granddaughter.”

He saw her shoulders tense, but he continued. “I do not fear it. Nor should you.”

“Why not?”

“You hold power. And soon, you’ll learn to claim it. Control it.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “This city has not seen your like before.”

A quiet knock came at the door.

Malachi brushed a hand along the
talesm
at his wrist and opened his senses. His ears recognized the familiar step. There was the scent of coffee and flour. And the irritated murmur when hot liquid spilled on skin.

“Get dressed. Rhys is here.”

“Bossy.” She rolled over and huddled under the covers. “I’m tired.”

“That’s because someone decided to be insatiable last night just when I was trying to get to sleep.” He winked at her.

She threw a pillow at him and he laughed.

“Go back to sleep if you wish. We can go out for breakfast.”

She peeked from under the covers. “You sure you don’t mind? I just… don’t feel like seeing anyone. Not yet.”

“It’s fine.” He smiled. “We won’t go far. Don’t leave the apartment.”

RHYS muttered the entire way to the coffeehouse a block away.

“Don’t know why I bothered bringing you an espresso—”

“Rhys, you brought me Starbucks.” Malachi shook his head disapprovingly. “What were you thinking?”

“It’s perfectly good coffee, and there’s one right downstairs from my flat?”

“We’re in Vienna.” He pulled open the wood-and-brass door and the happy scent of roasted coffee, sugar, and flour assaulted him. “If I have to put up with the politics, I should at least take advantage of the coffee.”

“Anything is better than that mud you make at home.”

The waiter looked up from his newspaper and nodded toward a table in the corner. Malachi and Rhys both unwrapped their scarves and coats to hang them by the door. Winter had come with a vengeance, and icy wind bit his cheeks. A few flurries of snow had dusted the sidewalk the night before, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t last.

“Why did I leave Istanbul?” Rhys asked.

“If it’s hot, you complain about that. If it’s cold, you complain about that.” Malachi settled onto the leather-wrapped bench and shook out a paper someone had left nearby. “Is there any weather you do like?”

“England.”

Malachi frowned. “Really?”

“In the spring.”

“When the flowers are blooming, or do those give you sneezing fits?”
 

“Ha-ha.”

“I’d forgotten how amusing your snits could be.”

“You’ve forgotten pretty much everything about me, old friend.” Rhys’s eyes were sharp on his face. “Has that changed?”

“Some.” Malachi leaned forward, glancing around the wood-paneled restaurant. “Is this place—?”

“It’s friendly.” Rhys nodded at an older gentleman who sat across the room sipping a cup. “It’s owned by one of us.”

“The waiter is human.”

“But discreet and lacking in curiosity. Excellent qualities in a human, I’ve always found.”
 

Rhys paused to give his order to the man. Malachi did the same.
 

“Now,” he continued, “what has changed?”

“My
talesm
have returned to”—he leaned back and motioned halfway across his right pectoral muscle—“about here. A few more are scattered down my arm. And as my
talesm
have returned, I’ve recovered more memory.”

Rhys’s face was pale. “So you know about—”

“The badger prank was your idea, not mine. I cannot believe you tried to let me take the blame.”

Rhys was affronted. “It was not! And if you hadn’t started laughing, we would have got away with it.”

“We were right little demons at school, weren’t we?”

Rhys burst into laughter, and Malachi couldn’t help but grin.

“We were,” Rhys said. “Our poor mothers.”

“It’s amazing we survived to adulthood.”

His old friend paused. “Your family marks?”

“No.”
 

“I’m sorry, brother.”

The tattoos his father had given him when he reached the age of thirteen hadn’t reappeared. While they gave Malachi little power, they were part of his identity. A way of marking his lineage, given to him by his father. Because he’d not scribed them himself, he had no idea if they would ever return.

“It will be as it is meant,” Malachi said. “I’m blessed that any have returned at all.”

“Ava?”

“She sings to me. She heals me.”

Rhys shook his head slowly. “Lucky bastard.”

“I am.” He lowered his voice again. “Has Max told you—”

“About the Grigora?” His smile fell. “He called everyone to Damien and Sari’s as soon as he and Renata got into town. I’m still trying to understand how we could have missed something as big as this.”

“They prefer to be called
kareshta
. Silent ones.”

“Silent ones?” Rhys asked.

“Those who survived had to be.”

Rhys slowly shook his head. “All these years, Malachi. How many have suffered? How many have been killed? They were the Fallen’s first victims, and we knew nothing.”

“How were we to know?”

“How could we
not
? It seems so obvious now. The Forgiven fathered daughters, why wouldn’t the Fallen?”

“The stories only ever speak of male hunters. That’s all we were ever taught.”

Rhys was incredulous, barely noticing the human waiter who was back with their coffees and two glasses of water, along with a couple of small pastries.

 
“And we shouldn’t have known better?” he asked. “Asked more questions? Our own scrolls speak of the mighty
men
of ancient times. Heroes, not heroines. And yet we know that the Irina were always there.” Rhys leaned forward with bright eyes. “And I believe the early singers were with the scribes in battle as well. The Dacia manuscript—”

“This sounds like an academic argument I’m completely unprepared to have with you.”

Rhys paused, his mouth likely ready to launch into an explanation of some ancient language interpretation Malachi had no interest in.

“That’s… probably true,” Rhys admitted. “But it may be relevant to the Irina problem.”

“Can we stop calling them a problem?”

The corner of Rhys’s mouth turned up. “Oh, I think they rather like being problematic. And you know where Orsala and Sari are going to fall on the Grigora—
kareshta
question, don’t you?”

“Probably where Ava is.”

“She
is
one, you know.”

“She’s part
kareshta
. It’s…” He hesitated. It wasn’t his story to tell. “It’s complicated. You need to ask Ava.”

Rhys’s curiosity had clearly been sparked. “I will. Can I assume she also anticipates a large family reunion? Welcoming the
kareshta
into the arms of their Irin sisters?”

“She’s more cautious than that. You have to remember, Ava has been in their place. She had no idea she was anything but human, and she had no control the way our women have. She thought she was insane, and I’m guessing more than one of the Grigori females is in the same situation. She sympathizes with them, but I think she’s also more realistic about how damaged or dangerous some of them might be.”

Rhys shook his head. “The main question is, can they be trusted? If what Max said is true, then any with living fathers can be tracked by the Fallen who sired them. They have no free will unless their sires are dead. We have to consider them security risks as well as victims.”

“All the more reason to shift focus,” Malachi said quietly.

Rhys glanced over his shoulder. “Are you saying what I think?”

“We must start going after the Fallen, not just the Grigori.”

“A monumentally more difficult task,” Rhys said. “And not one that will be popular with the council.”

“Rhys.” Malachi fought to explain. “The Grigori we met in Sofia—the ones Max has come to a truce with—they’re not like the others. They’re… more like us. Yes, they are wilder. Untrained. Hungry. But not mindless drones. With their sires dead, they had free will. They were struggling to control themselves, but they were
trying
.”

“Not unlike the Irin now.”

Malachi frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Surely you can see the parallels,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “We’ve been without widespread Irina influence for only two hundred years, and where are we as a society? Declining. Touch-hungry. More and more aggressive. We’re completely out of balance. We need…” Rhys’s voice grew rough. “Our race is dying without the Irina, and not just because so few children are born.”

“Then we bring them back. On their terms, not because of some compulsion act dreamed up by old men. And we work to save the women we can, even if that means fighting with the council.”

“You’re ready for this fight.”