Malachai Read online

  “What are you talking about? We date in Anarock.”

  She shot him a wild grin. She didn’t expect the conversation to take such an intimate turn. “Oh, really? Izzy Hitchcock made it out like you were some kind of monk.”

  He chuckled over his plate. “Izzy Hitchcock doesn’t know the half of it. I ain’t no monk, honey. I can guarantee you that.”

  “Don’t tell me,” she teased. “You sneak off to meet Alina Roxenburg when no one is looking. Is that how you maintain your chivalrous reputation?”

  His smile vanished in a heartbeat. His eyes went hard and cold and they bored into her soul. “You don’t talk about Alina Roxenburg.”

  His expression cast a chill over her. She put down the ice cream carton. “Sorry. I was just playing around. I didn’t mean anything. I don’t know anything about you and Alina.”

  He bent over his eggs, but Isabelle saw his shoulders shaking and his voice cracked from strain. “I told you. Alina and me are just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be, but I guess I have a sore spot for her ever since she….”

  She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “You don’t have to talk about it. It was rude of me to use her to needle you.”

  His head shot up. “I want to talk about it. I can’t talk to anyone else, so I might as well talk to you. I pulled her out of the river half-drowned and black and blue all over. I never told anybody, but I think it was her pimp Felix who beat her up. Everybody thinks it was one of her customers, but I can’t think of anybody who would fuck her up like that. He’s the only one bone evil enough to do something like that and she’s not the first.” He snarled through gritted teeth. “I don’t know why Victor tolerates that fucker in the Prometheus Crest. Felix is a fucking viper. If I was in charge, I would be merciful and run him out of town. If he ever showed his face in Anarock again, I’d put him down and that’s the truth.”

  Isabelle blinked up at him. She couldn’t believe he was saying this to her.

  He peeked up at her under his dark hair. “I guess that’s why I’m saying it to you. If anyone in the Prometheus Crest heard me say that about Victor, I would be up to my eyeballs in shit.”

  She swallowed her mouthful of ice cream. “I’m sure Victor would let you voice your opinion, especially if you were worried about these girls’ safety. Does he know you feel this way about Alina’s pimp?”

  He averted his gaze and shook his head. His jaw muscle quivered behind his ear. “I don’t cross Victor.”

  “Speaking your truth isn’t crossing your brother,” she pointed out. “I’m sure he respects you enough to hear your opinion. He must know how you feel about Alina and the other girls.”

  “He does.”

  “Then he must realize you would want to protect them from Felix. You could give it a try, at least.”

  He tossed his fork on the counter and seized the box of eggs. “Anyway, we have bigger fish to fry.”

  He twirled around the kitchen island to the fridge. He tore the door open and tossed the eggs inside. Then he spun around and grabbed the ice cream out of her hand. “Give me that.” He crammed a spoon into the swirled surface and gouged out a hunk.

  Isabelle guffawed with laughter. “Ha ha! Another sucker corrupted to my evil cause!”

  He stuffed the ice cream into his mouth and passed her the carton. “You’re gonna burn in Hell for this. I hope you realize that.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be in excellent company there.” She took another bite.

  They handed the container back and forth sharing the treat until Malachai scraped the bottom for the last scrap. “I’m going to die of a massive coronary. Are you happy now?”

  Isabelle laughed again. “I’m sure you can do your penance at the gym once the military gets rid of me.”

  She pitched her spoon into the sink, but when she returned to her place, she discovered him studying her. “Don’t joke about that. It isn’t funny.”

  She shrugged. “I mean, what are the odds, really, that I’ll ever get out of New Orleans alive? How long do you really think you can protect me from the US military?”

  He jerked his shoulder back, but he didn’t look away. “We beat them before. They would have to launch a pretty serious attack to defeat all of us working together.”

  “Yeah, but you did that protecting yourselves—protecting the New Breed of Anarock. None of you ever fought the US military protecting a human—not a single human.”

  These words fell from her lips so easily, but he reacted in a way she didn’t anticipate. He stared at her without blinking. He hardly breathed.

  He made her uncomfortable. She shuffled her feet and pivoted side on. “Anyway, none of the New Breed will want to have anything to do with me. You’re proof of that. They certainly won’t want to date me.”

  His voice sounded strange. He sounded as though speaking cost him all his strength. “They’ll want to date you. Any man in his right mind would want to date you.”

  She whirled around to find him staring at her with that fixed intent. He inspected her under a microscope. That penetrating intensity squirmed into her guts, but it suggested something so much deeper than the blasé conversation she thought she was engaging in.

  She felt herself plunging into the bottomless depths of his pupils. The rest of him, the rest of the house, and the universe contracted to that black pinpoint in the center of him.

  The tense angst of fidgeting under his scrutiny shifted to something stronger, something more potent. It settled in her middle and spread its heat through her body. All at once, she wanted to touch him. She wanted to kiss him. He attracted her into his impossible gravity.

  Just then, the phone rang in his pocket. He yanked it out and held it to his ear. “Yeah.” A faint buzz came from the speaker. He wheeled around and stalked to the front window. He peered through it. “I don’t see anything.”

  He listened barging through the house. He checked the windows asking questions she didn’t understand.

  “What did Heinrich say about the shipment?”

  “Did you get any more reports from the northern team?”

  At last, he stopped dead in the hall in front of Isabelle. He waved one arm before he let it fall and his tone changed. “Yeah, but I told you they weren’t. Did you even check out my suspicion that they came from the south? Well, why didn’t you believe me in the first place? I wouldn’t just make some shit up out of the clear blue sky.”

  Isabelle observed him seething in barely disguised irritation. He listened some more before he pursed his lips and sighed. “All right. I’ll do it under protest. It’s a bad idea all around and I’m not saying that because I don’t want to do the job.”

  He listened one last time and slumped. “Fine. I said I’ll do it. All right. See ya.”

  He hung up and hurled the phone against the couch. It bounced onto the floor. He threw up both hands and spun the other way. “Shit! Just fucking great.”

  Isabelle shrank away from him. “What’s wrong? Who was that?”

  He halted in front of the window. He grumbled propping his hands on his hips. He didn’t turn around. “It was Victor.”

  She hated to ask. “What did he say?”

  He made a croaking noise in his throat. “He wants me to….”

  He didn’t finish and she couldn’t ask him what Victor really said. He probably ordered Malachai to guard Isabelle when he didn’t want to.

  He jerked his head sideways, but he didn’t turn. “He wants me to come over to Ogru-Kuche to talk to him and Colonel Weeks about…about something completely unrelated to your situation. He wants to pull me from protecting you and I don’t want him to.”

  She blinked at his back. He wanted to? He wanted to protect her? He got into an argument with his revered older brother to convince Victor to let him stay here—with her?

  She didn’t want to believe it. Could he…. could he actually want to stay around her? He said any sane man would want to date her. Could that mean he wanted….?
r />   No, he couldn’t mean that. He made it perfectly clear he would never have anything to do with her because she was human. How strange those words sounded. It should be her not wanting to have anything to do with him because he wasn’t human.

  She always wanted something to do with him from that first day she laid eyes on him. She wanted something to do with him, all right, but that would never happen. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to put her hands on him and have him put his hands on her, but that would never happen. None of that would ever happen.

  He was beyond human. He was something too good and fine and noble to have anything to do with her. She was nothing, nothing but a plain old human from a world trying to destroy him and everything he held dear.

  She buckled onto the couch. Her predicament dragged her down. She felt cold the way she did last night. She crumpled under overpowering despair. She wanted to die. That would be the only way she could help the New Breed.

  Out of nowhere, he sat down next to her. He sat strangely close, close enough to touch, but she couldn’t move. He rasped in her ear. “Ogru-Kuche is only a few blocks away. I’ll go see what he wants and I’ll be right back. A bunch of our boys are tracking those guys that followed you. We know they’re nowhere near Central City. You’ll be all right until I get back. If anything happens, there’s a gun in the….”

  Her hand shot out. She grabbed his wrist and her head snapped up. “Don’t go, Malachai. Don’t leave. Please. Stay.”

  His limpid dark eyes floated before her sight. His face appeared broad and smooth and angelically clear. He radiated exquisite beauty—if that was possible in a man. His curved lips fluttered before he could bring himself to speak. “It’s only for a little while.”

  A lump stuck in her throat. Now that she faced him leaving, she confronted the awful reality that she came to depend on him. She didn’t feel safe without him. She didn’t want to live a single second out of his presence.

  His other hand flew over and covered her knuckles. He pressed her grasp into his very skin. “Hey,” he murmured. “It’s gonna be all right. Don’t worry about it. We’ll protect you.”

  She couldn’t get her voice to function no matter how many times she tried. She couldn’t put her feelings into words. Without thinking, she leaned in and kissed him.

  What did she do that for? He didn’t want to get involved with her. He said so. Her lips made contact with his mouth and, in an instant, she wasn’t the least bit sorry that she did it. If she held out no hope that anything could develop between them, what did she have to lose?

  His lips exuded warmth and comfort into her. The sense of safety he gave her got stronger when she moved near him. Would it escalate if she….?

  He stiffened once. Then his lips softened and compressed into her. When she added more pressure to the kiss, he answered her. He adjusted his position to kiss her back. When she retreated to pull away, he inclined forward to maintain contact with her.

  In a second, she realized. He was kissing her back. He must want her as much as she wanted him. She threw caution to the wind and a thunderclap of excitement hit her. It burned through her solar plexus. He was kissing her! He wanted her!

  She raised her other hand, but she held back from touching him. Did she dare? Would he pull away if she tried to…..?

  When she thought that, he broke his grasp on her wrist. His hot palm came to rest against her cheek and her brain exploded at the colossal energy pouring into her through his touch. His fingertips dug into her scalp and he had her. She melted into his grip and her mouth sagged open.

  He responded to that, too. He parted his lips and their tongues met. They danced together in a swirl of warm wetness that infected her very blood. Her flesh wept for him. Her body ached to touch every part of him.

  He flexed his fingers into her hair. His muscles tightened all over. He pulled her toward him in a subtle signal that ignited molten fire inside her. She sobbed in agony praying for him.

  He shifted his other hand to her knee. She still clutched his wrist in primal need. He squeezed her thigh and crawled another torturous inch nearer her enflamed center. Was he really going to do this?

  He heaved up on his feet. He towered over her and pushed her by the lips. He tilted her back on the couch. She collapsed staring at his huge face beyond her mouth. His tongue bored into her being searing her soul to death.

  This was really happening. He was really going to lie down on top of her. He was going to seal his body to hers in a cosmic embrace they both wanted. He was going to take her that way. This couldn’t mean anything else.

  His eyes hardened in his face. His lips seized her in a commanding grip. He braced his arms against the couch by her head. His iron body stretched over her until she couldn’t see or feel anything else. She gave herself over to it. They both wanted it, so why not?

  His granite chest brushed her shirt. He lowered his hips between her legs. His ribs strained when she touched him. He blocked his abdomen to pump his crotch between her thighs. That grinding pain spiked an electric flame into her sensitive tissues.

  She spread her legs to welcome him in. Only their clothes held them apart. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to feel his power and his masculinity taking her over, occupying her, demanding her very being.

  His breath caught in his throat. His nostrils flared. He groaned slightly at the top of his stroke and his manhood throbbed against her box. She slid her two hands down his spine. She gripped his ass in both hands and hauled him in tight.

  At that instant, he tore off. He leaped away so fast she didn’t see it coming until he was standing across the room. He rotated right and left and waved his hand. “I don’t…. I can’t. Sorry.”

  The heat died in her and left her cold and broken. She craned herself upright and cowered on the couch. The burning desire in her gnawed at her guts now and she hated herself for ever wanting him. She smashed her knees shut and shuddered.

  He scraped his wrist across his mouth and choked. “I’m sorry. It’s…. it’s not a good idea.”

  She looked away toward the window. She half-wished the military assassins would storm through those windows right now and blow her fucking brains out so she didn’t have to see him over there wiping her kisses off his mouth. What the hell was she ever thinking by kissing him? She didn’t want any of this.

  “Look,” he began again. “I didn’t mean to…”

  She chopped her hand at nothing. “Just get out of here. Get the fuck out of here. I don’t care.”

  He took a step toward her and put out his hand—like that could ever make up for what he just did. “Isabelle…..”

  She launched off the couch roaring in fury. “Get the fuck out of here! You son of a bitch! Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. I hate you!”

  She whirled away. Her throat hurt too much to say anything else. She couldn’t let him see her cry. She couldn’t let him see how much he ripped her to pieces rejecting her like that.

  She wanted him gone. She wanted to be gone. The minute he walked out that door to his fucking conference at Ogru-Kuche, she would leave. She would go her own way. She didn’t give a rat’s ass what happened to her. She didn’t care where she went or how long she lived.

  Fuck him. Fuck Anarock. Fuck the New Breed. Fuck the military. Fuck Riley. Fuck everybody. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anybody. She got along just fine up until yesterday and she would keep getting along just fine without fucking Malachai Griffin.

  She stormed out of the living room. She didn’t know where she would go. She would get as far away from Malachai as possible. She didn’t need to know anything more than that.

  She rotated into the hall. She turned toward the front door. He rushed forward to follow her. He put out his hand one more time. “Isabelle…..”

  At that moment, a massive explosion blasted the whole front half of the house to smithereens. The door sailed at her face and a torrential wind blew wood splinters and plaster dust into her face. It ripped her
hair back and knocked her off her feet. It picked her up and propelled her a dozen feet back. She smashed into another wall and all those shattered boards and glass shards and debris peppered her skin and the wallpaper around her.

  The shockwave struck her with the force of a thousand hurricanes. A deafening concussion thumped her ears and eyes and mouth. The air pounded into her lungs. The next minute, half the house vaporized into a curtain of fragments. She found herself staring at the yard and the back of the apartment building separating her from the street.

  The noise faded and a different sound entered her brain. “Isabelle! Isabelle!”

  Thunderous bellows rattled her bones. It was Malachai. She looked toward where the living room used to be and saw him crawling from under a bunch of broken timbers. He floundered, fell, and struggled into view one more time.

  She blinked first at him and then at the scene before her. In front of her eyes, a dozen men rushed around that building toward the remains of the house. She fought to get her thoughts in order.

  She was sitting on the floor. Boards and rubbish covered her legs. Dust clung to her clothes and hair. She couldn’t seem to get her limbs to work.

  “Isabelle!” he yelled. “Isabelle—get up! Get out of here!”

  He impelled himself to his feet and stumbled toward her. Those guys outside rushed into the yard. Two of them dropped to their knees and one of them raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder. He sighted down the barrel and his friend stuffed the ordnance into the tube.

  “Isabelle, for Christ’s sake, get up!” She heard him. She saw she needed to get up, but she couldn’t move. “Get out, Isabelle!”

  He tripped on something and went down. He forced himself up. When she looked at him, she saw blood trickling down his temple.

  He opened his mouth. The men outside crouched away from their comrade holding the weapon. They plugged their ears and the shooter squinted one eye closed to take aim.

  She woke from her daze and pushed the biggest piece of wood off her legs. She couldn’t move fast enough.

  “Isabelle!” Malachai thundered.