Page 35 of Dark Captivation

“All in due time.” He whispered seductively in my ear.

Slowly my lust dissipated, and I was able to figure out how much of the opera’s story we’d missed.

The only thing more entertaining than the drama that played out on stage, was the backstory that Malek provided.

He filled me in on some of the performers’ more recent public scandals. Apparently, the actor playing the messenger had recently been caught by his wife sleeping with two male dancers. And the leading lady went to jail last year for licking soy sauce bottles at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

Malek went through most of the actors, telling me stories about them, each one more hilarious than the last. We ate together laughing, barely following the show as we got to know each other. Gradually, the iron wall between us lowered, his dark, long horns seemed less intimidating, and it appeared more and more that he was nothing like the vicious monster he portrayed to the world.

Right now, he was just Malek, and boy did he know how to push my funny buttons.

The show ended and we left the theater, funneling to the car and talking about the surprise ending.

“I can’t believe Adrian chose Lucius. Antonius sacrificed everything for her. How could she just leave poor Antonius, alone and destitute?” I asked, taking my seat beside Malek, the chauffeur closing the door behind us.

“Love is war. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. If your love is true, you will win her at all costs. Antonius lost because Lucius was more determined to have Adrian as his own.” Malek said as the car started moving.

Blue lights flashed from in front of the car as two police officers on motorcycles escorted us out of the parking lot and onto the street.

“Come on, you can’t will everything into existence, sometimes you lose the one you love and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. Some things are just out of our control.” I tilted my head, peering through the windscreen and pointed at the sirens. “Malek, why are the police escorting us?”

“There is nothing a strong enough will can’t achieve.” Malek said matter of factly, taking my pointed finger in his hand and resting it on his leg. “There is a military march going on tonight, just a little exercise meant to keep the army alert and remind the citizens that they are safe. We’ll be stuck behind the soldiers for hours without an escort to help us through.”

The driver turned from the minor road onto the major road and the soldiers came into view. It was a residential street filled with high rise apartment buildings. Hundreds of demons in pajamas watched the soldiers pass from the sidewalks.

Hundreds of soldiers holding black batons with threatening metal spikes at the end marched in neat rows of six. Clad in camouflage and black caps, chanting something in Demonish, they looked mean, hardened and ready for battle.

“This march is so the citizens will know they’re safe?” I pressed my nose against the glass, watching the police cut out a path for our car through the soldiers. The soldiers stopped, giving way to us as the ones ahead moved on.

We rolled through the gap as the police officer glanced down at me. His eyes cold as ice, his expression so unreadable it was like he was wearing a mask. The car slowly drifted past him and our eye contact broke as he hopped on his bike and followed behind us, the other officer riding up on his left.

I leaned back into the seat as the soldiers continued their march and we left them in our rearview.

“So, why did you say you came to Earth again? What was life like for you before? You know, before you came to Earth? Was there a lot of war down there and death? Is that why you left?” I asked out of nowhere. And judging by the tightening of his jaw, he didn’t like it.

But I hadn’t found anything that might help me stop the war. And with all the fun we’d had tonight, now seemed like as good a time as any to try my luck and dig deeper.

He changed the subject, going back to the show and how funny it was that Berilius, Lucius’s best friend, was obsessed with everything ‘purple’. And how he only wore purple clothes, lived in a purple bedroom and mostly ate purple food.

Just like that, I felt the wall between us grow just a little bit taller.

We turned down a quiet street with a small smattering of pedestrians going in and out of a convenience store. Further down the street, I glimpsed the church I’d discovered the resistance in, mere hours ago.

The entrance was boarded up with overlapping plyboards, a sign at the front reading “we’ve moved location. Call (875)789-0074 to find the new meeting place for Wednesday worship and Holy Fridays.”

The resistance was on the move. It made sense, even if they wiped Ferina’s memory. It would be too risky to assume they could trust me. Or maybe they were spooked by all the soldiers and ran.

Malek took my hand, fetching my attention back to him. We chatted all the way back to the palace. Malek ensured we only spoke about fun things, and spoke of nothing related to his past or anything too personal. He’d made it clear that that was off limits.

I’d turned the resistance’s plea for help down because I felt I could stop Malek on my own. But so far, all I’d managed to do was surrender to his touch like a junkie would his fix.

Well, I wouldn’t pine for his touch another minute more, I thought as the palace poked out over a small hill. From now on, I wouldn’t allow myself to forget my mission, or what was on the line. The freedom and safety of all shifters, mages and humans depended upon my actions.

I needed to get more creative in my approach because Malek wasn’t going to make it easy to sleuth into his past. But all of my intuition told me somewhere in the past held the key to unraveling everything and saving everyone.

I would be damned before I allowed my attraction to him to be the ruin of the entire world. Funny, charming and ridiculously as seductive as Malek was, I had a duty to fulfill and I could not fail.

CHAPTER TEN

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