Page 50 of Malcolm

“I’ve been a Jackal for nearly six years,” he said, his tone dark. The lighting in the room seemed to dim, “I killed, no, murdered anyone I was ordered to. No man, no woman was spared in my duties to my master. I have done worse than kill a single Alpha outside of a challenge in my life. By our laws, I’m no better than trash. I wash, and scrub my hands and yet moreblood appears.” He lifted his right hand and clenched it before him, “And if you think my heart feels guilt for them and their death. I don’t, I only feel guilt for the stain it put on my name and my honor. Nothing more.”

“I’m the one who killed the other witches. Those dead bodies I’m sure they found stack in the basement, were done by me.” The words slipped from between her lips before she could stop them. She sighed, “You’re not the only one with blood-stained hands here.”

He lifted his hand, “You don’t need to tell me.”

“I want to,” she said, stepping around the chair and sitting down. Her eyes held both pain and humor, “I should tell someone, right?”

Lurking Dangers

Malcolm

He shouldn’t have told her. The look in her eyes was terrible as she sat down before him. He wanted to comfort her, but her humorless words had stopped him cold. He hadn’t once asked her about her time in captivity.

He could see it in how she flinched from loud noises or how she reached for him at night in her sleep. Now, seeing the true eyes she hid with smiles he felt he should have pride early on.

“I was changed,” she said softly, her hands grasped tightly in her lap. “But before I was changed. I shared a cell with threeother witches. We all first thought it was a joke; how could we have been taken and no one had seen it? You know it’s funny, you always think that people who are taken or kidnapped did something weird or unsafe, but then you’re walking down the street just minding your own business, and someone just grabs you.”

Eliza seemed almost detached as she continued. “It felt like I was an object that someone was window shopping for and just plucked from the shelf. So, like that, I was taken and woke up in hell. They never tell you about the smell, the witches who were taken before, the ones who wrote about their experiences, and how they were lucky to survive. It’s a horrible mix of blood, bile and death, a perfect mix of scents that torture you just as surely as the screams do. High-pitched screams that can’t be described, aside from saying it’s a noise of terror at its finest synthesized just right for your ears.” She looked down.

“Eliza,” Malcolm stood and walked to her side, lowered himself to his knees, and placed a hand over hers. She was grasping them so tightly that they were shaking. She stilled once he touched her, and released a sigh.

“I watched as they dragged the others out. One by one, till I was the only one left. I used to hate everything. I hated my father for being a man whore, my mother for loving him and thinking a baby could fix everything. I hated myself for craving love from someone else.” The detachment in her voice changed into something bleak, “but I learned what real hate was every time I saw those orange-eyed bastards swaggering through the hallways. I imagined tearing out their eyes, their tongues, and every day they beat me for my defiance, for the times I spit on their faces. They beat me over and over until the beating felt less terrifying than the idea of sitting and waiting.”

Malcolm could feel his wolf prowling behind the wall of his mind; the need to kill and slaughter those who’d done this totheir mate was growing more and more. The scars she had were riddled along her soul, and he couldn’t heal them better. He could only hold her, as she told him.

“So, one day, they came for me,” she said, bluntly as if the switch had been flipped. “I became the thing they were killing others to become.” She pulled one hand from beneath his and held it out. It was encircled in a bright ring of light. “They tore my body apart and put it back together. Some days, I thought I was going to lose my head, and someone else’s head was going to be attached. All for this.” She stared at the light with empty eyes, “This is what they killed so many of our kind for. They tied another deep inside of me; her rage, her pain wailed inside of me, and I thought I was going mad.” She closed her hands and lowered them, the light dispersed. “Sometimes I wanted just to die, fall to the ground empty of soul and mind.”

She licked her dry lips. “And to test this power; they set up a game. They’d invited faceless people to watch, and that was where I truly felt like I was losing it. Doll after doll, wearing the face of a fellow witch, was tossed in with the order to kill me. I had to fight. I had to live,” she whispered as she dropped her head. “So, I killed off the part of me that couldn’t do it, the girl who cringed away from death I smothered her so far down, she couldn’t even whimper and killed every single one of them.”

She felt like she should cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. “And then, one day, they locked me away. I guess I’d become perfect, their perfect killing machine.” She hated how dead her voice sounded.

“I will find them,” Malcolm's voice was rough and hard. When she looked at him, she was surprised to see his eyes were no longer green but tinted gold. “I’ll kill them, I swear to you.”

Leaning down she pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “Just hold me. I am so tired of death. I have seen nothing but it and the worst side of humanity for too long.” She turned herhead, so she could look at him. “Trust me when I say you have done nothing. You haven’t shamed yourself, nor have you lost your honor. You are a good man, no matter what you’ve done.”

Malcolm reached up with his free arm and buried his fingers in her hair, and half-turning, he claimed her lips. His kiss was riddled with his own fear, need, and his great desire to protect her. The way he felt about the woman in his arms, he’d never experienced before. Even though he knew she was his to claim, he thought their bond was far more intense than others. The two of them were the two sides of a whole; the part of him that was cruel and dead inside she brought to life no matter how damaged she claimed to be.

His lips lingered against hers. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of her hair slipping through his fingers. Her scent was like her skin, delicious; the dark copper color of it drew the eyes, and her figure filled out as she ate more and more.

Gently he pulled back and watched as her lowered lashes slowly lifted. The brown eyes beneath blazed hot at him; he wanted to keep that gaze hot and dazed forever. She released a blissful sigh, “We really should stop that.”

He nuzzled her chin and gruffly demanded, “And why should we?”

She pressed her fingers against his cheek and drew it gently down. Her eyes searched his face, “because it makes me want things I can’t have.”

He grabbed her hand and placed it over his heart, “And how do you know you can’t have it?”

She didn’t say anything, only spread her hand over his heart. With no answer, the two of them remained there, her hand over his heart and him, holding her, being her silent support.

She eventually closed her eyes and let herself be held.

The next morning,she didn’t wake up early. She’d stayed up waiting for Malcolm, but he never came as he was busy preparing for the next day's competition. She fell into a fitful sleep, her heart and mind restless.

She numbly stared out the window at the grey sky.

She looked over to the counter, which held a single book. Rising from the bed, she slipped from it and walked over to it. “Can this help us find the other books?”

“Yes, it is a seeker book. It holds the guide spells for the others. The sooner you send it, the earlier we can leave and find it.”Eliza nodded. She went to place the flat of her hand on the surface, only to hesitate for a moment.

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