Page 83 of Emylia

“Emylia…” he said my name against my lips like it was a prayer.

I didn’t have the words to answer him, but I didn’t need them, it was like he already knew what I was going to say, what I was thinking.

Resting my forehead against his, we stood in complete blissful silence, cherishing the intimacy for as long as either of us dared.

All too soon, a hand brushed my cheek, guiding my head back until his eyes captured mine. Delicately he traced his thumb across my cheekbone. “Emylia, you’re absolutely perfect.”

My heart squeezed with the weight of his words.

Perfect.

A word I had never used to describe myself.

One second gave way to the next until a small eternity passed. Maalikai was the first to cave, giving me a smile that broke me apart.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Not for this.” The familiar words rolled easily from me, like they had brandished my soul and now they were being returned to their master to ease his own pain. Borrowed and now returned. “If you want to talk about your parents, I would love to listen.”

A deep breath whooshed from him, the weight of his grief appearing lessened. “I’d actually like that.”

I led him over to my bed, the mattress slightly sinking as I took a seat. Warmth caressed my skin as his leg brushed against mine when he sat next to me.

Then silence descended.

A feeling washed over me and instantly I knew he needed me to start him off. “Where are you originally from?”

Maalikai sat for a moment in silence like he wasn’t quite sure of the right answer. A rush of air escaped him, I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer, not when his eyes betrayed his hesitation. However, it only lasted a moment.

“My uncle is the only parent I’ve ever known.”

“He never told you where your parents were from?”

Maalikai looked off into the distance out the window, seeing a past that only he could see, the still-dark dusk a keeper of the secrets in this room.

Finally, on his own accord, he continued, “Uncle Tristan was a hard man, a wanderer who relied on the land for his survival. He hunted for a living, trading his kills for provisions only when he was in desperate need. He much preferred solitude.”

Maalikai was broody as fuck, but not with the coldness he used when describing his uncle.

“Uncle Tristan taught me how to fight, how to hunt, and how to track animals. He taught me how to be invisible. But I wanted more. Ineededmore.” A stuttered breath left him. “I wanted to feel like my existence meant something. Like my life mattered. A reason that I was spared. So, I left. I sought refuge with the Western Warriors, training to be one of them.”

Maalikai never took his eyes off his hands as he talked, his voice laced with a pain so raw I wasn’t sure I could ever comprehend how he must’ve felt.

I knew Maalikai was a badass but to seek out the Western Warriors to teach him how to fight was suicide.

"Why the Western warriors?" The words slipped past my restraint, curiosity spilling out before I could stop it.

"They were the only force strong enough to forge me into who—or what—I needed to become."

"And who was that?"

His gaze drifted across the room—unfocused, distant, like he was still fighting a war I couldn’t see.

"A killer."

"Just because you’ve killed doesn’t make you a monster."

"That’s because you don’t know what I’ve done. What I’ve had to do." A stuttered breath left him, ragged with the weight of everything he’d buried but couldn’t outrun. "Who I still am at my core."

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