Page 89 of Vampire Soldier

My voice breaks the quiet. Malachi watches me, steadily, like he’s holding a part of me safe in the present while I confess what sins I’d done to protect her. I can’t look at him, not when I’m about to tell him I’d have betrayed him if it meant getting Charlie back.

“I told Kit I wanted him to mark me. That you were nothing. That I wanted him instead.” My voice stays calm, restrained, considering the ruin wrecking its way through me. “I don’t regret it.” A tear burns down my cheek and I rub the back of my hand across my face. But more tears come and I’m shaking again. “And I’m sorry. Because I would have let him mark me to save her. And you had just told me that you wanted to mark me. And I love you, so much. But she’s my daughter—my baby girl?—”

It all comes back to the surface, spilling out of me in molten tears and hoarse sobs and snot. Malachi pulls me into his lap so my legs are draped over him. One arm anchors me to his chest while his other hand guides my face into the crook of his neck. The warmth of his body surrounds me, and he doesn’t shush me, doesn’t tell me it’s okay. He just lets me fall apart against him. The weight of everything I’ve been holding back—the fear, the guilt, the unbearable love—pours out like water through a cracked dam. I cry because I almost lost her. Because I wouldn’t have hesitated. Because I’m ashamed of that part of me, the one that could erase everything I’ve ever wanted with someone because I refuse to lose what I already have.

Malachi’s fingers glide through my hair, slow and steady, combing rhythm into the chaos of my grief. I soak his shoulder, shake against his chest, and he just holds me tighter.

“I know,” he finally murmurs, voice pitched low, coarse with emotion. “I know, love. I would’ve done the same. I have done worse than lie for the people I love.”

“I hated saying it,” I whisper. I tilt my face up from the damp heat of his neck, breath catching on the rawness in his expression. “It didn’t mean anything. You have to know that.”

His eyes find mine, and they are golden, endless. His hand lifts to my cheek with such care it cleaves something open in me again.

“I know exactly what it meant,” he says gently. “It meant you were willing to become prey to keep her safe. It meant you’d sacrifice even your dignity to buy her time.”

“But you’d just told me you wanted to mark me.” My voice cracks again, shame curling up my throat like smoke. “And I threw that away like it didn’t mean anything.”

Malachi’s expression shifts. A slow, aching softness spreads through it, tempered by the heat of something older and deeper and written in the marrow of who he is.

“You didn’t throw it away.” His thumb brushes along my jaw, quiet and sure. “You honored it more than you’ll ever know. Because marking you isn’t ownership. It’s a recognition. It’s saying”—his voice catches, sharp and sudden—“that your soul is mine just like my soul is yours.” He pauses. “Kit perverted that. Twisted what a mark is supposed to mean. Used it like it was a claim of power, not connection.”

He pauses, and in the quiet I feel the subtle shift of his breath against mine—shallow, uneven, like he’s searching for the right words before they leave him.

“I would have taken you into my arms after anything you said to him,” he continues. “Even if he’d marked you. It would’ve killed me to know that pain was waiting for you when I ended him—but it wouldn’t have changed how I see you. Because none of it could unmake this.” His hand lifts, hovering near my chest, just above my heart. “This right here. What we are.”

We sit like that for another heartbeat—maybe a dozen. Me in his lap. His hand against the center of me, as if memorizing the echo of something ancient.

My breathing slows. My heart does too.

“Tell me about it,” I say softly. “The mark. What it really means to you.”

His brows lift slightly, but his voice is clear when he speaks again. His arms cradle me as if I’m glass and I’ll shatter with one wrong breath.

“To vampires, like most supernatural creatures, the mate bond is sacred. If we’re lucky enough to find our mate, we don’t just love them. They fill a hole we never knew was within us.” He pauses, eyes flicking down toward my mouth and back again. My stomach flips. “To mark you means I open my soul. That I give you access to every piece of me, even the ones I loathe. Even the monster that tore that wolf shifter apart without blinking.”

“And after it’s done?” I ask. “What changes?”

“Everything,” he says quietly. “And nothing. You’ll feel me. Even when I’m far. I’ll be able to find you, always. If you’re sick, I’ll feel it. If you cry, I’ll feel it. You’ll be part of what holds me to this world. As I’ll be tethered to you.”

My chest tightens. I grew up in a world where people didn’t stay—where my mother vanished without looking back, where my twin brother always felt more like a ghost than a constant. My mother even left Charlie behind without a second thought. So many promises made in my life have felt like paper—easily torn, easily burned. But this? This feels like iron. Like roots winding deep into the earth, anchoring me somewhere safe for the first time.

He watches me, expression wary.

“I know you didn’t grow up with any of this,” he adds. “And I don’t want you to feel pressured into something, especially after everything that’s happened tonight. The mate mark is permanent. It can’t be undone.”

“Do you want to?”

“More than I can breathe.”

I laugh, sharp and surprised.

And then I say it: “I want to. I want it all. You. Wherever it leads. Tonight.”

The emotions that pass over his face aren’t flashy—there’s no movie-scene jaw-drop or sudden epiphany. This is deeper, quieter, carved from something old and careful. The intensity in the way he looks at me makes my breath catch, makes my stomach twist with wanting. He raises one hand, hesitant but hopeful, and presses it gently to my ribcage—just over my heart.

I reach up and cover his hand with mine.

“You already have me,” I tell him. “The mark won’t change that. But if it lets you carry me, and me carry you—” My voice falters, but I steady it. “Then yes. I want to be yours. Just like you’re already mine.”

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