Page 110 of Malice

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She was right. We were soulmates, and I wasnotprepared to lose her.

Furious with Grim for putting my relationship with her at risk, but also near to bursting with fear that I’d waited too long to speak up and she’d never forgive me, while also simultaneously filled with love for her...

It was just all too much.

“You know what?” I snapped, pausing on the threshold on my way out of the library. “Fuck book club. I quit.”

“Didn’t you do that already?” Malice queried.

“Yeah? Well, this time I mean it!”

Chaos

“Well, that was dramatic,”Grim murmured.

“He wasn’t wrong.”

The words left my mouth almost without my permission. They were the truth, and simply put, I wouldn’t lie. Not to them or to myself.

Grim looked at me, his eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“He’s not wrong, Grim. I felt our souls weave together. She’s mine. She’s ours. I don’t doubt it.”

“No,” Grim said, shaking his head.

“Deny it all you want. It doesn’t make it less true.”

Grim turned to Malice. “You agree with me, don’t you?”

Malice took a second to collect himself before finally lifting his eyes. “No.”

“No?”

“No, I don’t believe I do.”

A harsh laugh escaped Grim. For possibly the first time ever, he looked like a man on the brink. There was no hiding the emotion running through him. Even his hand shook when he ran it through his hair.

“You can’t be fucking serious. Has everyone lost their collective minds? You do remember who we are, right? What it is we are supposed to do? There’s no room for soulmates. We have one purpose. One. And Merri, as beautiful as she is, is not it.” He braced his arms on the mantel over the fireplace and hung his head as another bitter chuckle left him. “I mean, I can’t even fucking touch her. Death doesn’t get a mate. It’s impossible.”

“You keep using that word. Maybe it doesn’t mean what you think it means,” I offered.

“Fuck off.”

“Is it really so hard to believe?” Malice asked. “I know that you’ve spent your life believing a certain set of facts, but if science has proven anything, it's that our understanding of the universe and our place within it is always evolving. And when new evidence presents itself and proves that your understanding of the world has been incorrect, that isn’t a poor reflection on the masses who believed incorrectly. It simply means there was more to learn.”

I could see Grim unraveling, his posture changing as he realized none of us agreed with him. Striding across the room,I joined him by the fireplace before placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Malice makes a strong case for possibilities, old friend. After all, the earth was flat until suddenly humans realized it was round and they weren’t going to fall off the edge and into oblivion.”

“And if you need a more personal example, I never thought I’d be able to procreate until Odette got pregnant. Sometimes the best thing we can do is accept that we do not know everything. The world is filled with mysteries. Even from us. Maybe you were right, Grim. Maybe it was impossible for the four of us to have mates because it was before Merri existed. But with her birth, a new possibility was created, and with that, our next evolution.”

“Stop talking science to me,” Grim muttered.

I caught Malice’s eye, and he shrugged.

“I tried,” he said.

Grim was so close to the edge. I knew Death like I knew myself. He was stubborn and determined, holding tight to his principles, even to his own detriment, but eventually, he would see truth if truth was there to be found.