Page 16 of The Scribe (Irin Chronicles 1)

“And when she leaves? Rhys said she’s scheduled to leave Istanbul in another two weeks.”

“Then we’ll see what happens in two weeks.”

“You’re not following her out of the city, Malachi. I won’t allow it.”

Malachi bristled instinctively at the command. “Damien—”

“I am your superior,” his watcher reminded him coldly. “I will not allow it. Leave the human woman to whatever fate the Creator has for her.”

Malachi struggled to put into words the compulsion he felt. Ava Matheson needed to be protected. He knew she couldn’t be one of his kind, but there was still something…

“I sense something in her, Damien. Something different. I feel—”

“You feel hope, my friend.” The watcher’s voice softened slightly. “Something most of us haven’t felt for a very long time. But this hope… it’s your own desire. Nothing more. You’re not thinking clearly. She’s not Irina. She can’t be.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Did he? His eyes returned to her. Ava was sitting next to a group of children, her eyes easy, her expression relaxed. Everything Damien had said about Ava made sense. There was no logical way she could be one of their kind. None. But something about her—her reactions, her energy—screamed that she was more than human. She was other. Different. Even the way she held herself away from the crowd while trying to blend in was familiar.

“I’ll follow her while she’s in the city. After that…”

“You’ll return to your duties, Malachi. You have a job to do. Leo and Maxim are already covering your shifts.”

A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “But I thought Jaron’s Grigori were the civilized ones.”

“A civilized Grigori is still a threat and an abomination. Some things will never change, including our mission.”

Malachi was tired of Damien’s constant discipline. Tired of the endless nights of stalking and waiting and violence. Perhaps someday he would join the more peaceful of their brethren in a rural scribe house like Rhys was always talking of doing. He would cloak his armor and spend his days copying sacred texts and his nights watching the stars, perhaps even some day counter the spells that prolonged his life so he could fade into the heavens as so many Irin had after their mates were torn from them.

Malachi had no mate. Only a handful of scribes did. And it was because of the cursed Grigori that he and all his kind were fated to spend their long lives alone.

He was kidding himself. He’d never retire from a warrior’s life. Malachi would fight them as long as he lived.

“You have a job to do, Malachi.” Damien was still talking. “And that job is not following a human woman who happens to catch your eye.”

“Yes, Watcher.”

“Keep me informed of your movements. I want to know where you are.”

“Have Rhys enable the tracker on my phone. He can do that now, you know. You can watch me move on the map, if you want.”

Damien paused. “He can do that?”

Malachi chuckled. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, old friend.”

The tour boathad reached the end of the Golden Horn and had turned back toward the Galata Bridge when Ava approached him. He’d been playing a game on his phone, some mind-numbing activity Leo was addicted to that involved shooting birds at pigs. It was oddly satisfying; the pigs exploded in a puff not unlike the Grigori when you put a knife in the right place. He glanced up when he saw her move, then watched silently as she approached the bench in the corner where he had positioned himself. Her camera bag bumped against her thigh as she walked, an unwieldy cargo he’d never seen her without.

She paused in front of him, then sank onto the wooden bench opposite as Malachi hid his phone.

“I’m incredibly bored.”

He shrugged. “So why did you take the tour?”

“You’re supposed to take a tour of Istanbul from the sea. Didn’t you know that?”

He smiled. “Do you always do what you’re supposed to?”

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