Page 53 of A Story of Sinners

Aiden cleared his throat and spoke in a mocking tone. “Your Royal Highness, King of the Otherworld—she is here.” His hand waved in my direction, and I sank in my seat, embarrassed as all eyes whipped in my direction. Malachi must have halted negotiations under the condition that I be present. “Will you please finally speak and let us know what it is you wish to receive from this summit?”

Hopefully, it wasn’t me. I was tired of being bartered and traded. I wasn’t an object—I was a living human being-creature thing with a heart, soul, and mind of my own. Still, this was Malachi, and I expected nothing less.

Malachi took a spot in the center of the room, next to the statue of the luminary god, Solaris, that Aiden must have moved in overnight, as if a statue would somehow ward off the visiting shades. When Aiden retreated, Malachi propped an arm along the statue and halted him.

“Speak to me now. There is no need to run back to your seat.” He waved his hand about the room. “There is really no reason to even have this summit in this room; a meeting room would have been just as good. You don’t have any meeting rooms here, do you?” Malachi tilted his head, fingers twiddling with the statue’s wings.

“No,” Aiden swallowed. “There are no other meeting rooms that would seat this number of occupants.”

That wasn’t true. There were plenty of rooms large enough to house those in this room.

Malachi’s wings stretched out behind him, and a smirk stretched across his face as he pushed off the statue. “Not even beneath the libraries of this here building?”

Aiden startled, and his expression dropped. “No. There are no other rooms.” He scurried back to his seat with trembling hands, his plan of placing Solaris in the room an utter failure.

Malachi had mentioned something about clandestine meetings occurring in a room beneath the sanctum, and I knew of the one mentioned, had polished its table numerous times throughout my teenage years.

Redmond leaned over to me. “Is that your sibling’s way of informing us he has been spying on our meetings?”

I cringed at the word sibling, though that was the way I had always described Malachi to myself. “I don’t know,” I shrugged, then corrected myself. “Probably.”

When I looked to the center of the room, Malachi’s gaze remained glued to my lips, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Very well. I suppose everyone in this room should be addressed after all. My demands are simple ones. I want to keep the land my world has already seized without opposition—not that opposing us would benefit you in any manner.”

“And what lands have you already seized?” George piped up beside Aiden.

Malachi smirked like a cat. “Shouldn’t it already be clear?” When no one answered, he tutted. “The Deadlands to the south of the portal and the forest to the north. You have noticed that every man you have sent into that forest has not returned, haven’t you?”

Aiden folded his hands in his lap, squeezing the skin in agitation. “We have noticed.”

Malachi issued a slight hum of acknowledgement but didn’t broach the subject any further.

Aiden nodded. “Fine. We will not dispute your claim to the land. I assume you wish for something else,” he continued, then looked to me. “You would not request her presence in this meeting otherwise.”

I inhaled slowly through my nose as we came to the point I had been expecting—my fate. Finally, I looked to Ryken, hoping and praying he would end this trade before it started, but his eyes remained glued to the floor. The only indication he’d heard mention of me was the slight flexing of his jaw.

He truly didn’t care. He’d rejected me and thrown me to the wolves. I shook my head and braced myself for whatever fate would throw my way.

“All I ask is that you release Duana from her status as prisoner and grant her the will to choose where she will go and whom she will go with. That, if she so chooses to come to the Otherworld with me, she won’t be held back or returned to the dungeon you locked her in for the past few months.” Malachi looked around the room, studying the shocked expressions of the people who had no idea I’d been a prisoner this entire time.

I perked my ears, surprised. This wasn’t a trade—in fact, it was the most I had been offered in a while: freedom to choose what I would do with my life.

After being kept as a prisoner, rejected by my mate, there wasn’t much to stick around for. Malachi could give me the answers to all the questions I had, but I knew that sort of information came at a cost. What the price was, I didn’t know. If I had to choose, I would simply move to the mountains in the Mortal Lands and be done with males for the rest of my life.

Despite my claims to myself, I still found my eyes straying towards my former mate—currently glaring daggers at Malachi.

Before I could get my hopes up even the slightest bit, Aiden rejected the idea. “No. She belongs here or in Faerie, not with you.”

Malachi tilted his head, his eyes scanning the human king. “I thought you would say that, but I wasn’t asking. I am telling. Duana has the freedom she so desires. She can stay here if she wishes, or she can go to Faerie with that thing,” he waved his hand towards Ryken, and the high king of Faerie narrowed his eyes, “or she can come with me, where she belongs.”

Aiden grew flustered, and he raised a brow, challenging the winged male in front of him. “And if I don’t?”

Malachi’s voice darkened, and shadows writhed at his back. “Then I will burn your kingdom to the ground.” His eyes bounced from leader to leader, the threat within them true. “I will burn all your kingdoms to embers, dance on your bones, and laugh.”

The room went silent, and Aiden swallowed.

“Since you are such a difficult human, I’ll make the offer even better,” Malachi continued. “If you return her freedom, I will withdraw the darkness from your kingdom, regardless of whether she chooses to leave with me or not. This is my final and only offer, and I expect an answer by tomorrow. I am not a threat unless you wish me to be one.”

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