Page 35 of A Story of Sinners

I breathed out, relieved he chose to ignore the subject of the table. I lifted from my chair to pour him a cup of tea, sliding it to him. When he took his first sip, I relaxed into my seat, pleased he was acting somewhat normally.

“So what is my present?” I pried, praying that my so-called gift wouldn’t be something twisted. In his unhinged mind, killing everyone close to me would somehow translate into a gift, that losing everything dear to me would only help in the long run.

Malachi chuckled into his tea. “It is to be given at the right time, and now is not that.”

I didn’t like that one bit. “What do you mean?”

“Your twenty-fourth name day is a special sort of day,” he smirked. “A change will take place within you, and I will be present to assist through that transformation. That will be my gift.” He leaned back in his chair and sipped with an appraising hum. “Nice stuff. We don’t have this in the Otherworld.”

I ignored his comment. “What sort of change? Will I be like you? Will I grow black wings and fangs?” I’d already grown fangs once before, but he needn’t know that.

“No, nothing like that. That is an entirely different sort of transformation that will need to be triggered. This transformation is a more natural one, one that occurs when you come of age.”

I was familiar with the transformation he spoke of, had experienced its trigger when Eulalia tried to kill me.

“When I come of age? I’m twenty-four, not fifteen. I came of age a long time ago.”

Malachi’s head cocked and he snorted. “You and your human ideology. In human terms, yes, you have already come of age, but you’re not human. This is different. You’ll see.”

I wrinkled my nose at his comment—another item added to the long list of concerning things. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

“Spot on. Look at you and your observational skills.”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Malachi had always found a way to make even the simplest of comments patronizing. Still, he didn’t know anything about me, not anymore. He’d been out of my life for well over a decade.

“You don’t want to take me away from here? You’re not here to offer me another bargain?”

Malachi leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Would you come with me?”

“No.”

“But you would have, while you were locked away beneath the dungeon,” he stated matter of factly, and I blinked, bewildered at how he knew. “I thought about coming to your aid, all those nights while you were crying out my name alone on that dungeon floor. I thought about it constantly, how grateful you would have been if I had saved you. The many ways that you would have thanked me, and oh, you would have thanked me, in all the ways a male could ever want. Alas, it wouldn’t have come from here.” He tapped his heart. “You would have never trusted me. Instead, you would have resented me and spent every night plotting my demise. I would never receive the love you once felt when we were children. So, I decided to wait and bide my time until given the chance to earn your trust. Your love. Your affection.”

Chills prickled along my arms; Malachi’s deep sense of knowing was nothing short of eerie. Still, he was insane to think I could ever love him, not when I knew who he truly was.

“That will never happen,” I whispered.

“Those three months in the dungeon changed you, didn’t they?” he asked. “You used to be a lot more trusting, more accepting and less judgmental.”

My lips pursed together as I thought about it. That time in the dungeondidchange me, in ways that couldn’t ever be undone. All I had down there was time to think, to reflect on the person I was, the wrongs I’d committed, how they could be righted or proven worse. I’d nearly lost my mind, but then regained it, and now, everything felt different.

The hope that once lived in me was now gone.

“In a way, yes.”

Malachi leaned forward, planting his elbows on his knees as he shot me that icy gaze. “Try thousands of years of that pain, thousands of years feeling that sort of neglect. Now add on hundreds more of torture, unspeakable abuses, and torments, and think—isn’t it possible that I, myself, have also changed?”

I didn’t acknowledge his question, only asked one of my own. “What was it like? On the other side.”

Malachi’s jaw clenched as he stared at a point in the wall, avoiding my eyes. “Brutal, but that is a story for another time.”

“You killed the gods?”

Malachi’s lips pursed. “Yes. I did.”

“Including my father?” I’d never known my father, but I knew he was one of them, a shade god from the Otherworld. A bitter taste filled my mouth. It was doubtful that I would have ever wanted to know the creature, but now, I would never have the chance.

Malachi’s eyes blackened, and he snapped, “Again, a story for another time.” Then, he rose from his chair and spread out his wings.

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