That one word was enough to silence the two irritating men.
Damien asked, “What?”
“How long was I sleeping? After we…” She glanced at Malachi. “You know.”
Malachi ignored her embarrassed flush. “I carried you back from the island yesterday afternoon. I thought you’d wake up after a while, but I think I underestimated your exhaustion.”
“So I’ve been out of contact for over a day?” Ava pushed his hand away and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Where’s my phone? I have to call my mom and let her know I’m not dead, or she and Carl will be sending out the commandos.”
Malachi went to his desk and opened a drawer. “So you did call them the other night. Is that where you got the gun?”
“Carl sent it.” Ava glanced at Damien, who was watching her like she was some curious animal at the zoo. “I…” She sighed. “I don’t know what to tell her. Last I talked to them, I was convinced you guys were part of some international conspiracy to kidnap me.”
Damien murmured, “You might not be far off.”
“What does that mean? Does this have something to do with the Grigori guys you were talking about? What’s a Grigori?”
Malachi handed her the phone. “There are others related to our kind who are after you. We’re not sure why, but it cannot be good.”
“Supernatural bad guys? Of course there are supernatural bad guys.” She threw up her hands. “I mean, you don’t get superheroes without supervillains, right?”
“I wouldn’t call them super,” Damien said with a frown. “But they do have an interest in you.” He rose. “I need to call Vienna. Malachi, can I see you in the hall for a moment?”
Malachi glanced at Damien, then back to her. “I’ll be right back.”
“And I’ll call my mom.” She waved her phone. “I guess I’ll tell her… something.”
By the time Malachi returned to the room, Ava had ended the call with her mother after spinning a very elaborate story about Malachi and the old bodyguard miscommunicating. About how, really, it had all been a huge misunderstanding, and Ava was fine, and it had all worked out for the best.
Because she and Malachi were now involved in a whirlwind romance.
If there was anything that could distract Lena Matheson, it was speculating about her daughter’s love life. Plus, Ava figured that it would keep her mom from calling too often if she was daydreaming about the nonexistent grandchildren Ava might someday give her when she found “the right man.”
She had the book open again, staring at the entwined couple, tracing the edges of the page and remembering the way that Malachi’s touch had lit her skin from within.
“Ava?” His voice was soft and solemn.
“Hey.”
“How is your mother?”
“Happy, actually. I convinced her that it was all a misunderstanding, and we’re now involved in a torrid affair. That’ll distract her.” She kept her eyes on the book. Now that they were alone, she didn’t know how to act around him. She craved his touch, but the craving put her on edge. Was it natural? Normal? If he was really part of some supernatural race, could he make her feel things she wouldn’t otherwise feel? Her heart told her Malachi was trustworthy, but a lifetime of rejection warned her to be cautious.
Malachi said, “That would have distracted my mother, too.”
There was a strange sort of sadness in his tone. A tone that told her, somehow, in the moments they’d been apart, something delicate had shifted. He stood a little farther back, and a shadow tinged his voice.
“Your mom…” She lifted the corner of the page and tried to pretend the shadow wasn’t there. “She’s…”
“She was Irina. Our women are called Irina.”
“Ah. And you think I’m one of them.” Her finger trailed lightly over the gold leaf on the woman’s skin, illuminated just as hers had been when Malachi touched her.
“I think you have to be.”
“You think I’m part… angel?”
“It’s slightly more complicated than that, but yes.” He brought a chair over and sat across from her.
“My stepdad would disagree strongly with that.”
“It’s not what humans think.”
“But you think I’m like you.” She pointed to the woman in the book. “Like her?”
“I do.”
She paged through the book a bit more but kept coming back to the picture of the couple he’d left the book open to at first.
Malachi said, “You’re taking this all rather well. No running and screaming. Part of me expected you to be on a plane back to Los Angeles by now.”
“You have to remember”—she closed the book and let out a rueful laugh—“you’re talking to a woman who’s heard strange voices from people’s heads her whole life, remember? I don’t think you can classify me as a skeptic.”
“I suppose that’s true. So you believe us?”
“Sort of. Kind of. There’s a lot I don’t understand.”
She heard him shift in his seat, but he didn’t come closer. “Then we will help you find the answers.”
“Is that why you kissed me?” she asked quietly. “Because you wanted to know if I was like them?”
He paused. “Partly.”
“Of course.” Ava nodded. “That makes sense.”
Malachi said nothing, and Ava refused to look up. She just stared at the couple. A perfect balance of male and female. Perfect longing. Perfect love. She ached for something always out of reach. She’d thought she felt a hint of it with him, but maybe it was all an illusion. Malachi certainly wasn’t making any grand declarations about his feelings. His arms were crossed over his chest; his eyes avoided hers. Ava itched to reach out and trace the intricate letters that were marked on his skin, taste the edge of his jaw the way she had when they kissed, but everything about his body language screamed stop, even as his silent voice coaxed her closer.
“Ava, there is a scribe house east of here, in Cappadocia. One of the oldest in existence. There are scribes there who are far older than me or even Damien. Scribes who might know how all this is happening. Understand why you have the magic you do, even though you weren’t born Irina. I think there might be answers there.”
“You want me to go with you.”
“Yes.”
“To Cappadocia?”
“Yes.”
“To visit a bunch of old scribes.”
He finally cracked a smile. “We’re a bunch of old scribes, too. We just don’t look it.”
And suddenly, she was wondering just how old he was. “I’m almost afraid to ask. So, you really think there are answers there?”
“There’s a greater chance of answers there than here. The library of Cappadocia has been preserved for hundreds of years. And it would also be for your safety. To get you out of the city. Damien will continue to investigate why the others are looking for you. But in the meantime, you’d be somewhere much safer.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’s also very unusual.” His tone was more coaxing. “You could visit the underground cities and churches. There is nowhere else like it on earth.”
She narrowed her eyes, knowing that he was tempting her curiosity, but unable to argue against his reasoning. “I suppose… there’d be lots of time for pictures?”
“As much time as you want.”
“So you and me—”
“It won’t be just me,” he said in a rush. “Rhys will go with us. He’s our resident researcher and scholar. He’s the one most familiar with our history.”
“That’s the black-haired guy by the computer, right?” The lanky one with the vivid green eyes.
“Rhys is also a very fierce warrior if he needs to be.”
“So Rhys and you and me?”
“I know I’m asking you to trust me. Trust others you don’t even know.” He cleared his throat. “But I promise you have nothing to fear. You are… a miracle, Ava. Any one of us would guard you with our li
ves.”
A memory of Malachi came to her. Rough and angry. Standing at the door of the bar with a bandage across his abdomen. Ava shivered, knowing there was far more to that story than she’d been told. “I don’t want anyone hurt because of me. I’m not worth that.”
“Of course you are,” he said roughly. “You are Irina. We know how precious you are.”
Ava took a deep breath. What were her options? Stay in Istanbul and continue seeing a psychologist for voices that never went away, or go to some place in the middle of Turkey with tattooed people she barely knew in order to research whether she was some obscure form of angel spawn.
Well, she couldn’t call it a boring vacation.
“Okay. Why not?”
Chapter Nine
Malachi was glad they had decided to drive but wished Rhys hadn’t insisted Ava not be left alone in the back of the car. Because of that, he was forced to sit next to her, keeping his hands clenched tightly at his side to avoid touching her as Rhys drove. The old landscape whipped past, familiar and foreign at the same time. So much had changed since he was young.
Ava was napping across from him, and her leg slipped from her side of the Range Rover, stretching out to brush his as they bumped over the eastern roads.
His fingers itched to touch it. The memory of her skin throbbed in his mind, but so did the warning his watcher had given him.
“No, Malachi. Would you take advantage like a Grigori? She has no idea what it means to be an Irina. She has been thrown into this world.”
“But—”
“We do not know what any of this means. And neither does she. Any Irina, deprived of an Irin family, would have reacted the same way.”
The thought had floored him. Had he taken advantage? Were his feelings an illusion? Perhaps she would have reacted to any man’s touch the same way. The memory of her lips haunted him. The memory of her skin underneath his hands was a silent torture.
“What’s put you in such a bad mood?” Rhys asked from the front seat.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar.” Rhys switched to the Old Language. “Tell me, what is wrong. Is it the woman?”
He didn’t reply, because Ava shifted and her eyes fluttered open. A beautiful smile spread over her face.
“You guys have no idea how amazing that is.”
“What?” Rhys asked from the front seat.
“Hearing it?” Malachi asked. “Out loud, instead of from our minds?”
She nodded, closing her eyes again as she turned her face to the sun.
“I’ve never understood how Irina handled that,” Rhys said. “Hearing the soul of every person you meet? I’d think it would drive me mad.”
Malachi smiled. “More mad than seeing the shadows of every word written on something?”
“That’s different.”
“Is that what you can do?” Ava asked. “You can see writing? Even if it’s erased?”
“Erased. Painted over. Plastered over.” Rhys glanced at Ava over his shoulder. “An Irin scribe can see beneath the layers to every word ever written. Like your gift, it’s a blessing and a curse. We’re graffiti experts, I tell you.”
Malachi added, “It’s also very useful when preserving and copying ancient documents, which is what most of us are trained for. All Irin magic is controlled and practiced through the written word.”
“That’s why you call yourself scribes?” she said with a smile. “I was wondering.”
“Wonder no longer, my dear,” Rhys said. “You may ask us anything.”
“Really?” She glanced over at Malachi, but he only shrugged.
“Anything you’d like. If we don’t want to answer, we won’t.”
“Oh, that’s helpful.” She sat up and brushed her hair back from her face. “Okay, my voices. You’re telling me the voices I hear are actually souls.”
“Yes,” Rhys said. “What other explanation would you have for every person on earth speaking in the same language? Humans speak in many languages, but the soul…” Malachi saw his friend’s eyes light up in the rearview mirror. “Our souls are the same. All of humanity, Irin, Irina. Even the Grigori have souls, though they’re black as night.”
“The Grigori are the bad guys, right? The ones who were following me before Malachi found me?”
“Yes, those are the Grigori.”
“They sound scratchy.”
Rhys laughed. “What? I’ve never heard that before.”
“You Irin guys sound different than humans. Your voices are… bigger.” She glanced at Malachi from the corner of her eye. “More layered, somehow. But you all—well, most of you—sound similar. And the Grigori voices sound the same, except scratchy. Like they’re out of tune.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Malachi said softly. “Every light casts a shadow. The Grigori are ours. We are the children of the Forgiven. They are the children of the Fallen. Our purpose is to protect humanity and preserve its knowledge. They are predators who have no purpose but to gain power for their masters and indulge their own perverse appetites.”
Rhys said, “And reproduce, of course.”
Ava paled. “What, really?”
“Grigori will procreate with human women, though it generally doesn’t end well.”
“And they were after me?” Her voice held a slight note of panic that infuriated Malachi.
“They won’t get you,” he said. “And they weren’t acting normally with you. They were tracking you, but not attacking.”
“And by attack, you mean…”
“Not rape the way you’re thinking,” Rhys said. “They don’t have to be violent. Leo said you saw them in the bar. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Handsome blokes, aren’t they? Charming bastards, every one of them.”
“They seemed a little full of themselves, if you ask me.”
Rhys burst into laughter. “That’s because you’re not human. Grigori seduce. They don’t have to attack humans. Women find them naturally appealing—well, unnaturally appealing, really. They go with them by choice. When a Grigori sets his sights on a human woman, she will go willingly.”
“So…” Ava frowned. “I’m confused. I thought you said they attacked women. I mean, they sound like jerks, but that’s not really an assault.”
“It is when the women don’t have a choice,” Malachi said. “Human nature draws them to the Grigori, and the monsters take advantage. Is that any worse than drugging someone? To take away their free will? Take advantage of them?” He broke off when he caught Ava and Rhys’s shocked stares. “It’s wrong. That’s all. The Grigori use women and leave them for dead most times. Most don’t survive, and if they do, they become infatuated with the very thing that seduced and almost killed them.”
“That’s horrible!”
“Most humans legends of succubi are based on the Grigori,” Rhys said with academic detachment. “If a human woman does bear a Grigori child—it happens occasionally—they’re usually quite extraordinary. You can’t discount angelic blood, after all.”
“And are they… normal? The kids?”
“For the most part, yes. Usually very gifted in some way. Mathematics. Music. Art. Many of the world’s geniuses have Grigori blood.”
“So I could have met a part-Grigori kid and not even known it?”
“Possibly,” Malachi said. “The strongest magic is gone, but most would still have that inexplicable something that makes them stand out in human society. And the majority show no more evil tendencies than the average human.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Thanks so much.”
Rhys said, “Hundreds, thousands of years they’ve been hunting in the world. Grigori blood is laced through human biology like a dark thread by now.”
“I feel like I’m taking crazy pills,” Ava muttered, and Malachi tried not to smile.
“You’re processing all of this very well,” he said quietly. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
/> Malachi saw her reach for his hand, then pull back. And he wanted—he wanted to grasp it. Wrap it in his own. He felt like a man starved, then given a single bite of bread. She was there. She needed his touch. If he could only—
“So if Grigori and Irin are basically the same with the bloodlines and stuff, why aren’t the Irin men predators, too?”
Rhys curled his lip. “We have purpose, conscience, and discipline.”
“Don’t forget, Rhys.” Malachi watched her. “We also have the Irina.”
“The Irina,” Ava said. “What you think I am?”
“Yes,” Malachi said. “The Irina are our other halves. And they are stronger than human women.”
Ava shrank back in her seat. “I don’t have any super-strength, Mal. I think you guys are mixed up about what I am.”
Rhys laughed. “Not like what you’re thinking. And, for the record, the more time I spend with you, the more I agree with Malachi. You give off energy like a reactor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Irina channel human energy; it’s part of their own magic. And if you think about it, you’ve probably always had an excess. Humans would have called you nervous. Anxious. A bit jumpy and irritable.”
“Maybe…”
Malachi knew from the tone of her voice that his brother had touched a nerve.
Rhys continued, “But what humans think is nerves or anxiety is normal for an Irina.”
“You hear the souls of the world, Ava.” Malachi tore his eyes from hers when she looked at him. “You absorb some of their energy. That’s why crowds can be so overwhelming for you. It’s inevitable.”
“But we love it!” Rhys said. “We need it, really. Irin are only truly powerful when we’re mated. Keeps us balanced. Healthy. Irin and Irina were created to work together.”
They stopped at a small crossing to let a herd of sheep pass over the road. Rhys waved his hand out of the car window at the shepherd and continued driving. The terrain was slowly becoming hillier. They’d left the greener landscape near the coast and were heading inland, up the ancient Anatolian plain, not far from his own birthplace near the Sakarya River. The sun was hot, and the temperature was climbing as they drove. Rhys had been driving since they’d left the city, so it would soon be Malachi’s turn. Perhaps then he could think about something other than the tempting woman next to him.