Caleb simply glared back.
CHAPTER
15
“Next time—” Ashley muttered, kicking a demon’s blackened skull. “Next time, we vote against taking shortcuts through cursed forests.”
“You votedforit,” Nate said, sending a sharp stare at her. “Said something about paradise hiding here and wanting to see if we’d find it.”
Ashley glared at him. “That was a joke.”
“Right, just like your feelings for me,” he blurted, seemingly as surprised as the rest of us by his words.
Ashley froze, just for a second, but it was long enough for Jaden to take note and smirk.
“I don’t know, Nate,” Jaden snickered, brushing dust from his coat. “Maybe she’s taking your jokes for granted, or since she’s so reckless, she might need someone sharper.”
“Keep talking and I’ll show you sharp,” Ashley snapped.
I almost smiled, even as my chest still throbbed from another battle. It felt good to hear them bicker, it was normal, and after everything, normal was precious.
Behind them, Caleb spat into the grey sand. “We shouldn’t linger. Another one of those things will sniff us out soon enough.”
He wasn’t wrong. But his glare at Malakai told me the ‘thing’ he referred to was not only the dead demon.
Malakai lingered behind us a little longer, eyes dark and still. His hair was a wild mess as always, and his breath came slow and measured—maybe even too measured. I knew that look, the one of inner conflict. Was the hunger creeping up again?
I stepped closer. “You okay?”
His lips twitched in an almost smile. “Define okay.”
I reached out, brushing his arm. His skin burned hot even through the fabric, a feverish heat that called to my fire in a way that made my heart stumble. “You’re burning up.”
He leaned in, voice low as a slow smirk emerged. “Are you calling me hot?”
I could feel it then, the pulse of restrained magic under his skin, recognizing that feverish face of his. He was doing the same that I had long ago; holding back, and forcing his true nature to hide. He was fighting it, hard. The others didn’t see, or pretended not to.
Eve’s voice sliced through the quiet. “Lionel, next time you might want to save some of the demons for the rest of us.” She was smiling, but her eyes were on him, bold and playful.
Lionel chuckled softly. “You’ll have to keep up, then.”
Their banter drew a few half-hearted groans from the group. It was strange, how easily we’d fallen back into teasing after nearly dying. Maybe that was how we survived, laughing at the edge of the abyss.
Malakai’s fingers brushed mine, subtly. His eyes glowed faintly red in the fog.
“You should stay back, kitten,” he murmured, too quietly for the others to hear. “Before I forget which side I’m on.”
My heart clenched. “You won’t.”
He didn’t answer, but I saw his jaw tense. I reached my hand out to his, braiding our fingers together. “Malakai, you won’t.”
To think, there was a time when we had hated each other for reminding ourselves of our weaknesses. How we had tried to kill one another because of what the world labeled us.
The one thing I was supposed to keep away from, turned out to be what I needed more than the air in my lungs.
He was the stars that lit up my nights. He was the warmth that kept my flames alive, and it scared the living hells out of me.
“You’re staring,” Malakai said, his lips curling slightly as we walked.
