Page 10 of Malice

“That makes two of us,” he mutters.

Xavier appears behind him. “You can stab him in the heart with a dagger. It won’t kill him yet, but it's rather satisfying.”

“You would know,” Theo huffs and zooms away.

“Wren,” Xavier says, eyes meeting mine and the second our gazes meet, the storm within me calms. “How are you feeling?”

“Mentally or physically?”

Xavier comes into the room and puts his hands on my waist. “Both.”

“I’m still tired. I feel hungover. And, um, I think I need a giant poster board to write out a list of all the things we need to deal with because I can’t keep track.”

“I’ll keep track of you. Dr. Patel wants you to take antibiotics so your hand doesn’t get infected.”

“He was here?” I wrinkle my nose. “I must have really passed out since I didn’t even wake up when someone re-bandaged my hand.”

“You did,” Xavier tells me and slowly runs his fingers up my waist before he gently takes my left hand in his. “There has to be some sort of spell you can do to speed up healing.”

“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. “But I am human.”

“So fragile,” he teases, but there is truth to his words. Humans are fragile. We break and our skin tears and we get sick and it can take a while to heal. I can’t snap my brother’s neck when he annoys me just to get a few moments of peace. “Go back to bed. When Alan gets here, I’ll have him make you breakfast.”

“Who’s Alan?” Antonio asks.

“The house chef,” Xavier answers him.

“You have a chef?” Antonio looks at Xavier dubiously. “You don’t eat.”

“Wren does,” Xavier answers. “So do you. He will make whatever you want.”

“Okay then.”

Xavier lets go of my left hand and takes my right. The little scab from where the demonic quill poked me doesn’t bother me at all.

“Am I free to walk around?” Antonio asks. “Or will I set off alarms or something?”

“You can do what you wish,” Xavier tells him. “I trust you’ll make wise choices.”

That wasn’t the response Antonio wanted to hear, and I recognize the struggle by the confusion on his face. In his mind, the Malus vampires are bad. It’s simple and black and white. I’ll be the first to tell you that Xavier and Theo have killed more people—and vampires—than I’d be able to count, but they’re not evil.

The Malus vampires are complex. They care about each other. They’re smart and utterly human in many ways, which challenges what the Order has drilled into every hunter’s head. It’s something Leo and I challenged, but not something Antonio ever allowed himself to even second-guess. He’s always been an exemplary hunter: following orders, pledging his loyalty and really believing he was doing the right thing.

“Watch out for Devon,” I add. “Not that he’s going to hurt you or anything. He’s uh, just, uh, new to this.”

“Mabel will keep an eye on him,” Xavier tells me so I don’t worry. He looks at Antonio. “She’s going to invite you to tea. You are going.”

“Uh, okay,” Antonio replies. “Sounds nice.”

“Enjoy,” I tell him and then go down the hall with Xavier. He closes the bedroom door as soon as we’re inside and pulls me to him. This is the first time we’ve been alone since everything went down.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Wren?” he whispers, burying his face into my neck. “You made a deal with a demon.”

“I know what I did,” I reply back, leaning away just enough to look into his blue eyes. “And I know what I have to do.”

“What do you have to do?”

I swallow hard, hating the fear in my eyes. This isn’t something he can physically beat up. He can’t punch his hand through the demon’s chest and pull out its heart and we walk away, calling it a day. This demon has power, lots of it. There’s a reason it was bound to a sigil and not killed in the first place.