The angel frowned. “Don’t you want to kill him?”
Of course she did. She’d imagined it countless times. But somehow, the thought of plunging a knife into the limp Grigori that Jaron held out felt wrong.
“I… I don’t know. Was he going to kill me?”
“No. In his own way, he very much wants to protect you.”
“Then wouldn’t it be wrong?”
Jaron cocked his head. “Does it matter?”
Did it? Ava blinked and tried to remember. In front of her, the glowing knife beckoned. She knew it would be warm in her hand. It would fit perfectly. She could feel it sink into the Grigori’s spine, and a soft voice whispered in her mind.
Yes…
Come with me…
Take what is yours…
She stepped closer. Brage hung limp in Jaron’s grip, like an offering presented to her.
An offering.
To her.
“He would kill your mate,” Jaron said. “He would take you to his father, but he would kill your mate to do it.”
He had killed her mate. In that moment, Ava remembered. The Grigori had killed Malachi. Ripped him from her. Torn Ava’s soul in half. The fury rose up and the black whisper grew louder.
Yes.
Kill it.
This is yours.
Ava looked into Jaron’s eyes, which held a softness she’d never seen before.
“Tell me what you wish, my daughter,” he spoke to her mind. “Tell me, and I will grant it.”
She didn’t know what to do with such a gift. It was too terrible to offer.
Ava was tired. She only wanted Malachi.
Jaron said, “I cannot grant to you what you have already taken.”
“If he would kill my mate,” Ava said, “then let my mate kill him.”
The angel smiled and closed his hand around the black knife. “I offer you a gift and reap an unexpected reward. How very interesting.”
In a blink, he was gone, and Malachi was there, holding Brage by the neck, plunging his silver blade into the Grigori’s spine as the monster screamed.
Then the screaming stopped as Brage’s body dissolved. The wind snatched his dust, whisking it away from Ava and Malachi, sweeping the snow off the roof in a violent flurry until there was nothing under their feet but black ice and cold brick.
The storm stopped, and everything was silent.
Malachi knew he had experienced it before. Change happened slowly and in the blink of an eye. The filthy smell of old water in his nose, the chaos of splashing and shouts and a sharp pain in his neck and Ava’s scream—and nothing. Sheer black, as if a veil had dropped over him. Then from nothing, he’d woken with a gasp and a need and the sharp yearning of unremembered dreams.
He was frozen in place, staring helplessly at his mate while she walked toward the fallen angel and the Grigori soldier.
And in the next breath, his hand was on the soldier’s neck, the silver blade plunged into his spine. Dust rose, and Brage was no more.
Jaron was gone. Ava was there, staring with haunted eyes at the place Brage had been. And Malachi had no idea how or when he had crossed the roof to kill his murderer.
The furious wind had stopped, and the moon reappeared.
“Ava?”
She blinked, as if coming out of a dream, but she did not speak.
“Reshon?” Malachi dropped his knife and put his hands on her shoulders to draw her close. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and hugged her, but she did not respond.
“Canım,” he whispered. “Please.”
He finally felt her arms go around him and he let out the breath he’d been holding.
“I don’t hear them.”
Her voice was so soft he barely heard it, even on the now-silent rooftop.
“What?”
“The Grigori below. I think they’re all dead.”
“And the others?”
She paused, and he felt the tension leave her shoulders.
“I’m missing three. But none of our friends.”
He said nothing. His relief would be silent, for three of their number had been lost. Malachi might not have known them, but they had died—in part—protecting his mate and humans who would never know their sacrifice.
After a few more minutes, he asked her, “What happened?”
There was a pause before she simply said, “Jaron.”
“He was here, and I couldn’t move, Ava. I couldn’t hear. Then he was gone and Brage was in my hands. And I don’t—”
“He offered him to me,” she said. Her arms went tight around his ribs. “Like… a present. He offered me the knife and asked if I wanted to kill him.”
Malachi had killed hundreds of Grigori. Possibly thousands. They were predators. Monsters. In service to their Fallen fathers, they thought nothing of preying on human women, reducing them to nothing more than food for their unnatural hunger. Brage had murdered hundreds. Had even killed Malachi.
And yet the angel’s offer to Ava chilled him.
“You refused?”
“Jaron told me Brage didn’t want to kill me. That he wanted to protect me, but he would kill you to do it.”
“He would protect you by killing me?”
“And so I told him… I told him to let you kill him.” Her voice caught. “So you killed him, not me.”
“Good.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry, Malachi.”
He hugged her closer. “Don’t. You did the right thing.”