His eyes are still closed and he parts his lips as he moves his face closer to mine. I hear his breath inhale deeply first through his nose and then I hear a tender imbibing sound as if he’s taking my scent in through his lips. His breath has no smell, but I can feel the heat from it on my face.

Now my eyes start to shut and I feel my body becoming more and more accepting of his. My mind is intoxicated, but by what, I don’t know. Shivers attack my skin all over, rendering me powerless to move. But I don’t want to. I feel the weight of my legs turning to mush and the strength of my arms wilting away, causing them to fall helplessly at my sides.

But I come to my senses, snapping my mind back into my reality, my conscience, not the one unmistakably being dictated by Malachi.

I shove him away from me and I nearly fall into the lamppost behind me. I catch it instead, using it to hold me up because my legs are still trying to find control again.

“What did you do?” I lash out at him, my eyes trying to focus. I’m completely bewildered. And angry. And curious. And yes, captivated. But I want to slap the perfect skin off his face.

A clever grin spreads across his lips as he stares at me. He seems to be using this moment to gather his own composure, but clearly the experience didn’t make him weak like it did me. I think it had the opposite effect.

There’s something different about him and at first I can’t put my finger on it. I watch him closely, every move, every breath, every blink of his eyes. Somehow he appears softer, the aquamarine of his eyes, brighter. His jawline is more pronounced, his arms more heavily muscled. If I didn’t think it were impossible, I would say he looks…younger. Just a little. I don’t know….

He begins to pace in slow, small steps back and forth near me as I brace myself against the black lamppost. I don’t want him near me again, but somehow I know I have no choice.

I just hope he’s done his worst already.

“What did you do?” I repeat, my voice softer and with less demand.

“It doesn’t matter what I did,” he says, walking toward me but I’m relieved when he passes me up and goes back to sit on the steps of the rock building. I stay put, treasuring this distance now placed between us again.

He props his wrists on his bent knees.

“You’ve already been Marked,” he says.

I don’t ask what that means because he already knows I have no idea what it means. I just stand here by the lamppost, not taking as much note as I should about why it just flickered on, the orange-white light spilling over me in the surrounding darkness.

“Her name is Genevieve,” he goes on, looking past me from the step. “But I can’t figure out why she would’ve stopped feeding from you—you have a strong essence. She could keep that beautiful black hair and delicious creamy skin for years just after a few feedings on someone like you.” It seems like he’s talking to himself, rather than to me.

I can barely form a sentence. I can’t think straight and I don’t know if it’s because of the bizarre things he’s saying to me, or because of whatever it was he did to me. Maybe it’s both. I don’t know. But my head is full of tumultuous little pieces of perplexity.

He looks right at me again. “Of course, you probably have no idea who I’m talking about, so I imagine that nothing I’m saying to you is making any sense.”

“I thought you could read my mind?” I say, finding an inlet into this one-sided conversation. “If you could, then you’d know that yes, I know who Genevieve is—or I’m sure I do—but she goes by the name, Genna. Genna Bishop?”

Malachi shrugs. “Yeah, that’s her alright,” he says and then shifts the subject, “and yes, I can read your mind, but I usually can’t see others like me inside anyone’s head.” He grins. “But I know that right now you’re thinking about that werewolf boyfriend of yours, wondering where he is and what my head might look like in his teeth.”

I’m only a little ashamed seeing as how he’s being decent and offering up answers I wouldn’t have otherwise. But he still sort of violated me and because of that, I don’t feel so bad for picturing Isaac doing his worst. Hell, he’s still violating me by digging around inside my head right now! And there’s too many strange things happening for me to be able to be perplexed by the fact that he can even read my mind.

I think my head might explode.

“Can you elaborate a little more?” I say and I move my purse to the other shoulder. “Why would I not know who she is, especially if, as you say, she’s ‘fed’ from me?” I’m satisfied with myself getting two complex questions out of the way in one sentence.

Malachi leans back and rests his back against a concrete step, dangling his arms from the elbows on the same step and lets his legs fall apart.

I hear another car coming off Commercial and it pulls onto the cobblestone street between us and the Mexican restaurant, blinding me with its headlights.

“Just that we usually don’t show ourselves to others,” he says and I wait for him to elaborate further, but he doesn’t.

I use this brief, quiet moment to think about the lacking answer he did give and I picture all the times at school and at The Cove and even at Isaac’s house and I was the only one who could see Genna.

I jerk my head up and stare harshly at him. “Tell me one thing, please. Are you real? Is Genna real? Or, is there something wrong with me?”

Malachi laughs and looks at me like maybe I could possibly be right about that second part. “Really? If I wasn’t real and something was wrong with you, how would you know anyway? I could tell you, yeah I’m real, but if you’re f**king loony toons then how would you know? What difference would my answer make?” He shakes his head, laughing quietly.

I don’t respond. I just look at him, my face only getting more irritated by his taunts.

When he realizes that I’m serious he gives in and says, “Yes, I’m very real and so is Genevieve. You’re not crazy.” He lifts his right hand without moving his arm from the concrete and raises his finger as if to make a small announcement. “But, the fact that you can see me right now; that’s what’s interesting.”

17

I FIND HIS COMMENT as mysterious as he seems to find it and finally I just walk over and stand in front of him. A couple walks by on Wharf Street, the man holding the woman’s wobbly, intoxicated body up so that she doesn’t fall. She’s giggling and grabbing him in all the right places. When they cross the street I say to Malachi, “Why is that interesting?”

“You seem a little dizzy,” he says, holding out his hand, “why don’t you sit down.” When I don’t accept his help, he pats the concrete step beside him. “Really, you should sit down.”

I don’t know how he knew it before I did, but I am slightly dizzy. I touch my fingertips to my forehead and close my eyes for a moment and I see blackness consumed by white spots and strange unidentifiable shapes. My body sways more with my eyes shut so I open them again and carefully take the seat next to Malachi on the step.

“You did this,” I say, looking down at the concrete with my hand still touching my forehead, “didn’t you?”

“You’re still asking fifty questions,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Because you’re not answering any of them!”

I hear him sigh next to me and then I raise my head and look over. His eyes shine plainly in the darkness, but just around the edges of his pupils in a perfect, fine, circular line.

“Well, the fact that you can see me,” he begins, “can mean one of two things.” He holds up a finger. “One, you’re more deeply rooted in the supernatural world than most humans for…” he waves his hand around suggesting a calculation in his head, “…well there are a lot of reasons that could be, really.” He raises two fingers now and his eyebrows arch a little higher as he looks over at me. “Or two, you’re sort of in-between life and death, reality and insanity. So which one is it?”

My heart sinks like a stone.

I want answers, yes. I’ve been wanting them since I started seeing Genna Bishop and found out that I was the only one who could. And I’ve wanted answers since November, when I’ve been thinking all along that Viktor bonded me to him. But the answers that are starting to unfold before me right now; they’re doing nothing but shaking me to my bitter core. Because I know it’s true. I’ve known all along, but I’ve done everything in my power to doubt it, to make excuses, to find something else that it could be. And just days ago when I sat on that roof with Harry and told him everything, I let him talk me into making excuses for it then, too.

I can’t anymore. I’ve been bonded to Viktor all this time and I know it in my heart because I can feel it. I feel it when I look at myself in the mirror every morning, when I lay alone, or next to Isaac and my cheek is pressed to his chest and his heart beats evenly through my muscles as he sleeps. I feel it when I look at my family and my friends and this forlorn feeling often overcomes me, as if my heart knows my time with them is limited and it’s keeping it from my mind.

I gaze down at the concrete steps, letting the truth kill what’s left of me and I swallow back my tears.

“Ah, I see now,” Malachi says and I feel his body move closer as he pulls his back off the step and leans over to me. “A Blood Bond. I truly am sorry. I would never wish that upon anyone.” He feels sincere, which might shock me a little if I could care in this moment.

I wipe the one tear in each eye that managed to cloud my vision and I barely look over at Malachi. “You know Aramei?” The sorrow in my voice lingers. I don’t want to talk about my own Blood Bond, but I know I need to.

“All who are like me know of her at least,” he says, “but I’ve never seen her personally. She’s more heavily guarded than your own President, or that gold that’s supposed to be in Fort Knox.” He chortles lightly, lost in a totally unrelated thought.

“Aramei is famous because of her ‘predicament’,” he says gazing at the Mexican restaurant across the street, “like Pelicia-Cinnia, Claire Black and Rafe Fien, to name a few.”

I don’t care to ask about these people, whoever they are, but I understand enough of the picture he’s trying to paint.

“Will I be…Will I be like them?” I say this reluctantly because I’m afraid of the answer.

“I can only see the future of my own Charge,” he says nodding toward the restaurant as if that’s where his ‘Charge’ is, and then I feel his hand underneath my chin. “You should be asking Genevieve these questions.”

I look into his sympathetic eyes and he pulls his hand away now that he has my gaze.

“Why?” I say.

“Because I’m guessing that since she’s been around you so much and has obviously Marked you, that you’re her Charge.”

“What does that mean?” I say. “I don’t understand any of this.” Without realizing, I don’t even let him answer; the anger and self-loathing I’ve been pushing down into the pit of my stomach has found its way out. I push myself to my feet, letting my purse stay on the concrete step. My hands come up and I press my palms hard against the sides of my head. This is all too much. I left my friends at the restaurant to follow answers and what I found is more than I ever imagined, more than I can handle.