Malachi skipped the rest of his classes, and we let him. When he didn't return to his room at the end of the day, I crawled into James' bed. I laid my head on his chest, my fingers drifting through his hair. More than once I heard an appreciative soft sound as I ran my hands through the dark strands, running my nails up his neck. Soon we were asleep, and I was fully prepared for a night of soft and sweet dreams.

I saw the manor, and my heart jumped, though I knew it was from dread, not excitement. Something was watching me as I walked to the door, as I pushed it open, and disappeared into the dark maw of the house that still seemed haunted.

Shadows clung to every corner as dark shapes scuttled away from the edges of my vision. I felt a cold breeze pushing me further into the home and my feet followed.

I found myself reaching for the hidden door that led to the basement, to James' room, but I paused, there was something else for me to see. I continued to the back of the house, to the glass wall that looked out over the grounds. The yard was pitch black, with no moon to shed light. I pulled my Shift over my eyes to see better as my fingers lightly touched the glass.

Immediately, I snatched my hand away and bit back a cry. The yard was littered with bodies, both wolf and Human. It was a massacre, Hunan and canine remains, parts and pieces flowed across the dark grass like beach debris left there by changing red tides. The worst of it was the small bodies, the children mangled in piles as if they had been rounded up and slaughtered. I felt my Red Shift itch, pinching something behind my ribs as I looked out at the horrifying carnage, the execution of the entire pack that James and Nevaeh and Kael and I had fought for, fought alongside.

Then I saw him. One man. The one responsible for the wreckage before me. He was shrouded in darkness like it flowed from him, standing at the edge of the forest with his face upturned to watch me through the pane. Even from my distance, I knew that devastatingly handsome face, recognized that smile. James' father watched me from the edge of our grounds, his eyes locked on mine despite the distance.

Then as I watched, his face changed, his eyes turning black, his teeth lengthening, sharpening, dripping down. He looked terrifying, fierce and cruel, the most tantalizing creature I had ever seen. A quake ran up my legs from the house like the very Earth shuddered at his power, and the pull I felt to him actually ached, physically hurt, catching the breath in my chest. But I wouldn't submit to his call, not in a dream and not in the waking world, not ever.

A burst of warm air moved over me, and on it was a scent I knew and loved: pine and smoke and mint. James was here. I turned but didn't see anyone, though the front door now swung open.

Shit.

My first thought was that James was going out there, alone, to attack his father. My second thought was that he wouldn't be so stupid. My third was that he absolutely would be.

I sprinted out the open door, turning the corner of the house to be caught like a rabbit in a snare by the freezing arms of the Collector. He held me flush against him with arms like chains, so cold they burned, but I felt my traitorous heart flutter up into my throat as a soft sigh escaped me and my body melted involuntarily into his anyway.

A purr that quivered my insides rumbled out from his chest and through me as I turned my face up to his. His black eyes dove into mine, his canines poking down from his lips, shining in the low light. His grip grew tighter until they felt like the cold bars of the gate leading to the white rock garden, like they pulled heat and life from any who dared be trapped within them.

"Mmmh," his purr turned to a groan as he dipped his face past mine, his nose brushing my neck as he breathed me in. "You're mine," he whispered in my ear, and then he bit, his teeth piercing my skin like rocky cliffs parting water.

I awoke with a jolt. The bed was empty, James was no longer with me.

Shit.

I made it to Abby's rooms only a minute later. But all my plans of how I would wake him, explain my dream, or prophecy, and that James was gone left my mind as I saw his door was already cracked, light spilling into the dark hallway. I heard hushed voices as I approached.

"I do not want you to make a hasty decision. If not for the prophecy's instruction, than think of your Pair - is that a trust you want to destroy again, so soon after it was repaired?"

Abby's quiet voice was neutral. But I knew he wanted James to agree, to make the right choice. As was his teaching style, he wasn't willing to tell James what to do, merely point out the correct direction. James didn't see it in the same light.

"I'm not making it out of this, you know that, but she still might. The prophecy isn't clear, they never are, not without a doubt at least. So I will take my own fate, and hers too. She'll live, Abby, please. Let me do this, just keep her here. I know you can, I'm begging you. Please, keep her safe." And he was begging, his voice pleading, but that didn't stop the fury growing in me.

I opened the door and walked in with long strides, glaring at a bed-headed James as I settled in the chair next to him. But instead of backing down, instead of looking in the wrong like he was, he scowled back at me as if we were still pretending to despise each other.

"I'm not staying behind. I had the dream, or prophecy, vision, whatever, too. We're going to the manor together, tonight. We know where he will be, this is our chance."

"No, we are not going anywhere. I am. He is my father, my demon to slay, so I will be the only one to face him."

"He'll kill you."

"Not before I take him with me." A cocky smirk played across James' face, but it was a lie and I called him on it.

"We don't know that."

"So little faith in your Pair." James dropped his superior act and spoke with a sneer that made my jaw grind.

This wasn't the man I knew, this was a man acting on fear, but too full of pride to admit it, to ask for help, to even recognize he needed help.

"But if we both-"

"This isn't up for discussion," James' quiet, calm voice cut through my argument, his eyes piercing me. He didn't have to raise his voice to make it sound like a command, like it was already settled.

"What do you mean?"

It wasn't a challenge, I was genuinely curious how he thought he would win this. Abby wouldn't use his magic to take me prisoner, he had already said as much and I knew he wouldn't lie. Plus, he knew the prophecy, he knew it would take us both to win, and Ailech presumably.

James' eyes went black as the air crackled at the depth of his Shift. And I understood what his prey felt, what they saw right before he killed them; a wicked, feral creature, not an ounce of humanity left in the cruel smile he flashed.

"I said I would break the legs out from under Kael and Nevaeh if it meant they couldn't follow me to their needless deaths. What do you think I will do to you to stop the same? I will take you within an inch of your life if it means you'll still have one. Break every bone in your body so you cannot even crawl after me. So stay out of my way, and inside of the Vault, or you'll get to see exactly how far I'm willing to go to keep you from him."

James was standing over me now, staring down with his Shift so thick in the air, I could taste its sweet violence. I stood, nose to chin with my Pair, and considered my two options: I could wrap my fingers around his collar, pulling him down to my level and reminding him that he actually couldn't so easily leave me behind, beaten and broken. Because I could draw from my Red Shift, I could control it, at least better than he could. I wasn't the woman he had found spying on him in the woods, the one who fainted at his blood. I was a Darkling, a Half, and as we were now, I could beat him.

My first option was to remind him I would not so easily be dismissed, with violence, with my nature, with a fight - exactly how we had always settled our disputes in the past. My second option would lead us in a very different direction, a new direction. And I knew which path to choose.

I reached my fingers up and wrapped them under the smooth metal of the collar, but instead of pulling him to eye level with triumph on my face as I prepared to dive into my Second Shift, I did the opposite. I stretched up and kissed him softly. James went rigid, frozen in place as I ran my hand through his hair in the tender way I knew soothed him.

"We're in this together. I'm coming too. We either both live, or both die. That's what forever means. Only us."

I rested my forehead against his, keeping my eyes closed as I spoke in slow honesty. This was how I wanted us to be, Pairs, not rivals. I felt his heat as it rolled over me, his heartbeat thundering against me, the scent of him surrounding me, and the current from his power, our connection, smoldered with a pleasant burn against my skin. Being like this was paradise, but that bliss turned to ice in my veins as a purr that was much too similar to my dream vibrated through James and into my aching chest. But when I opened my eyes, it was James holding me, not the Collector, though the sharp teeth poking from his lips, the hair, the glow of skin and dark of his eyes were the same.

I relaxed my body again, reminding myself that their deeper differences were far greater than their shallow similarities. I had never heard that noise come from James, from anyone before my dream. But then, I had never been close to James in his Shift like this, never touched him gently when his eyes were black.

It sounded like a pleasant hum, a contented growl. It sounded like the kind of noise an animal might make curled up in a safe, happy place. And in our Shifts, we were in many ways more beast than Human, James especially. I continued to run my hands through his hair, calming him, until his body matched his purr and his stiff stance loosened. But when James dipped his head to my neck, his nose against my skin breathing me in, I had to beat back the memory of his father doing the same, of the draw I had felt as his teeth sank into me. Of the noise that had escaped me.

I felt it when James buried his Shift, a clear change to the power in the air around me. He stayed nuzzled against my neck for a moment longer, taking in another deep breath of me as he considered what I had said.

"I don't know what to do."

He sounded so lost as his navy eyes met mine, sorrow and confusion and fear colliding there. Someone who had never learned how to love or be loved trying to figure it out in real-time. He looked pained as he stepped away from me, cold air replacing where heat had been trapped between us.

"I am not your leader, I am your Pair. You can make your own choice and I won't stop you. If you choose to, you will come with me, though I wish you wouldn't, though I would get on my knees and beg you not to if I thought it would make a difference."

You could try.

I replied silently with a sly smirk, images of him on his knees playing behind my eyes from recent memory. His eyes darkened with lust, his pupils warring with deep navy almost like a Shift, but he pushed it back as he stepped further away.

"I'll give Ailech the same choice. Without the begging part."

He returned my private smile, though his eyes were sad, and from our connection, I knew he thought this was a mistake.

Abby's wet eyes and the way they looked at us with pride told a different story.

» ✦ «

Nevaeh and I got to spend the evening together, a rarity that was closing in on an all-nighter as well. Her brother had found 'much-needed companionship' with Katz, someone who mirrored his look to a T, so Nevaeh was left free. We talked so long, sitting in a forested area, her head in my lap, that we completely missed dinner, and midnight, by many hours. The halls were deserted when I wished her a good night, but I still knew of a cafetera that would be open, and made a detour. I walked in and was met by bright yellow eyes glaring at me from behind disheveled white hair. His sickness or injury, the damage I was so attuned to, called to me doubly, though his glower was much less inviting.

It felt strange seeing him without the weight of desire or fear washing over me from his Gift. He usually preferred to push lust on me, as it played better into his game of trying to make me as uncomfortable as physically possible, confusing both my emotions and my body with his constant advances. But as I made my way over to him, I felt nothing, no emotions being forced on me. In fact, I didn't even have his attention anymore. He didn't look up again until I slid into the seat across from him, his eyes on his hands.

Once I sat, I saw why. His fingers were shredded like he had been biting and picking and scratching at them for hours. I had seen him bite and pull at his nails before, flicking far too thick pieces of flesh to the ground, but never to this extent. Evidence of his self-mutilation showed littered over the table and floor around him. Each finger bled so profusely, I was surprised he could still get enough of a grip to continue his ritual.

"Hey...how you doing?" I asked cautiously, not sure if I should try to pry his hands apart and heal them, or if he would snap at me like the jungle cat his eyes so often reminded me of.

He sucked the blood from his index and thumb before leveling his gaze on me and answering.

"I'm sober. It's a nightmare."

His low voice rumbled out flatly like he was trying for biting but didn't have the energy.

"You here to swim in my fucked-up kitty pool of a head again? I know that's what you've been doing, healing me. Go on and try, you can't fix this shit, mage."

His sneer had more behind it now, though he still sounded defeated. Instead of rising to the bait, I stood and headed for the kitchen. I had friends in the back, even late at night. You didn't grow up at the Vault without gaining multiple pairs of surrogate-grandparents. Kids were rare and doted on here.

I returned with a bottle of wine, filled a glass and slid it across to Malachi. He looked up suddenly, startled I was back, a line between his pale, curved eyes.

"What is this?"

"Wine."

"Why?"

"Because you wanted it."

He stared at me like I should say more, waiting for me to continue. I shrugged.

"Well, what do you want in return?"

Now it was my turn to stare. What did I want? For him to drink it, I guess? For him to stop tearing at his hands? For whatever connection we had from my frequent searches and heals to stop screaming his obvious distress at me. I hated that I sort of liked the psycho.

"...nothing? Dude, just drink it. You seemed upset, so I thought this would help. I dont know. I don't want anything."

His confused look changed to caution as he took a tentative sip like he thought I was poisoning him. Something about it made me pity him. Just getting him a drink, a tiny kindness, seemed enough to break his brain. I wondered when the last time someone had been truly kind to him, not that he gave people many opportunities, or that he would even recognize kindness in most instances. He drained the glass and closed his eyes, a little smile on his face that actually looked pleasant.

"Got anything stronger?" He asked without opening his eyes.

"Not here."

"Well then, I'll need a few more bottles. It takes a lot to intoxicate an Angel."

"You're hardly an Angel," I chuckled.

He peeked one eye open, flickering it to black quickly.

"Aren't I?"

His smirk was less pleasant now, and I felt the tightening in my gut and tingle at the base of my spine that meant he was pushing desire on me. I rolled my eyes.

"If you're going to play your little emotional game on me then I won't get you anything."

The feeling left immediately as he raised his hands, palms showing in surrender.

"Three more, please."

I chuckled at his tone again and nodded.

By the time I returned, he was already finished with the first bottle. I made him let me heal his fingers before I handed over the others.