My eyes fluttered open to my room, my chest aching as my lungs fought the air like they knew they shouldn't be breathing it. I rolled my head to the side, roving my eyes down to see a blanket thrown over me, and by the way I felt the fabric against every inch of my skin, and how I had woken up shivering, I knew I was naked. I tried to remember more from before, but everything seemed distant, glimmering like a faraway star just twinkling into being at dusk.

Malachi sat a few feet from me, his back leaning against a wall with fewer scorch marks than the others. A bottle of whiskey and two glasses sat next to him, heavily poured and waiting.

"For me? You shouldn't have."

My voice came out quiet and rough, and my throat scratched like it was raw, but I swallowed the discomfort back.

"Welcome back to the land of the living - you going to try to end my subscription once more? Also, don't ever dive at me disrobed again."

He shuddered dramatically, and I felt my head cock in confusion. I didn't know what game he was playing at, but his banter was clearly forced. I played along anyway, trying to give myself time to remember why I had tried to kill him, why I had anger building in my bones by the second, why I was in my room looking like a bomb had exploded, and why I was bare under the sheet hastily draped around me.

"So you really are all talk? Happy to offer me a good time until push comes to shove, then you back down? Typical man," I taunted, but his lips stretched down in a microexpression of disgust before he replied.

"A lot has happened since you - since Ja-" he paused to swallow before restarting in that low, rumbling voice of his. Besides his one stutter, he sounded completely calm, unperturbed, but I saw through that too. "I have some things to fill you in on."

My eyes narrowed, but I let him continue.

"You remember that he is dead?"

I winced involuntarily, my eyes closing like the flinch before you get struck, but yes, I remembered it now—his blood, his father, and then screams and fire and a never-ending void, complete darkness. It came back in flashes, a clanging in my ears, and ice covered me, renewing my shivers so heavily I had to clench my muscles to stay still.

I had thought I was dead, but I had woken before, here, with Malachi, but that wasn't me, it couldn't have been me, that black malice and hatred overflowing from within me. Whoever that had been was little more than an animal.

Like the memories allowed safe passage, I felt those same feelings growing again, crawling up me. I tried to focus on slowing my breathing, pushing back the pain, the hate, calming my pounding heart which was rushing in my ears like a flood, but dread was still rising, panic surging as my fingers curled of their own accord, my hands shaking from more than the cold now. I hid them under my thighs.

Malachi paused, to give me a moment or maybe to see if I would attack him again like before, like some wild thing. I ground my teeth, holding onto my composure by my fingernails, and gave him a curt nod, which he returned.

"Ailech sacrificed himself so I could get you out of there. I took his soul before he died so that Baraqiel couldn't have him. Which means he's back, well, he's a little bit back. He will be back. I'm working on it."

He paused again, his yellow eyes wary. And though I had about a hundred questions, I nodded him on.

"Only I can see him so far, he's uh, drawing strength from me. Also, he's here now, says hi. He kind of always has to be with me for now, to stay strong and to continue getting stronger. He can still pull power from our kind, use his Gift on us, as you experienced when the collar failed last time. Uh, and you have a collar now because you've been a little, mh, murdery every time you've woken for the past three days. Also, it's been three days. And you apparently can manipulate fire now, a fire which can't be shielded or blocked - Abby's tried everything he can think of. Hence the room's state, and mine, and well," he motioned to me and my nakedness with a downtown of his lips again. "Any questions thus far?"

I felt my attempt at control thinning as my mind spun and whatever dark thing inside of me tried to resurface again, like a Shift only worse, deeper and shadowed and consuming. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I knew I was losing the battle as its force began to swallow me up. Just as I thought I would drown in it, a new feeling washed over me, calm and warm, comforting. I opened my eyes to see Malachi draining the last of his glass, the amber liquid disappearing past his parted lips, his other hand slightly raised toward me.

"Are you making me drunk?" I asked dumbly, too shocked to even be angry.

"I'm trying to make you calm, and I'm not exactly good at creating positive emotions on my own. So no, not drunk, this isn't nearly enough for that, but I can't push emotions on others that I'm not currently feeling myself. And this is basically the only way I can create warm fuzzies in me so that I can share them with you. You're fucking welcome, stealing my only good feels."

He muttered the end more to himself, but he was right, I could feel him pushing his liquid relaxation on me, and I grabbed at it, wanting to feel anything but that looming wave of icy shadow, that hungry anger looking for anything to rip a chunk out of.

"Thank you," I breathed out a little easier.

He looked at me perplexed as he reached for the second glass and downed that as well, keeping his cautious, animal eyes on me the whole time. I felt the next wave of calm like a warm blanket.

"Ailech is here now?"

Malachi nodded, looking to his left, though I saw nothing, sensed nothing.

"And Baraqiel is J- my Pair's father? The Collector?"

He nodded again, looking tired. I wondered if he had slept at all these three days, or only watched over me without resting. A flash of James sitting next to my infirmary bed at the manor played behind my eyes and I cringed again. The memory somehow brought with it physical pain, something loud and metallic rattled in my ears, a chill raising goosebumps on my skin again. I suddenly felt as if I might be sick. I remembered his matted, bloodied hair, the blonde illusion tinged red, and the circles under his eyes when he had waited up all night with me after Nevaeh's attack. I pushed the image away and tried to level my breathes that again came out short and hard. A moment later, I steeled myself and spoke.

"Anything else?"

My voice sounded flat, defeated, but I didn't care. I didn't know what to do next. I didn't want to do anything next, to live on without my Pair, if I even could. I didn't know how to stand against his father, even with my fancy new fire, which I assumed I'd inherited from my dead Pair. Some fucking trade.

Malachi stayed silent so long I finally looked up at him, but he was avoiding my eyes, watching the glass in his hands, clasped between his knees where he sat, his jaw rigid, shoulders tight.

"Malachi, tell me."

His face jerked away from me, turning slightly like his name on my lips hurt him before he quietly mumbled a reply.

"You'll hate me."

I felt my heart spike and jump into my throat at his whispered words. Somehow my anger was already there, whatever was in me already trying to dig out again and dive for him, even though I didn't even know what he was about to admit. I pushed it down the best I could, clinging to my control like it was all I had. Maybe it was.

"Tell me."

My words sounded more like a growl as I pushed them out past teeth that begged to sharpen despite my attempts at cool, calm control.

He let out a long exhale and hung his head between his shoulders, his silvery hair falling in tangles, hiding his face from me. But it couldn't muffle his words or shield me from their meaning.

"We share a mother. I'm your half-brother."

» ✦ «

I was with my father again. I was his again. More under his control now than ever before. But whatever his infernal collar and chains did to me, robbing me of my powers, keeping my Shift out of reach, controlling my very movements, even giving punishments at a thought, they couldn't turn me back into the boy I had been last time. This time would be different. I was different.

I sat in my dark, cold, empty cell, a slight upgrade from the cramped stone box I had spent days in, and contemplated my choices. There were three possibilities, three distinct paths for my life, with three destinations. My father could succeed in breaking me and turning me into his monster, the weapon he had always wanted. I could take my own life, hoping I wouldn't simply return again, but then possibly seal the fate of all others as well. Or I could escape before Jordan and the others learned I was still alive and attempted a rescue, which would surely be their deaths. The choice was simple when laid out so plainly. I had to get away.

But I wasn't a fool, and neither was my father. I knew I wasn't strong enough to beat him outright, especially when I was little more than a Human puppet in his chains. Which meant I would need him to believe he had beaten me, broken me, and that I was truly his again. It had to be perfectly balanced, both in action and timing if he was to believe me. If I fell apart too soon, he would know it was a ruse, but if I endured too long, it could be just as unraveling for me as it had been the first time I was at his mercy. And I wouldn't become that twisted thing again.

If he was to believe my charade, this ultimate part I was to play, then I would have to separate myself, giving everything but the deepest parts of me over to him. Let him destroy me, or enough of me that he thought it was all of me. I would do as he bid, be his slave once again. And then...then he would believe me. I knew his tests of loyalty would ruin me, haunt me. I knew I would have to prove myself through cruelty, cross lines I had lived within for years. But even yet, if I could just lock away who I truly was, my heart and soul, or whatever I had in me, if I could keep it hidden until I was free, keep it safe, separate, then maybe I could still come back from him, from who he would make me into while I was shackled to him.

What was coming terrified me, the next months, but there was no other way that gave my family a chance. So I sat, staring out at the pitch darkness of my cold, damp, stone cell with unseeing eyes as I steeled myself for what was to come.

Hi - author here - back posting author blurbs cause, well, I'm almost at the end
[like chapter 46] & I have soooo much to share...sneakily.

Also cause I wanted to go back and reread James back when he was...well, you'll see soon enough.

The things I put my babies through.
Get help.