Malachi's plan was to find our mother. He thought she would know more about 'second-Fallen' as he called me, and that maybe learning more about what I was would help us control and use my powers, find new ones I hadn't tapped into, and kill Baraqiel. He said that was his only agenda, revenge for decades of wrongs, for James, but I saw his mind ticking away behind his eyes when he thought I didn't notice him watching me.

I could tell when he was working something over in his mind, even without seeing it in his eyes, as he had a clear tell. The little rhythms he so often drummed out, on his collar, a table, his leg, clicking the piercing through his tongue against his teeth, even just tapping the tip of his middle finger or index to his thumb. I used to think it was from some tune in his head, but now it seemed more like an unconscious habit, something he wasn't even aware of.

We spent days in my room, trying to control my blackouts and subsequent fire, trying to find the trigger. But I couldn't see any pattern, besides James, and though every episode happened when I was thinking of him, every thought of him didn't bring with it an episode. Kael and Nevaeh tried to visit once, but just hearing their voices through the door sent me spiraling into one of my worst bouts, thinking of the manor, training, James' room. I wished we had never left that night for the cemetery. I wished so much could be different. But even with food and clothing appearing in the room whenever we required them, and regular showers in the attached bathroom, Malachi looked a wreck. I could hardly go more than a couple of hours without becoming a human pyre, and Malachi's burns were multiplying despite his protections.

Finally, I'd had it with watching him silently suffer, or, more accurately, I had it with seeing how he barely seemed to notice his own suffering. I knew why and it twisted something sharp in my rib cage. Luckily, he wasn't the only manipulative one, so I focused hard on him and pulled his pain, gritting my teeth against it so I wouldn't make a noise at its magnitude. It only took a moment for him to look up, confusion on his face at first, but then his yellow eyes flashed deadly and plunged to black.

"Don't. You. Fucking. Dare. I don't need your help or your pity," he said each word slowly, his voice a low threat.

"You can either share the pain or let me heal it. Those are your choices," I replied evenly, not backing down from his tone or Shift in the slightest.

His nostrils flared, his hands clenched at his sides, and I felt my body tense like I still expected him to attack me, like he was still an enemy. But then he closed his eyes, cracked his neck, and took a deep breath in through his nose.

"Is that you working at keeping calm?"

When he opened his eyes again, they were yellow and held less murderous intent. His shoulders relaxed a measure more and he spoke.

"You're not the only one practicing control in here. The sooner I master remaining calm, the sooner I can shove it on you and we can leave this damn oven."

He still sounded annoyed, but no longer violent. I watched him a moment longer, waiting to see what he would decide. When it was clear he was going to try to avoid the subject again, I raised one palm toward him, not that I had to, my thieving power seemed to work without any physical movement, but it got the message across.

"Fine. Leave me to my feelings and you can heal these stupid burns, they're taking too long on their own anyway," he snapped and I tried to hide my self-satisfied smirk.

He pulled his sleeves up, showing his scarred and tattooed arms. And though I had expected the numerous blistered spots, the leathery band of thick, sunken skin that drew my attention was far larger and far worse. My triumphant smirk died on my lips. The burn spanned the inside of both of his arms, from just above his wrists to halfway up his biceps. Each arm had one solid band, red and cracked and blistered at the edges, but smooth and milky as it continued. They were far deeper than anything I could have done since waking, yet they were clearly recent, standing out against his older scars, layered over them.

I knew by the way they weren't wet, weren't red at the centers, that they were third degree. Their even placement made me sure they must connect and continue across his chest under his shirt, almost like he had carried fire, cradled something smoldering in his arms as he held it against himself...

Like he had carried a burning body. Like he had carried me, even as I burned through him, away from Baraqiel.

My eyes moved up him slowly, from the grotesque burns I had given him to his chest as he tried to slow its heavy rising and falling, to his tensed shoulders and neck, and finally, up his face to his near-glowing eyes. I didn't know what to say, but I had to speak. I had to tell him I was sorry, to thank him, to say something. But before I could, his voice took mine's place.

"I said you could heal it, not talk about it."

His words were sharp and cutting, and my first reaction was to argue, but I stopped myself. My brother had gone through so much to save me. He had pulled himself apart and defied his master for me, all while the burden he carried burned him deeper and deeper. He had been the only one thinking of the future after James died, the only one planning an escape. And because of him, we were all here, even Ailech, in a way. The least I could do was show my appreciation in the method he preferred. So I nodded, sealed my lips, and motioned at his chest for him to take his shirt off and show the rest of what I had done to him.

He looked like he would have preferred a fight so he didn't have to show any more of the mark, but he obeyed and pulled his shirt over his head. His chest was ravaged worse than his arms and I made my way over slowly, suddenly worried my thin heals wouldn't be enough. But if they weren't I would call for a healer even if he disagreed, even if I had to hold him down myself.

Blood binds.

The words drifted through my head, not my own but still familiar, and I paused. I took a deep breath and voluntarily called on my Shift for the first time since fighting Baraqiel. I felt it like a gust of wind in my veins, shadows and destruction, deep and unadulterated power, but with a sharp edge that scraped and a current lurking within that made me think of lightning, electricity - and my connection to my Pair. I felt the familiar blackness rising in me then, the fire waiting close behind to pour from me like gasoline and burn everything. But I was too close to Malachi. He wouldn't have the time or space to pull his own flames to shield himself, and I had already hurt him so much.

I looked at his scarred body before me, each jagged stroke and line a story of the life he had lived, the cruelty he had endured, and saw that the worst of his marks were from me. But I wouldn't hurt him again, I couldn't. So I fought against the rising power trying to burst from me and pushed back the feeling, standing firm against the blasts as they tried to overwhelm me, to steal my control.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I stood there, frozen, just a few feet from where Malachi waited. I focused on my breath as I pulled it into my rigid body and pushed it out again, all the while battling that feeling in my core, my spirit or soul, whatever it was that held me together, where my Shift usually slept. I held the fire and shadows down, the hungry power in until it felt like I would break, snap and shatter against such a force. But then, finally, mercifully, the pressure lessened, weakened, and I could let out the last breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

I sank to my knees next to where Malachi sat and found his light eyes searching my black ones.

"You controlled it," he said directly, and I nodded, feeling dizzy and weak from the exertion. But I wasn't done yet, I hadn't even begun.

"Can I touch you?"

His jaw set at my question, making the fine angles in his face that usually made him so pretty stand out too sharply, looking strained. When he replied, it was clipped and cold.

"As little as possible."

I nodded again, raising my palm to my sharpened teeth and biting down until I tasted blood. The air stirred just barely, rustling the hair at my ear and I froze, but then that same familiar presence spoke in my mind, giving me healing words I didn't know, words I had only heard uttered at the Vault. Mage words.

I began my chant, calling on any remedial Angel names I could remember as well, and touched my bloodied hand to Malachi's arm, running it over the damaged areas. The redness at the edges lessened and the blisters shrunk slightly, but it wasn't near enough and didn't even touch the leathery melted skin at the worst of it. I gritted my teeth and tried to search within myself as I had for my Sign or Sight or any of my other Gifts, but there was nothing, just empty darkness. I wasn't meant to heal, to help, only to destroy and consume. The thought made anger swell in me, the fire and blackness trying to surge again to prove my nature. But then I felt a new force spread from my shoulder down my arm to my hand on Malachi's forearm. It continued, filling me, rising and growing, something fresh and light and cool, serene and good.

The power channeled through me and rushed out from my palm. And I watched in awe as Malachi's ruined muscles rose until his forearm and bicep, his chest, no longer looked eaten away. His skin regained a more natural coloring, and though the shade wasn't a perfect match and the texture was wrong, too smooth with intermittent ripples like melted candle wax or wrinkled silk, it was worlds better.

I smiled weakly and sat back, burying my Shift and feeling drained even though I hadn't been the one to do most of the work.

"Ailech's getting stronger. I heard his words, his instructions, and he helped me with the heal."

Malachi didn't acknowledge my words. He was looking down at the new scars stretching across his entire front, larger than any of his others by many times. My satisfaction quickly faded. He hated his scars, and now I had given him new ones, his worst ones. I felt everything in me sink.

"You can maybe have some of those healed away, the ones from Baraqiel. You don't need to see them, to remember them, now that you're free of him."

My voice was quieter than I had meant it to be but watching Malachi be so ensnared by his scars to not even put his shirt back on made my throat thick.

Finally, after running his fingers across the too-smooth skin, and following some of the wrinkled lines like rivers, he seemed to snap out of it and looked up with clear eyes, one side of his mouth lifted into a boyish grin.

"I actually was going to tell you the same thing. I saw a few suspect marks when you were...well, disrobed and trying to strangle me."

I was amazed at how unstrained his voice was, but I ignored it, pushing back to my first subject and speaking quickly before he could stop me.

"I'm sorry I gave you more scars. I know how much you hate them. I promise I never will again, or, try not to."

Malachi's head cocked to the side like James' used to, and I felt it like a dull knife in the gut, but I ignored it and focused on his words as he spoke.

"Actually, I quite like this one. It's the first from my new life, the first I chose to have. The first I gained by doing something I decided to do, something I wanted to do. This one, this one is mine. Plus, it covers a multitude of others, ones I didn't get by choice. I think that's an apt representation of what is to come, don't you? So you can give me as many as you like. After all, I'm your shield, and what's a shield without some dents?"

His grin was wicked, but it fit him, and I felt a weight lift at his words. But then his face blackened and I remembered just how dark he still was.

"Who gave you the scars in those places? Tell me it isn't what I'm thinking."

His eyes seemed to flash a brighter yellow in his anger as they dropped down me, like he could see the marks through my clothes. His constantly changing eyes reminded me of a wild animal again, like seeing floating eyes in the night.

"It was a Red. He's dead. Ja- he killed him."

I answered short, not wanting to think of my old master or what my Pair had done for me, how he had watched over me even when I hated him, how I had wasted so much time hating what he was and what he had done. Malachi nodded and swallowed hard, his jaw tight, clearly reaching for his limited restraint and calm again.

"Jevin, yes. I've heard of him. I wish he wasn't already gone, I could make him suffer so much greater than James did."

'It's probably best this way. I would have done evil things to him if I'd had the chance. And I've been close enough to my nature taking me over before. It's good you never met him either."

Malachi cocked his head again at my reply, looking confused before snorting out a breath and shaking his head, choppy white wisps from his pulled back hair swinging in his face.

"Just because you're my sister, doesn't mean you can tame me. I gave myself over to my nature a long time ago, and it has served me very well. Small sins, you see, it's how I get most things done."

"Small?" I raised my eyebrows in only semi-teasing disbelief.

He scoffed again.

"I'm turning over a new leaf, and under that leaf are a host of small sins. Yes."

He stilled for a moment, looking pensive before he began absently tapping out a rhythm between his middle fingers and thumbs. I knew he was considering whatever had been going through his head for days.

"What? Just say whatever it is you've been thinking this whole time. I can see it on your face."

His grin grew until it balanced at the center of mischievous and maniacal as he watched me, clicking the metal in his tongue against the back of his teeth as he decided how to word his reply. When he spoke, his voice was casual and cool, though it stole the air from my lungs and cemented me in place.

"Well, speaking of small, sinful things...I want you to take my soul."

Small sinful things >< that line still gets me. Though, let's be real, ain't nothing small about Malachi....

His sins. Nothing small about his sins. You pervs. That's our brother! Tsk tsk.

P. S. And before you ask, NOPE, this is NOT one of those romance-between-siblings books. Jordan x Malachi is a NO GO. Don't ask. Don't request. Don't comment. I'll only ignore you.