Malcolm

˚

I don’t look at him. Truthfully, I have not looked at him since he woke, and I have no intention of changing that because I am not sure what will happen if I do. More importantly, I have things to do.

I have to see Lincoln, talk to him and make him see sense before we fall behind in this war that still pretends to be a race. Lincoln needs me, so I do not look. Not as he eats, not when we take our leave and begin our journey to Lincoln’s abode, and not as we breach the goliath front doors without waiting for Lincoln to let us in. My gaze remains ahead, my lips shut, and I keep it so.

Aias, on the other hand, looks.

His gaze needles through me as any laser might, piercing through flesh and bone in its search for my soul. He watches me through every step and breath, and while he remains as silent as I, the very last thing his presence can be called is quiet.

But he is not upset, and neither am I. What we did yesterday and well into this morning was enjoyable, and how we did it, even more so. I did want to do it again, desperately, and that is the problem— how greatly my desire for more kept growing.

It was distracting, now it was worrying.

We find them, Lincoln and Kalem, eating together, with Kalem positioned on a stool he slips from the moment he spots Aias. With a squeal and a dazzling smile, he rushes towards Aias and arrests him into a tight hug that Aias does not hesitate to allow.

“Oh! Did you miss me this much, little one?” He asks with a laugh that jostles my spirit as I watch him envelop the small human. “I yearned for your company as well.”

The pair hold one another, and while they do, I take in the changes in Kalem that are impossible to ignore.

His flesh is no longer wrapped around his bones. Flesh separates the two, thick enough that his cheeks are plump and rosy, like the rest of his tint that is no longer so pale. He wears interesting clothes, all very modern, but also astoundingly yellow.

I have to blink several times just to make myself accustomed to its brightness. It was a wonder Lincoln hadn’t withered up and died simply basking in his presence. Drifting from the pair, I draw closer to my closest friend, who has not moved an inch since our arrival. Lincoln is, as I know him, except— No. My eyes widen slightly as I note the slight colour in his skin as well, along with a slice of muscle that had not been there before.

It seems the pair of them have been taking care of each other

“You beat me this time,” Kalem reports as he parts from Aias, wearing a teasing frown. “Master said I could come and see you again when I got better, but you’re here first.”

“Better?” Aias questions, his brows drawing in slightly before he casts his gaze onto Lincoln. “What happened to him?”

One day, he would tell me honestly why he played dumb so often, and get a proper answer for it. For now, I entertain the show he puts on.

Lincoln sighs heavily, the sound purposefully laboured. “To make an unpleasant story short, he made a deal with an incubus.”

Aias frowns, as do I, but not because of Lincoln’s vagueness. My confusion, or rather surprise, was spurred solely by the touch of regret that Lincoln had spoken those words with.

Had their escapade not been as fun as ours? Or had their escapade not been fun at all?

I could not fathom a reality where Wequie did anything to harm Lincoln or the human he’s become so infatuated with, but… “Wequie mentioned something along those lines when he came to see us,” I hedge, while I survey the food at Lincoln’s side.

He does not glance at it, which is no surprise to me. Lincoln only ate food when he reached a particular type of boredom. It is mostly fruit, diced and sectioned, and I drift my fingers over the selection while I wait for him to give me more. He remains silent— always the prude— while I pluck an apple chunk and then another.

I chew absently, feeling more than one pair of eyes on me, but there is one gaze fiercer than the rest. At first, I think it is Aias’, but no. I turn and meet the sharp amber eyes already pinned to my skin like a serrated blade held to the neck.

My fingers still. Danger, I register, like hearing sound for the first time as long forgotten instincts mounting to protect, but before I can place a hand on Lincoln to drag him behind me, it is gone. The amber cools and fills with thick sadness that I barely compute before the man at my side whacks me.

“Ow!” I shout as I drop the apple and step away. Lincoln’s gaze is lazy, but that slap hadn’t been. I glare at him while I cradle my hand. “What on earth was that for?”

“Don’t touch Kalem’s food,” he replies with some firmness. I blink at him, stunned, but he is already moving on. For some reason, he looks to Aias when he speaks. “I take it the incubus caused you trouble as well.”

“Nothing more than a slight annoyance,” he replies before I have the chance to, and it is then that I finally look at him.

His gaze is already waiting for me, as is the slight smirk playing on his lips.

Kalem is quickly forgotten, as is that strange moment that had iced my veins. There is only the light in his eyes, the wicked amusement, the joy, the satisfaction, and the way it all came together to assault me.

“I don’t want to know.” I startle, turning late to meet Lincoln’s mildly repulsed gaze. He shudders. “What are you even doing here?”

“Aias wanted to see Kalem,” I wave my hand in their direction, but do not risk another glance. “And I have information on Diablos.”

Blood inked by time invades Lincoln’s gaze, and all pretences of annoyance or disgust are discarded as true loathing fills his gaze.

“He’s made no moves on us since the initial attack,” he murmurs tightly as if each word takes grave effort for him to speak aloud. “But I know that is only because he’s working at something behind the curtains, as usual.” He eyes me as I slide into the stool Kalem was seated at, keeping my hands far away from the food this time. But there is something else there to grab my attention. “I’m guessing you’ve heard as much?”

“Bits and pieces,” I admit as I lift the abrasively bright yellow blanket between two fingers and look towards Lincoln.

Lincoln stiffens and visibly works to contain his alarm. “It is Kalem’s.”

“Sure,” I snort, and as he glares, I grin.

I was sure it was Kalem’s because while Lincoln did not hate colour, he certainly did not adore it enough to get any in a fluffy fabric like the one I lay out carefully at my side so I am at no risk of Lincoln’s ire, nor the human that I eye with far more caution as I watch him risk a step forward.

“Master,” he calls, and while Lincoln immediately looks to him, I see only the way Aias flinches at the designation. Did he hate them all, or just this one? “Can I show Aias my room, please?”

“Of course. You do not have to ask permission,” Lincoln replies gently as his lips find the room to smile. “It is your room, Kalem.”

It is as if Lincoln just promised him a million more fluffy, yellow blankets. Kalem beams and closes the remaining space to get to Lincoln. Hugging Lincoln was a privilege bestowed upon exactly two people, and even then, it came with certain restraints— physical restraints when he was being particularly testy.

There are no restraints as I watch the third person allocated such a treat crash into his open arms. Kalem clings to Lincoln with unadulterated glee, and Lincoln—the man who I’d watch stare listlessly into a still pond for an entire year—chuckles softly as he hugs him back.

There’s a soft sort of understanding that claims me and names me its servant as I watch them. Kalem, the self-proclaimed prince of yellow, and my friend, who is yet to realise that he is in love.

He receives Kalem’s kisses to both of his cheeks without so much as a grunt before the human finally slips away from their embrace. He makes a brief stop to collect his bowl of apples, shyly easing them from the counter without meeting my eyes, before he darts back to Aias.

He takes his hand, and together, the two retreat into the depths of Lincoln’s castle that I only just realise is far brighter with the windows cleared, and Kalem walking within them.

“So you came here to talk about Diablos?”

I slide my gaze back to Lincoln and startle slightly when I find him already watching me. I had grown used to Aias’ clinical observations, but it had been a while since Lincoln paid me his.

“It’s a problem we can’t afford to let slip into the background,” I reply, shifting while my fingers tap atop the black marble. “You know how he works better than anyone. Silence is his most valuable weapon.”

“I am well aware,” Lincoln supplies while his narrowed eyes continue to survey me. Whatever he sees, it makes him frown before he drops his shoulders and blurts, “Malcolm, what on earth has that elf done to you?”

“What?” How in all the realms did he know? “Nothing. Aias did nothing.” There was no way he knew. “He did nothing wrong.” That at least was not a lie.

“Of course not,” he sighs heavily, as if just speaking about Aias drained him, but he carries on anyway. “What has changed since the last time I saw you? You are acting weird.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You just did it,” he accuses, and I struggle to keep myself from frowning.

“No, I did not,” I reject, though I’m not entirely sure what this ‘it’ is.

Lincoln rolls his eyes before he positions himself directly across from me and sighs again. Always so dramatic. “I do not want the details,” he clarifies. “I just want to know that you are alright.”

I stare at Lincoln, not bothering to blink or breathe, should such mundane actions shatter this sweetness. There was no question in my mind whether or not Lincoln cared for me, but that did not make me treasure the proof of that care any less whenever it surfaced.

“I am fine,” I start carefully. I didn’t need Lincoln thinking Aias was some sort of threat. If he did, there would be very little I could do to keep him from getting between us. “I’m fine,” I repeat. “I’m happy— very happy— but Aias…” I pause to think in the case that he is listening.

Aias’ magic was still nestled so far outside the breadth of my knowledge, but it had proved itself concerning already. I didn’t want him to know how I felt when I was not supposed to be feeling anything at all.

“I know nothing about him.”

To his credit, Lincoln does not sigh this time as he folds his arms over his chest. “Explain.”

“I know all the little things,” I answer before I lose his interest. “I know everything that makes him Aias.” I think about his silks and watchful gazes, his preference for nature, and the look he gets in his eyes every time lust imbues him, lust for me. “But I do not know a single thing about him. He only lets me know what he wants me to see—” I think of a night spent in and out of crowded hallways, a vampiric party carrying on underfoot, “—and I’m… it makes me scared.”

“You think he’s going to leave,” Lincoln deduces without giving me a moment to wrestle with the frightening reality myself.

Aias eventually leaving was a truth that lived on the edges of my mind from the moment I met him. It was inevitable, and that was bearable at the start when I was still so awed by him. I told myself it still was as I started to coax him out of his rooms, and each time I gained a measure more of his company. I only wanted to be his friend, but then he’d forced me to face the truth of what I wanted from him, and the threads had been unravelling ever since.

Now the truth of him leaving bulges at my core, flaring every time I dared to think of him.

“Eventually,” I force out when the silence stretches on too long. “I do everything right, but I know it will not be enough. He will still leave one day.” He will leave me.

I do not let myself say the words, should Aias be listening. There was no telling how he would take them, and the only thing that terrified me more than his departure from this realm was his departure from my side before it even came time to leave it.

I release a sigh of my own as I force myself to meet Lincoln’s gaze once more.

I expect indifference. I expect discomfort. I expect… everything other than the unbridled rage that consumes Lincoln whole.

“It will work out,” he assures me with a tone just as kind as the one he’d paid to Kalem. “It will all work out, and if he leaves, he will come back. Trust me.”

Trust me. I trusted Lincoln more than anyone in this realm, but in this, I was not too sure.

I shake my head and slap my cheeks, waking myself up before I have a chance to slip into the darkest of my thoughts. “No more about that,” I rush, forcing a smile. “Let us focus on you. I much prefer dealing with your shit because then my life suddenly does not look so bad. So, Diablos?”

Lincoln visibly forces himself to leave the topic of Aias and me alone, choosing instead to focus on more pressing matters. He nods.

“He is preparing for war. It was no bluff,” I begin, relaying all I have learned in the passing weeks. “He has drawn lines between you and him, and he is already gathering as many vampires as he can on his side. If you are not with him, you are against him.”

Lincoln’s jaw works to the side, gaze darkening, but he continues to listen.

“He’s approaching witches, too.”

At this, Lincoln breaks. “Witches?” He sneers as his arms come undone.

I nod. “He knows already that it won’t be enough— growing his numbers and bolstering his strongholds when it all begins. So he is going to the witches.”

“When the war begins?” Lincoln assesses with a bruising scoff. “The only war there is, is between him and me. There are no numbers or sides.”

“Lincoln,” I begin, but he raves on, clogging his ears on purpose.

“I’ve already ensured that the castle is protected. Wequie helped secure it so that what happened last time will not be repeated,” he asserts, which explained the power surge I’d sensed on the way over. Wequie was rather skilled with enchanting tools with his essence, and if he were not already familiar with mine, I would have been impaled by more than one enchanted stake on the way here.

“As for Diablos,” he continues with a grimace that draws lines into his face, “I will draw him out. I know enough of his bases that if I continue destroying them, swiftly, he will be forced to come out.”

I stare at my closest friend while my mind works on the best way to go about this.

I could not leave here today without Lincoln acquiescing to war. It was written in our cards from the day he let Diablos walk away after we’d slain our makers. We were all free, it was true, but some of us did not deserve to be.

But Lincoln had never yearned for conflict, not the way many with his strength would. But what Lincoln wanted was a matter of little consequence now that he’d stuck his hand back into the bloody waters of our species.

I tap a soft tune against the marble while I choose my words with care.

“You know him…” I begin. I let a moment pass. “But he knows you just as well.”

Lincoln’s jaw shifts again, but other than the splintering crack of the marble breaking beneath his hand, he retains himself. “You don’t think it’ll be enough,” he faces, taking the cotton from his ears.

I do not reply, not immediately. Lincoln despised being told what to do. It was better to state the facts and let him find the truth himself.

“Before Kalem, you tried to put a stop to the plague that has become our species’ lifestyle, just as I have,” I begin, eyes locked on his. “Throughout the generations, you have attacked many auction houses, both belonging to him and others. But it has never worked. It has never brought it all to a stop, no matter how many you killed. The result has always been the same.”

“The purpose is not the same this time,” he argues, and I nod, allowing him that.

“Even so, will the result not be the same?” I question as if that needed any answer at all. “He will keep escaping you, and for whatever you manage to destroy, two more will take their place.”

We all had our abilities, our strengths, and Diablos’ was warfare. Trying to drag him out before he was sure of obtaining absolute annihilation was like trying to escape a shark with a bloodied leg.

“So what would you have me do?” Lincoln asks as he sinks onto the stool beside me, close enough now to facing reality that I remove my handling gloves.

“You need to face the truth,” I whisper, dropping my tone so that it does not deliver as an attack. Still, Lincoln stiffens, disquiet shifting the air between us as I approach the subject he loathed more than any other. “Sides will be drawn, whether you want to lead one or not. Everyone already knows you are the First. They know you are the strongest of us, not him. But they follow him, because you let them.” I take a breath, finding that I need to in order to continue. “If you were to start a clan, then—”

“No.”

Lincoln’s dismissal is as swift and lethal as any blade.

“It is wired into us to follow structure, and the strongest,” I continue, not letting myself stop now. “It is how they made us to be, Lincoln. If you were Pylen, and not just a Pylen, but the Pylen, then they would turn on him. Thousands of them. They would come to your side. They would listen to you.”

“No!” Lincoln shouts as his eyes fasten to mine to release his power.

There was a time I could not imagine going a day without feeling the webs of Lincoln’s control in my body. It was second nature, one of the first aspects of life that came with life after blood and light.

Such times have long since passed, I realise as I feel that power reawaken.

My veins thread and then knot, lacing as they find the muscles in my lips and force them to shut. My eyes are targeted next, found and forced downward with the same pressure one would apply to forcing a head to bend in submission.

In a moment and without a word, I am made to submit— to stop speaking.

Lincoln pants beside me, and there is a slight tremble to his fingers that I spot from the corner of my eyes before he flings himself from his chair. “I’m sorry,” he rasps as his grip on my being loosens.

I shake my arms out, quick to unfurl from the shadow of its ghostly touch while I watch him walk away from me. For a moment, I fear he means to leave, but he stops in the middle of a step. His breaths are ragged, his grip on his own hips brutal as he keeps his head bowed, as if to atone.

My chest tightens. “Linc…”

It takes him time, but he eventually turns to me, and there is no questioning the sheer might of all the regret and fear that lives in his gaze, as if he truly believes for a moment that I will be angry with him.

Lincoln’s power, as the First, gave him control over all of us. The rest of us seemed to have been bestowed our abilities on whims or to test how great their power truly was. But Lincoln was only meant to be a conduit for the witches— a spear to cast commands through. But that power remained long after he’d beheaded the last of them.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and I can only smile.

“You hate it more than any of us do,” I assure him, words I have already spoken, but ones he can not ever seem to hear. “I have left this topic alone for all these years because I know how you feel about it, but Lincoln,” I wait until he meets my gaze again, “if you want to keep him safe, then you can not ignore it anymore.”

I do not mean to break him so visciously, do not mean to take the illusion of choice from him, but that is exactly what I do as Kalem is brought within the confines of the subject.

Lincoln breaks, decision made. I only hope he forgives me should the day come that it all proves too much.

“Master!” Kalem calls as he bounds back into the room without Aias at his side. He makes a beeline straight for Lincoln. “Master, can I show Aias the library?!”

Lincoln’s agreement allows for no hesitation. He nods, and he is rewarded with another set of kisses upon both of his cheeks before Kalem is off again, completely unaware of the sacrifice Lincoln will make to maintain his joy. It seemed a light toll as I watched fresh life spark in Lincoln’s forever dulled eyes.

“You are obsessed with him,” I say when I know he is long gone, and Lincoln laughs humourlessly as he shifts to face me.

“As you are with the elf,” he retorts, and my lips are quick to shut. I look away, hoping to steer us elsewhere, but Lincoln approaches the subject with something resembling curiosity. “Who would have thought it’d be a damn elf to scratch that… ‘itch’ of yours.”

Heat rushes into my skin and neck as embarrassment boils within me. Such topics were easier discussed with Wequie and Aias. With Lincoln, I struggled not to swallow my tongue.

Lincoln chuckles again, moving away without another comment, and I follow at his back.

Aias had ‘scratched my itch’, and I hoped he continued to do so as Lincoln and I faced the worst of our kind. I was his support, and I would be at his side every step of the way, but how nice might it be to have someone standing at mine? Even if that someone did carry alternative motives. Speaking of which…

“Would you do me a favour?” I say, bringing Lincoln to a stop ahead of me. He turns, eyes meeting mine with a silent ‘obviously’ in them that makes me smile.

I inch closer to him and say to him with my hands what I do not dare let touch the air, surely spangled with Aias’ magic.

When we are leaving, check your libraries and see if any texts are missing. Let me know if they are.

Lincoln frowns, but it is the only slight he allows to escape him as he pays a careful glance around. You are suspicious of your elf?

I ignore the pleasure that ripples through me at Aias being referred to as mine by someone who knew better than to believe the collar still wrapped around his neck. I am suspicious of everyone who is not you and Wequie.

Lincoln’s lips twitch a little before he nods and turns, continuing in what soon reveals itself to be the direction of his offices. I smile to myself, pleased to see that he is wasting no time.

˚

“War, then,” Aias murmurs at my back, slowing my steps before I can escape to my rooms. “I can not say that I am excited to see what shape that takes amongst your kind.”

I arm myself with indifference as I spin on my heels to face him. “It will be as brutal as you imagine,” I admit before I let a portion of my curiosity show. “Though, I am surprised to hear that you plan to be here for it.”

Aias blinks back at me, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips, though this one is not the natural thing that slips past his barriers from time to time. This one is worn as armour as we circle one another with care.

“Time will tell.” It is all he says, neither confirming nor denying, and I force myself not to let how that bothers me show.

It was usually enjoyable, to play this battle of minds we fell into so often, but knowing that he had likely heard my worries concerning him, and refused to acknowledge them in any manner was hardly inspiring. But if I could not hope to best the puzzle where we were concerned, then perhaps, I could face another.

“It was always due—” I start casually, “a war to place Lincoln at the head of us. We all knew that.”

“And yet he has always avoided it,” he replies, eyes narrowing beneath their thin blonde brows. If I knew him beyond his masks, I would think I spotted disdain. “He still would, if not for you.”

“If not for Kalem,” I correct, looking closely at his expression. It does not shift. “Something about him has struck at Lincoln in a way none has ever before, which is quite the feat when you consider our age.”

Aias’ frown disappears, replaced instead by forced neutrality that shares more than the fact that he takes his time to reply. “I suppose.”

“Stranger yet how Diablos has responded to the loss of him,” I continue with a hum. “We have faced each other often, and Lincoln has stirred more trouble than this, and yet, all for this one human, there is such uproar.”

Aias stays entirely silent.

“And he comes tethered to you.”

Aias’ silvered eyes chill within their shroud lenses, a warning flaring in them that I would prove remiss to ignore. I had gotten enough as it was. Enough to think beyond what was in front of me.

Aias was the elf— the special one— the one Diablos should be banging at my doors for. This war should be with me, and yet it was with Lincoln and Kalem. Kalem, who was the only being in this realm Aias seemed to care about.

Kalem… I roll him around my mind. I had been so preoccupied with Aias as the anomaly that had awoken me that I had almost forgotten about the one that had done the same to Lincoln. A pair that we had found together.

Then, there was the note Lincoln had slipped into my pocket before I left.

He had been smart enough to write it in another of our secret codes that we had developed after years of only having one another’s backs, now acutely aware of just how wide Aias’ magic could span.

Nothing missing, but one series disturbed. My accounts on the Creation of our Species.

So many new pieces to play with. Their presence paves new avenues of thought in my mind, and I leave them to stretch as far as they can as I turn and continue on my path.

“I will be working, but you are welcome to my bed tonight,” I call over my shoulder, “and do let me know if you need anything at all.”

He will not, but that is fine with me. I have a war to plan.

————————–

The way Malcolm becomes so much finer to me whenever he shows off that brain of his. And then he turns around and is a whore for Aias.

I want to lick him

Thoughts???????

Thoughts on the chapter???? On something we’ve seen in Master, but from another POV????? On that moment Kalem had that Malcolm sensed????

In a strange way, I feel like something very subtly shifted here for Malcolm. Like the second he got the war confirmation, he changed gears? Idk, just something about him thinking so quickly for Lincoln to check the library, Kalem so innocently wanted to show off makes him soooo intriguing to me.

I genuinely adore him as a character and can’t want to see how Aias is feeling with the war confirmation. I feel like he’s put his Charge on the back burner a bit, just observing, but now, he’s probably feeling a clock on things.

Anywayyyy, all that speculation aside, I hope y’all enjoy the chapter!! Please leave any and all thoughts and remember to comment!

Next up this coming week is a Patreon extra, then Virion, then an OMEGA Chapter! I won’t have an Aiasthlyn update this weekend, but it will come soon after

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeeeeee Humansssssssssss