Malcolm

˚

Rest does not favour him.

It comes fitfully, resisting every attempt he makes to tame it.

He would be still in everything besides his breathing, and then he would startle awake with alarm blaring behind his eyes. It would take him a moment to register my presence, my arm around him, and one more to remember why it was there before he would relent. A few seconds more, and he’d slowly let himself be coaxed back beside me, where he would fall asleep again, and I would wait for it to happen once more.

It was as though he was not supposed to rest, or was not allowed to, and each time he dared to do otherwise, some internal registry rectified the wrongdoing.

Four times he woke. Three times, he went back to sleep.

I thought he would part himself from me and pretend as if none of this had happened. I’d prepared myself for it all night, but in reality, it has been hours since he’s abandoned trying to sleep, and still, Aias lies in my arms.

Carding my fingers through his hair, I match his quiet breaths with versions of my own to lend him comfort outside of the muted stillness. He’d stiffened at first, but soon relaxed enough to enjoy it, as he does now. I hope.

He’s moved to better shrug the sheets from his ankles, and a bit upwards to breathe me in, but that’s it. He hasn’t spoken a word or made every reference to how bizarre this is for us, even if it is wonderful.

In fact, Aias has not made a single motion to separate us, and if it were not already glaringly obvious, then his allowance of my attempts to comfort would have been proof enough that something was terribly wrong with Aias.

I had seen Aias in many moods, try as he might to suppress any proof of them, but in the dark outside Lincoln’s castle, I saw fear in his eyes for the first time.

I quickly decided that I never wanted to see it again.

The trouble was that I did not know what caused it.

I didn’t know what terrified Aias so, how to stop it, or at the very least, how to keep it at bay. I didn’t have a single clue what led Aias to show up at Lincoln’s castle with murder in his wet eyes, let alone how I knew to go to him.

It had started as a sudden sickness in my lungs, a tightness in the depths of my soul that had me already bounding towards its owner when a vision fell upon me.

Rarely did they feature the same person in succession, rarer still that I myself got another within the same quarter of a year, but against all odds, it had been another of Aias.

Aias and Lincoln in the midst of blows so vicious they shook the foundations of the Earth.

Then, it was gone, and I was running faster than ever before to find him, only when I got there and saw his face— the fear— I could not remember who I’d come to protect.

Aias had secrets. This I knew. There was a reason he was in this realm, but for the first time last night, I found myself considering the possibility that that reason might not be a conviction of his own.

It was in his eyes. In how empty they were. How tired he was.

I’d seen that look before, too many times, and I saw it in the shadows that clung to him when he appeared without his collar, and then again last night, when he advanced on Lincoln like a soldier marching towards their own end.

Aias’ choices were not his own. Not entirely.

If I knew why or what was going on— even just a modicum of it— it would be enough. I would make it enough to free him, but Aias would never tell me. This, I also know. So I remain beside him, and I do not speak.

I offer him comfort instead, the only thing I have to give to him that he is willing to take, and I hope that it helps— that it makes him feel safe, because after last night, I did not know what else to do.

“The sun is peaking.”

My fingers still in his hair, just as the rest of me does, as surprise ripples through me. I did not expect him to speak first.

“It is,” I agree before I slowly relax.

Aias lets another set of minutes pass before he asks, “Do you not have matters to tend to while it does?”

“No,” I lie, and he frees some soft sound against my skin that ignites my core.

“That was a question that only had one true answer, Malcolm.”

“My answer is still no,” I argue, mustering as much candour as I can. “Nothing is immediate beyond staying here with you.”

Aias’s heart is the one that replies, and I listen closely to its patter as we fall into the quiet again. I think of saying something or asking any of the many questions that have been rattling through my mind since I found him, but they all promise an end with him parted from me, and I can not have that.

So I remain quiet, but when the silence breaks, bursting our bubble with it, it is not my doing or his. It is a disturbing and unnatural trilling sound that turns us to stone.

“What is that?” Aias asks as he pulls himself up, and I have to bite my lip to stifle my whine when he does not let me keep him to me. He hones in on the sound, cocking his head to one side like a bird.

“The devil phone,” I grit through my teeth, and to my surprise, he laughs. Sweetly.

It transforms him, taking some of the shadows away and leaving only light as he considers me. Awed, I stare dumbly at him until he returns his attention to me and raises one of his sharp brows.

“Should you not see to it then, Malcolm?”

“I don’t want to.”

It’s a blunt confession. A foolish one with how it bears my longing to someone who can not have it. But then Aias lips lift into a smile, and I can not remember why I should not be anything other than honest with him.

“Malcolm,” he says, a soft scolding that has my soul twirling.

“It will stop,” I promise as I shift closer. He hasn’t left the bed yet, and perhaps that is because he does not want to.

I rest my head on his shoulder and risk leaning against him when he does not move away. Shrill pleasure dashes through me at my boldness and the fact that Aias allows it with mirth sparkling within his eyes.

“It is not stopping,” he whispers, but he remains as he is.

“It will.”

It does not. Aias gives me a look, but I ignore it as I crawl closer.

“It will,” I promise with desperation that I hope the universe heeds. “I don’t even know why it is making that sound.”

That brings his eyebrows together a touch. “Is it not yours?”

“It is. Unfortunately,” I sigh while the spelled instrument continues its wailing in the distance. “Lincoln hoisted it onto me for faster communication.”

Mentioning him is a mistake. I know it the moment the warmth slips from his eyes, leaving room for only darkness to return with a vengeance.

He pulls away just as the blasted device stops, but I do not let him go. Not yet.

“Malcolm.”

It’s another whispered scolding, only this one isn’t so sweet.

“Do not go,” I beg, and I am in his lap now, but I do not care. I want him to stay here, where we can be as we are before he is back to fighting it— fighting me. “Spend the day with me.”

Aias frowns up at me, and I do not know if it is because he wants just that or wishes for me to stop pleading for more. I tell myself it is the former as I slide my hands around his neck and link them there.

“Stay.” I say it as though I need it, because I know he won’t hear me if I say that he does.

Aias’ lips part, but the demonic shrilling returns before he can speak. I groan, loudly, and he laughs. It is a dangerously gorgeous sound.

“Answer the call, Malcolm,” he says, patting my hip.

“But—”

“That was not a request, pisen,” he rasps, and electric pleasure ignites in me like a sudden lightning strike.

“What does that mean?” I ask. I can’t help it. I have wanted to know for ages, but haven’t once felt brave enough to ask after it.

“Do as you are told, and perhaps, I shall tell you.”

I glare at him, knowing he won’t, but do not fight him as he gives me a gentle nudge from his lap. “Wait for me. Please,” I beg as I slip from him and the bed.

Aias’ frown returns, etching deeper this time, but he nods. I smile gratefully and disappear, not willing to risk giving him the chance to take it back.

Out of my rooms and across the manor, I find the evil device where it croons in the bottom of a drawer in an unused room furthest from me. I pick it up between the tips of two fingers with a glare.

I did not want it in my home, let alone in my hand, but I force myself to answer the only person who could be calling it.

“I need you. Now.”

My spirit chills, ridding itself of any of the warmth Aias left behind. I straighten in place before my legs start moving.

“What happened?”

“It is Kalem. He’s—” he stops himself, sounding… uncertain. I pick up my pace. “It would be better to tell you in person.”

“Okay, but—” Aias.

I stop in my tracks as his name settles in my mind.

There should not be a ‘but’. Lincoln needed me, so I had to go, but… what Aias needed refused to leave my mind, especially when it was the very opposite of what Lincoln asked of me.

Between the collar and his strange late-night trip, the very last thing Aias needed was to be back at the castle. It would be simple if I could go without him, but there was absolutely no way that I could without him following me. Even if I managed it, he would no quicker forgive me for knowing something regarding Kalem’s condition and hiding it than I would if the situation were reversed.

“What is it?” Lincoln prods when I do not speak. “Are you alright?” A new type of anxiousness invades him. “Why did you take so long to answer? Malcolm, what—”

“I am fine,” I dismiss as my feet find the strength to keep moving. “I only took long because I do not keep this sorcery near me.” Lincoln huffs, and I smile. At least the situation was not dire, for he would not be laughing if it were. “We will be there soon.”

“No, I’ll come to you,” Lincoln states, making me freeze. “It’ll be faster.”

I highly doubt that, but Lincoln has already ended the call, and I am in no mood to use the devil device for a moment longer. I toss it from me and rush back to Aias, my mind churning.

Aias was fragile right now, whether or not he would ever admit to such a thing, and if I could not help him, then I wanted to protect him. But thrusting him into a fire hardly felt like protection.

And I had liked our morning. The stillness, the comfort, the rightness, and I had known it was not infinite, but that did not make me more inclined to let it go. But the universe does not leave me a choice.

He’s still in my rooms when I return, though no longer in my bed, or wearing the evidence of his fragility.

What remains is the Aias I am more familiar with. The one who hid the cracks beneath.

He stares at me, gold eyes empty. He heard.

I bite into my cheek with the same force I use to keep my hands to myself so that I do not go to him and shake him until the real him falls out.

“It is alright,” he whispers as he walks to me, the picture of strength and grace, and secrets too.

He stops before me and offers me the most pitiful smile. “Matters to tend to,” he breathes sadly, before he passes me by. “Shall we?”

Like we have any other choice.

˚

As it turned out, Lincoln and I held vastly disproportionate ideas of what classified as dire.

I return my attention to Lincoln, and while he is clearly shaken, it is not by much. He’s already adjusting, making room for the revelation that still leaves me as what I’d class as reasonably dumbfounded.

I glance at Aias, again, just in case this time something more than apathy shows on his face. It does not.

“Malcolm.” I hum, and Lincoln’s brows try to bridge the gap. “You are not saying anything.”

“Yes, well, I am trying to digest it all,” I reply with a smile that shatters a second later as I rub at my own bridging brows. “You are saying— trying to tell me— that Kalem… is not human, and I am finding that hard to believe.”

He could have come to tell me anything else. From word on Diablos or of a potential ally that had slithered out of the ether. Literally anything else, I would have been ready for besides this.

“He isn’t,” he replies resolutely, and I laugh.

It’s a loose, flighty sound that sours his mood, but there is nothing I can do about that in my current state. “That is not possible. I am sorry, but it isn’t.”

Taking a breath, Lincoln holds it for just a moment before he releases it slowly. “I told you. He—”

“Stopped time and left a bee frozen in the air. Yes, you said, but that does not change the fact that it is not possible.”

Lincoln grits his teeth, and I leave him to it while I cross the room.

I did not care what Lincoln said. A time-freezing creature with the ability to teleport did not exist. Not within our realm.

I glance over my shoulder, searching for Aias, but his expression is the same stone-cold mask it’s been since Lincoln lured us into the study to explain the situation.

Kalem was reportedly not human. I laugh again. It was preposterous.

“Did you know?”

Lincoln stares at Aias, waiting for an answer. Aias blinks back at him for a long moment.

“…No.”

One word. One syllable, and yet, my senses draw tight as the sickness from the night before returns. I place myself between the two and hold Aias’ gaze until the gold blades drift away.

He takes a deep breath and stiffly shakes his head. “Kalem has only presented as human to me,” he says, the edge of his right ear twitching.

“He did not know it was him,” Lincoln explains, adding another tab to this ever-expanding puzzle. “He said that he thought it was my gift and I was sharing it with him.”

Aias looks to me. “We can share our abilities, to a degree,” I explain.

“He thought mine was the teleportation and the time-freezing,” Lincoln finishes with a waved hand. “It is not.”

Aias eyes Lincoln for a moment more before he looks to me again, but that I do not engage with.

What Lincoln could do hardly mattered when we were discussing the existence of a non-existent creature that harnessed the ability to hide what it was. That was the most concerning prospect of Lincoln’s news— not that he seemed to register that yet, but it was all I could think of.

How much was such a creature capable of keeping hidden?

“I know of many creatures and the abilities that can emerge within them when they mix, but I have never heard of one like this,” Lincoln admits, looking solely at me now. “I need your help to figure out what he is.”

“Then you will find me useless, “I retort, and when Lincoln glares at me, I throw my hands up in defeat. “I have no information to help you, Lincoln. I—”

“Let us see it for ourselves,” Aias interjects. His eyes find mine while he speaks. “Malcolm does not believe what you say, and I am reluctant to do the same. So, let us see.”

Lincoln’s jaw works itself over as he contemplates a decision that has already been made. I doubted he had the tools to keep Aias from seeing Kalem if he tried.

“Fine, but don’t push your disbelief onto him,” he seethes, his glare lethal. “He already thinks he’s done something wrong. I will not have you unravelling all our progress by saying something reckless.”

“We will be fine,” Aias retorts icily, and there’s no doubt that he’s offended by Lincoln daring to tell him to be mindful with Kalem.

Lincoln looks to me next, and I roll my eyes, but nod. I’d save my vitriol for him.

Striding out the room without another word, Lincoln leaves us to follow, and we do, walking side by side, and slightly closer than I am used to.

It is giddying at first, but then, I see the changes.

I see how stiff his steps are, how tightly he holds his palms, the way his eyes flit over to search every corner of the halls he knows well by now.

Aias is worried. Very worried, and maybe that is the true reason why he’s ‘reluctant’ to believe as well.

“Wait here,” Lincoln says before he slips inside the old study and shuts himself inside without waiting for a response.

Aias and I stay as we are, staring restlessly at the door before us, and both pretending otherwise.

“Is this why you were there last night?”

My question drifts in the empty hall for his ears alone.

“No,” he returns. Then. “I do not think so.”

I frown as I look to him. “You do not know why you were there?”

“Like you, I make do with what I know.”

The door opens, and Aias does not hesitate to enter behind Lincoln’s already retreating back. Biting back a swear, I follow suit, heading straight for the little human sitting nervously at the edge of my couch.

Kalem’s head of brown tresses stays tilted downwards while he wrings his hands in his lap, tapping a nervous tune with one foot. It almost rivals the pitter-patter of his heart, but it’s not quite so disjointed. He gnaws at his bottom lip, barely catching our eyes when he does dare to look up. Still, I soften my stare so he does not fear, and in the quiet, I look him over with my most critical gaze.

Human.

Completely and utterly human.

It rises from his pores like smoke from a coloured flare, literally pounds in his heart and the stitching of his DNA. There is no magic to him, around him, or in him.

He is human.

I do not bother stifling my sigh as I face Lincoln. “Are you sure you did not imagine it?”Black eyes slice over to me, and I know the patience within is withering, but I’m having a hard time caring seeing as he pried me away from the most intimate moment I have ever had with Aias for plain and utter foolishness.

“I didn’t imagine it,” Lincoln grits out.

“I will not judge you if you did. It could have been a drug,” I stop to peer at him. “Are you on drugs?” I snort, remembering the last time Lincoln had partaken in any sort of substance in my presence. It had left me, him and Wequie with some rather ridiculous surnames we still harboured to this day. “If you are, no need to feel ashamed. You have seen Wequie and I try wolfsbane.” That too had been a wonderful day.

Oh, when times were full of whimsy.

“I am not on drugs, Malcolm,” Lincoln retorts tightly, a touch of red flaring his eyes before he reins himself in.

It’s not for my sake of course, only the fidgeting human sitting before us.

“Well, if it’s not drugs then maybe you are simply craving company,” I suggest with a shrug. “A lot has happened in a narrow timeframe, and there is only so much Kalem can do.” The boy peeks up at me and I smile. “He is trying his best.” His eyes are warm enough for me to know that is true. To Lincoln I say, “It is entirely possible you’ve been underground for too long. Perhaps you should get out more, make some friends.”

“I did not imagine it,” Lincoln grits out but exhaustion is weighing in on his annoyance which gives me more room to play. “And I do not need any more friends,” he adds quickly, flicking a brief glance over me, “you are more than enough for me to deal with.”

“What I am hearing is that I am the equivalent of a group of friends,” I surmise, nodding in agreement.

“Malcolm,” Lincoln sighs.

“My friendship is invaluable to you, irreplaceable, and a treasure trove in your eyes,” I purr, planting a hand to my chest as I cast a coy look his way. “I’m touched, truly.”

Lincoln seethes and I wonder how quickly that devil phone would work to get Wequie here to enjoy it too.

“I sense nothing but human in him,” Aias says, cutting through my amusement in one swoop.

I look to him, studying his removed deposition with a wary nod. “I smell the same.”

Kalem slumps beneath us, but while I’d assumed it stemmed from the disappointment of being told he was not supernatural, for him, it seems to spring forth solely from the attention he has brought onto himself.

“I-I’m sorry,” he whimpers, curling further into himself. The boy wilts like a flower, and the room seems to darken slightly, as if to match his mood.

“There is nothing to be sorry about, love,” Lincoln dismisses as he crouches beside the boy and cups his face. Kalem immediately leans into the touch. “We are just trying to figure out what exactly this may be, so we can deal with it properly.”

The boy nods slowly, taking any comfort he can scrounge up from Lincoln, who offers it freely. I stare at the pair, trying to find threads there, something that Lincoln intensifies, but the scent and aura of the boy remain completely mundane.

“Can you do it now?” Lincoln asks gently. I frown, glancing at Aias, but when he remains silent and watchful, I hold my tongue as well. “Can you do ‘pop’ now, with Malcolm and your friend so they can see it too?”

‘Pop’? Was that what they were calling teleportation now? Though teleportation didn’t freeze time.

“That was not teleportation. Just because it seemed that way to you does not mean that is what it was. I am sure to the unknowing, your speed would appear the same.”

My head snaps towards Aias while the world shifts around me.

He meets my gaze, but frowns, confused.

“I-I can try,” Kalem says, but I can hardly balance thoughts of him amidst words Aias had once shared.

If I had a heart that beat, it would be spasming right now, but thankfully, such reactions do not bind me, and I take full advantage of that as I return my stare to Kalem and Lincoln. I watch them as if nothing has transpired, as if I am following their conversation.

I don’t even see them.

Aias’ words rotate in my mind, ricocheting as I try to make sense of them and the present situation. Back then, I had thought he was just trying to be smart when he’d made that response, but perhaps he’d shared a secret to me without even realising it.

“I-I can’t, Master,” Kalem suddenly says, and he looks as if he is on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry Master, b-but I can’t.”

“That’s okay, Kalem,” Lincoln assures him kindly. “That is perfectly okay. What is important is that you tried, and you did. And I am so proud of you.”

The sun shines through Kalem’s eyes. “Really?” He asks, and his heart is a tattling monster in his chest.

“Really,” Lincoln confirms with a soft smile before he kisses the boy gently. My eyes widen. “It is okay,” he assures him when they part.

I thought he’d wait a little longer before they got to that stage, but apparently I’d been mistaken. Glancing at Aias, I startle to find him still staring at me. Curiosity still lives in his narrowed eyes, but I pretend I do not see it as I smile and try to slip back into my earlier mood.

“I feel like a third wheel,” I sigh, pouting at him. “I want a kiss too, Aias.”

Aias raises a brow, surprise replacing his curiosity as his lips stretch into a smile that sends a shiver down my spine. “I’m sure you do,” he whispers, eyes never once leaving mine.

I get lost in them, enough to forget what I’d been trying to hide from, and perhaps that is why I do not catch what is about to happen before it happens.

One moment, I am staring at Aias, locked in the maze of our minds within the study, and the next, we are in my sitting room. The one that had been transformed first to host Aias and his blankets and the large modern television.

I twist around, spinning until I almost fall on my ass because this is not possible, only it has just happened and—

“The fuck.” My vocabulary has always been an extensive one, but it fails me now as I take another spin around. “W-We just— the study—” I shake my head, but the world refuses to make sense of itself. “What the fuck.”

Lincoln smiles smugly from where he’s squatted with a very happy and proud Kalem in his lap. “Maybe you are simply imagining things,” he taunts, and the boy giggles.

“I deserved that,” I concede while I work the lump in my throat down. “Or… I am on wolfsbane.”

“You’re an idiot,” Lincoln sighs, but I’m not paying attention to him anymore.

I stare at the boy. Even now, he feels completely human. He is as he was a moment ago.

There are no lingering traces of magic in the air, no tells of what he drew on or even how he did it. He simply… did it.

Aias steps forward to my left, and I forget my own daze when I see the open shock on his face.

His fingers twitch, and I think he means to touch the boy, but then he moves past him and Lincoln and strides brazenly to the clock hanging on the wall. He lifts it, studying it with a harsh frown before he turns it towards us.

“You were right about time coming to a halt,” he says to Lincoln as he takes his time returning, his eyes glued on Kalem. He watches the boy like a hawk, and Kalem senses it, his hold on Lincoln tightening as he stares warily at his friend.

“It continues when he ‘pops’ back to the original point he left,” Lincoln explains to me, and I’d think he hadn’t noticed the look in Aias’ eyes if I didn’t know him better. He was simply unconcerned, but I doubted he still would be if he knew we were outside his castle last night.

I should tell him.

Why haven’t I told him?

Because he’ll see Aias as a threat, and Lincoln doesn’t deal with threats kindly.

An itch starts beneath my skin. I fold my arms over my chest to keep from scratching. “How did you only just notice this?” I ask, glancing between the two. “You’ve been with Kalem for more than three months now, so how in all the Hells are you only finding out about this now?”

“Things seem to carry on from their fractured point when he returned, with no visible disturbance or difference,” Lincoln explains while his frown returns. “I never noticed because I never felt things shift or change around me. I did, at times, question how he completed certain tasks so quickly, but I placed the fault on me not always being focused on him. With Diablos and protecting Kalem, I thought my mind just wandered too far for me to notice his movements.”

“I-It’s not Master’s fault,” Kalem blurts bravely. He looks like he’s choking on each word, and I know it’s because he’s speaking when he thinks a slave shouldn’t, but he faces the storm anyway. “It’s my fault for doing it without Master’s permission.”

“You do not have to explain yourself,” Lincoln whispers before he sends a scathing glare towards me. “Especially to Malcolm of all people.”

I gawk at him. Was it my fault the boy chose to defend him? No. And was it not a good thing that he did so? A sign of progress?

Lincoln’s glare argues otherwise.

“If you two children would not mind settling down, I believe we could possibly work through this,” Aias says as he sets the clock down on the table beside me before propping his hip onto it.

I take the step to bring us side to side. His eyes flit to me, but he does not move away.

“Kalem,” he says, dragging his gaze back to his friend, “do you remember the first time you ‘popped’?”

Kalem’s eyes track up as he thinks. It takes him a while, but eventually he finds it. “It was after Master showed me around the entire castle,” he says, glancing at Lincoln with one of those beaming smiles. “Master took me all around, and I saw the castle gardens, and everything was so pretty that I wanted to see it again. I just went to the glass to try to see it from there, but there were plants all over it, and I couldn’t. I was trying to see through a space in the vines, and then I was outside again.”

“For future notice, all you have to do is ask, Kalem, and it is yours,” Lincoln replies, and I look away to save myself the awkwardness.

It was not that I minded witnessing their affection. I rather enjoyed it, especially for Lincoln, but it was rather a lot to receive right now when Aias was so close-fisted with his.

“This could be the reason why your nemesis wants Kalem so badly,” Aias says, his gaze pensive as he too avoids staring too long at the doting pair.

“It would explain why he’s going through such lengths for one person,” I allow, but I shake my head before it can hook in his mind, “but if he knew what Kalem was and thought him valuable enough to start a war over, then Kalem wouldn’t have been up on the stage that night.”

“Mistakes happen,” Aias argues, his eyes focused on me. “It would explain why they kept him for so long, trained and brainwashed him— a ploy to make him susceptible to this man’s doing.”

“I would not put it beyond Diablos to go through all that trouble,” Lincoln agrees, but then he, too, dismisses it. “But that is still a lot of trouble to go through just to control someone. There are easier ways that I assure you, Diablos is not above pursuing. His humanity is non-existent— he wouldn’t wait that long, and he’s not my nemesis, just an unfortunate and unwelcomed obstacle in my life.”

“Either way, we can’t rule it out as a possibility,” Aias retorts before he looks to Kalem and softens himself. “Tell me something, little one. Have you ever done this ‘pop’ before you lived with this vampire?”

Lincoln frowns, and I struggle to contain a laugh while Kalem shakes his head.

Aias smiles gently at him before he straightens and casts another look my way. “Then, if this does involve Diablos, perhaps he grew tired of waiting for an ability that never came from Kalem, or he never knew. And this isn’t some gift of yours you shared with him,” he urges, glancing briefly at Lincoln, who shakes his head. “Then if it’s not you or Diablos, this is all you, Kalem.”

Kalem straightens a little, a myriad of emotions passing through his gaze.

He glances among us all, trying to gauge whether or not he should feel excited or scared. I keep my expression plain so that he can not tell that I believe it should be the latter.

“But he’s human,” I say, even knowing he is not. “His heart beats, his veins pump blood, and he smells of one. In every sense of the word, he is a human.”

It is the only theorem I have to hold onto, because otherwise, reality would be it that Kalem was a supernatural creature in hiding, and somehow, he’d ended up in Lincoln’s life the same moment Aias ended up in mine.

If that did not spell disaster, then I did not know what did.

“Humans do not freeze time or teleport, pisen,” Aias whispers under his breath, and if he means to distract me, then it works, because Kalem becomes the last of my worries as I stare at him. “He can not be human, or at the very least, not entirely one.”

I hear words but fail to compute them as I stare at him.

A light flickers in his eyes, just for me, and I do not let it go.

“I’ve searched through everything I know to be supernatural,” Lincoln suddenly says, forcing Aias to look away, and for possibly the first time in my life, I want to press a pillow against Lincoln’s face. “There’s nothing that fits what Kalem does, or at least, not entirely. The only thing that may have that much power is a warlock, but the species requires some sort of spell to be cast before their magic is put into use.”

“He is not a warlock,” I dismiss as enchantment leaves me instantly. “Even watered down through blood ties with humans or other species, vampires can easily feel the presence of a warlock or witch’s magic. Lincoln and I would’ve picked up on the traces of it within his blood.”

“Not if someone masked it, or perhaps bound it to be hidden,” Aias offers, but Lincoln and I shake our heads in unison.

“There’s no magic capable of doing such a thing. Perhaps for other species, but not between witches and vampires,” Lincoln explains with a familiar tightness in his voice. “They made us. There is an eternal bond between the magic in their veins and the magic used to morph us into vampires. We’d sense it one way or another if he were a warlock.”

I study Lincoln and the familiar hatred that ripples through him, but he pockets it before it can blaze into something bigger.

“Alright,” Aias says, giving in for the moment, though he’ll be soon poking me in private. “Perhaps something linked to the fairies.”

I look at Kalem just as Lincoln and Aias do, and we all abandon the chance of that with a quickness.

“Why no?” Kalem asks, almost pouting, as if it were his lifelong dream to be a fairy.

“Fairies are very… protective,” Aias offers carefully, and he is absolutely correct, even for someone not of this world.

“You would have never ended up in Diablos’ hands as a fairy,” I explain, but Kalem just tilts his head. “They’re not ones to let their people go— few even leave their realm. Not to mention they need sunlight to survive. The number of years you spent in captivity would’ve killed you as a fairy.”

“And even more so, fairies can not teleport,” Lincoln adds, and Kalem slumps but nods along.

“So if he’s not a warlock, and not a fairy…” I say, looking from Kalem to Aias. “What is he?”

“That’s what we have to figure out,” Lincoln states, answering the question not meant for him.

He keeps speaking, saying something else about scurrying my libraries since his already proved insufficient, and I have half a mind to cut this here before we waste any more time.

No creature like Kalem existed in our realm; that was a fact.

If his searches in his library didn’t already prove that, then mine certainly would.

We would find nothing, no matter where we searched. Not unless the man holding my gaze decided to point the way.

I raise a brow, waiting in case he will give me anything, but Aias only blinks at me and keeps his secrets to himself.

—————————————

The way Aias and Malcolm be eye-fucking or brain-fucking or whatever the fuck, in public be hot as fuck to me. I’m sorry.

Thoughts?????????

Thoughts on the Kalem reveal from this POV???? On Malcolm’s reaction??? On Aias’ reaction from Malcolm’s POV????

Its a bit of a mind fuck for me cause its like we know what’s coming, we know Aias knows, so then it’s like portraying that from Malcolm’s POV who doesn’t know, but knows that Aias probably knows lmfaooooo – see? a mind fuck

I will say, the beginning of the chapter with them cuddling?!?!?! UGHHHHH WE NEED MORE OF THAT!!!!!!! Says the author, but fr. Like that was such a brief glimpse in what they could be if they won’t both just trying to work and do right by everyone around them that they love fuckkk

I love them, and if you read Master, you know this scene doesn’t end here, and I promise in the next we get some real fluffy/steamy moments between the two

But! All in all! I really hope yall enjoyed this chapter!!!!!!!!!!! 

The next update should be out next weekend!!!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeee Humansssssssss