Page 11 of Malice: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #3)

I stood there, dumbfounded. This conversation had really taken an unexpected turn.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Malice offered.

“I’m fine,” I snapped.

I was not fine, but fuck him for pointing it out.

An awkward silence stretched between us while I struggled to process everything. “Is that why Lucifer needs me or my womb or whatever? Because I’m part horseperson and therefore, like, hardwired to end the world or something?”

“No, actually,” Chaos said with a sigh. “It’s the other part of your bloodline he’s interested in.”

“Oh God,” I whispered, feeling lightheaded. How could there be another bomb to drop on me?

“Sabine planned this very meticulously. As soon as she realized she wouldn’t get a chance at an apocalypse of her own, she tracked down everything she’d need to ensure she’d have a place at the end of the world. You weren’t engineered in a lab, but you might as well have been.”

The way Malice spoke, so detached, so formal, made my stomach clench. “Sabine is my mother’s name?”

He nodded.

“And she’s Famine.”

He nodded again.

“Do you know who my father is? Was he in on it?”

The four of them looked at each other in turn, clearly waiting for someone to jump in with the answer to my question.

“No,” Sin finally answered when it was clear no one else was going to. “The horsewomen don’t tend to clue in the men they use as breeders on their plans.”

Malice snorted in derision, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Pan’s mother was one of these horsewomen.

Tucking that nugget away for a future conversation, I returned my focus to the matter at hand. “So he was an unwitting sperm donor.”

“Yes. But one with a very special bloodline that makes you exactly the vessel Lucifer needs. You’re built for him,” Grim answered.

I scoffed. “How nice for him. Too bad I’m a succubus. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but we aren’t the most fertile.”

“About that,” Sin said, pulling my attention back his way.

“Nope. This one I’m confident about. Lilith gave me the birds and bees chat when I moved in with her.”

“I bet you she didn’t mention that dreamwalks increase your fertility, did she? That everything that happens in them is real, and anything... deposited stays where it’s put?”

I opened my mouth to refute him, but closed it again when snippets of our brief conversation about dreamwalks returned to me.

Lilith had sort of mentioned that part of the reason they’d been banned.

I’d just assumed, since we were talking about incubi, that it was only the men leaving mortal women pregnant.

Not that it worked both ways. And I knew firsthand, given the bruises I’d worn, that what happened in one plane impacted the other.

“Your kind are strongest in the dream realm,” Chaos said, interrupting my musing. “All of your abilities are amplified there.”

“Well, shit,” I whispered. My hand slid to my lower belly. Had they already been successful?

“You’re not pregnant, wildflower. Not yet.”

“But I need to be?”

Grim nodded, his lips set in a firm line. “If we succeed before Lucifer can, there’s a chance we can save the world.”

“And if not?”

“If he gets his antichrist, it’s game over,” Sin offered.

My knees finally gave out, and I sank down onto the ottoman behind me.

A little pang had me rubbing at my chest by the time I finally gave voice to my next question.

“So your willingness to help me feed, and well, all of this... It was never about taking care of me. It was about beating Lucifer?”

“Yes,” Grim said.

“Not exactly,” Sin countered, glaring at Grim.

Chaos was the next to try to explain. “Taking care of you is a privilege. But, yes, saving the world is the end goal.”

Malice sighed. “I don’t know why I allow any of you to talk.

You’re always putting your giant feet in your mouths.

” Then he looked at me, his expression as severe as ever, but his eyes unusually kind.

“Two things can be true, hellcat. We were asked to protect you, and we’ve done that in every sense of the word.

It just so happens that the ways in which we care for you also allow us to accomplish our other task. ”

Sincerity bled through every word each of them spoke.

Sin locked gazes with me, truth shining in his eyes. “What we’re trying to say is, you’re so much more than an assignment to us. Help us save the world, kitten, and let us show you how important you are to us.”

Ugh, the handsome incubus was really good at making my heart fluttery and warm.

Did I want to bear the antichrist for Lucifer?

Fuck no. But did I really want a baby with anyone?

Glancing around the room at the four handsome men who I’d built a really fucking complicated dynamic with, I realized I wasn’t totally against one of them giving me a baby.

Perhaps building a post-apocalyptic family wasn’t the greatest idea.

Maybe we waited until the world settled back down and, you know, the sky wasn’t on fire?

“You can ask your questions, wildflower. We’ll answer all of them,” Grim said, his voice soft.

“Just give her space to process,” Malice interjected. “She’ll ask her questions when she’s ready.”

There was something about the combination of those two offers that meant more to me than anything else they’d said so far.

The first, the assurance that they weren’t going to try to hide anything from me any longer, and the second, that they would sit here with me in silence if I needed, just so I’d know that I wasn’t in this alone.

It showed how closely they paid attention to me, how in tune they were with my needs.

A man who wanted to control me would have barreled right through my hesitation and focused solely on his agenda.

That wasn’t them. They wanted—no, needed —my trust. To be fair, that’s probably why they never mentioned this to begin with.

They were hoping the situation would resolve itself as a matter of course and it wouldn’t be something we had to stress over.

“Question,” I said, eyes locking on Grim.

“Ask away.”

“Why do you have to get me pregnant? Why not just keep me out of Lucifer’s clutches and call it good?”

“If he manages to sire your firstborn, it will be the end of the world as we know it. Period. It doesn’t matter if it’s now or ten years for now.”

“So we could stop all of this for nothing if he somehow found his way to me after and...” I trailed off as the weight of that settled in my chest and shoulders.

“You’d never be safe,” Chaos affirmed.

I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. In hiding from the Prince of Darkness for the rest of my life?

“We don’t have to do this if you truly don’t want a child, Merri. We can protect you from him and hide you as long as we need to, but not without great risk.”

“What kind of life would that be?” Sin asked, surprising me with the gravity of his tone.

“And that’s assuming we can stay a step ahead of Lucifer. With each Prince he collects, his power grows. We are already outnumbered. It’s just a matter of time before the tides turn,” Malice said, his eyes locked on mine.

“And we cannot forget the final battle.”

“Battle?” I asked, turning to look at Grim.

The shadow beneath his feet seemed to be.

.. writhing. Tapping back into my power, I sent a little probe his way and was immediately struck by the strength of his agitation.

I’d have never sensed it from his facial expressions or body language, but the rippling darkness was definitely a tell.

Yet another fact for me to tuck away to examine later.

“If he doesn’t get his antichrist, he will still fight to rule the earth.”

“An epic battle between heaven and hell. One we will fight to the death,” Sin added.

“But you can’t die.” My voice was sure and strong, but my confidence wavered.

“We are immortal, yes, but in a war between celestial bodies, nothing is certain,” Chaos grumbled.

A heavy breath escaped me. My choice was really no choice at all.

Let them knock me up and potentially save the world, or bury my head in the sand and let the devil win.

I couldn’t even picture a scenario where I’d willingly allow him to fuck me.

I didn’t even know what the dude looked like, but the red horns and tail of it all was enough to put me off the idea.

I shuddered, my eyes taking in the men positioned around me.

Not a horn or forked tail in sight. Maybe there was a bright side here.

I mean, how many people got to fuck some of the hottest beings in existence as a literal part of the resistance?

“Talk about fuck or die,” I muttered.

“What a great trope,” Sin said, a sly grin on his face.

With a sigh, I sat up a little straighter and looked directly at Chaos. The man had a breeding kink he didn’t even try to hide. I wanted to be looking into his eyes when I told him he could try to put a baby in me.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

His eyes flashed with molten lust for a moment. All I felt in his mind was a mixture of arousal and concern for me. “Are you sure?”

If I wasn't, his asking would have sealed the deal. Any lingering doubts I had about being able to trust them faded. They could have tried to gaslight me or deny their mission, but they hadn’t. Not even a little. Now, more than ever, it felt like the five of us were all on the same page.

“Did I stutter, Chaos? You four want to beat Lucifer to the punch. I want to keep the world spinning. It looks like this is our path to both those things, though again, I can’t promise we’ll be successful.”

“The answer is the dreamwalks, I’m telling you,” Sin said.

It was so strange to be sitting here talking about this with them after spending weeks terrified they’d find out what I did and be furious with me.

It sort of felt like I was being given a present, but now that I had it in my lap, I didn’t really want it anymore.

Or maybe I still did. It was really hard to know what I was feeling right now. The conflict was real.

On one hand, I had no way of knowing for certain that these four men I was in danger of catching very real feelings for actually cared about me.

There was no denying that I was a means to an end for all of them, and that if they’d been given a choice, they’d probably all have opted out of this little protective detail.

On the other, I still wasn’t fully convinced that the dreamwalks I’d already had with them hadn’t managed to manipulate their feelings for me. And was that any better than what they had done? We were all using each other here, one way or another.

So, did I save the world and potentially break my own heart in the process? Or let it burn and lose it all anyway?

Like I said, it was really no choice at all in the end.

“Which one of you wants to go first?”