Page 32 of Malice: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #3)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

MALICE

T he rustle of the paper as I turned a page of my favorite issue of The Lancet filled my room.

I’d read this one so many times I had the text memorized, but if I didn’t give my mind something to focus on aside from all the ways Merri had infiltrated my heart, I’d go mad.

My head spun with worries about how this could go epically wrong, fears that she’d see the light and leave me after only just getting me to trust again, and even worse, hope for the possibility of actual happiness.

Me? Happy? Without a plague in sight? What was the world coming to?

Oh, right, it was ending.

That tracked.

My door swung open with enough force to hit the wall, and I was sure the handle left a dent in the ancient plaster.

“Oi, careful with?—”

“Are you fucking serious?” Grim asked, interrupting me as I geared up to scold him. “Lucifer is mucking about in Merri’s mind, and you’re in here having a nice lie down and reading ?”

My journal fell forgotten from my fingers. “What do you mean Lucifer is mucking about in Merri’s mind?” My eyes snapped to the redhead in question, peeking guiltily around Grim’s side. “Did you forget everything I’ve taught you?”

“She didn’t even know it was him. He’s been playing in her dreams for weeks.”

Merri’s guilt vanished and was replaced by irritation as she crossed her arms under her ample chest. “She is right here and would appreciate not being talked over.”

Grim twisted his body to the side and waved an arm as if gesturing for her to go on ahead.

I couldn’t help but raise a brow as the bastard invited her to enter my bedroom. Not that I’d have stopped her, but it wasn’t exactly his place, was it? It wasn’t just my room; it was my bloody chateau. Where did he get off playing Lord of the Manor?

“Grim is right. I didn’t know it was happening. I thought he was just a dream lover my brain made up to help me cope with loneliness.”

The way my whole body clenched at the word lover had to have been obvious. There was no disguising the reaction. I saw the same echoed in Grim’s countenance, though it was much more subtle. We were past the point of not caring who she wanted, fictional or otherwise.

Merri definitely clocked my response, but if I was expecting some sort of remorse on her part, I was hugely disappointed. She flung her hands up, voice raising to nearly a shout, “It was a dream, Malice. You cannot possibly be mad at me for a dream!”

“I sure as hell can when it’s one of your dreams.”

“What does that mean? I don’t go around policing your dreams. What gives you the right to have opinions about mine?”

“The difference, hellcat, is that you are a succubus, and the dream realm is your fucking playground. You get a choice in what happens in your dreams, and you chose to flirt with another man.”

“Not just a man,” Grim interjected. “The devil himself.”

“Oh, bite me,” Merri muttered.

“Careful, wildflower.”

“Or what? You’ll do exactly that? Doubtful. That’s big talk for someone who can’t even touch me.”

“He can’t, but I can. And I’ll do a whole lot more than bite you.”

The pulse of arousal that hit the room was wholly out of place for the simmering rage and fear Grim and I were doing very little to suppress.

“Sit down, Merri, and control yourself. Now is not the time for any of us to drown in lust. We can save that for later.” I softened my voice on the last, needing her to know I would give her exactly what she wanted once we dealt with the crisis at hand.

I could sense the war taking place within her.

She was like a cornered cat, ready to bite and swipe her way out of an unwanted encounter.

But she also knew that Lucifer’s infiltration was not to be taken lightly.

And Merri might be stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid.

She may not want to be in the middle of a lecture from Grim and me, but she recognized that there was no getting out of it.

She flounced past Grim and flopped beside me on the bed. “I don’t know what you want me to say. He got in. And I’m pretty sure he’ll do it again, because I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to keep him out.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to roll over and accept it? I thought you were made of stronger stuff than that.”

The way she looked at me, as though I’d dealt her the most vile insult known to man, had me fighting a smirk. Bingo.

“No. I’m not accepting anything. But I don’t know what to do.”

I sat up, taking her by the hand and tugging until she was facing me. “Let me help with that.”

“How?”

“Let me in. I want to see what I can find in those fragments of your dreams that are still in your mind.”

Taking a long, slow breath, she nodded before locking eyes with me. “You might see something you don’t like.”

“I’m positive that will be the case.”

“Great.” The deadpan delivery didn’t go unnoticed.

“Get on with it, you two. We need to see how far this has gone,” Grim rumbled, taking a seat in the armchair nearest the fireplace.

“If you’re going to stay, you’ll be silent,” I shot at him. “We’ve got enough to deal with at the moment, and the absolute last thing either of us needs right now is you riding our arses.”

Grim’s eyes seemed to shine with unholy light as the corner he sat in was suddenly overcome with shadow. “Just pretend I’m not here, then.”

Merri let out a humorless chuckle. “Easier said than done.”

“Eyes on me, hellcat. Don’t look at him.”

She obeyed like it was her job, and fuck if that didn’t do something to me. Before I could respond to the way my heart stuttered at the eye contact, I fell into her subconsciousness, wading through memories and snippets of dreams as though it were the ocean.

Dreams were not like lived memories; they were fragments at best, which meant I was only catching whispers.

Still, they were enough for me to be sure that Lucifer had, in fact, infiltrated Merri’s mind.

Even if I hadn’t seen the tosser’s face as he worked harder than an antibacterial wipe during a pandemic to seduce her, I’d have known it was him.

Slipping out of her mind and back to the present, I cut a glance at Grim, correctly assuming he’d want confirmation.

“And?”

“It was Lucifer. No doubt about it. I’m surprised he used his real face, though. That seems rather lazy.”

“He probably didn’t see any reason to hide. Besides, he always has been something of an attention whore. He’d hate it if she went and fell for someone other than him. He needs the credit.”

“True,” I mused, my gaze returning to Merri’s pinched expression.

“I feel violated,” she muttered, hands rubbing up and down on her arms like she was warding off a chill.

“You did nothing wrong. He is a master of lies and seduction. There was no way for you to know that’s who he was.

” Grim’s gentle words surprised me, but he was right.

Lucifer was so skilled at deception that he’d have you sacrificing your friends and family because he asked you to and then thanking him when it was done. I’d seen it.

“I almost...” The words died on her tongue.

“I know,” I murmured. I’d caught the tail end of his last visit to her. “If he’d been successful, this would be over.”

“But he wasn’t.” Grim stood, his shadows spreading out beneath him as his anger built.

Playing with one of her cuticles, Merri spoke low enough it was obvious she didn’t think we’d hear. “Maybe I’m already pregnant, and it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Grim, as was his wont, did not give her the grace of pretending he didn’t hear. “You’re not.”

Her shoulders slumped almost instantly. “Well, fuck.”

“Yes. That about sums it up,” Grim agreed.

“How do I keep him out? He’s going to be angry if I make it obvious I know who he is.”

My gut said we needed to keep her occupied at all times. One of us would have to be in her dreams, guarding her even when we weren’t fucking. But the reality was, we didn’t get to decide that. It wasn’t us who visited Merri’s dreams; it was her who visited ours. She ran the show.

My brain buzzed in the way it always did when I was on the brink of a new and, dare I say, brilliant discovery. There was something to Merri being in control of the dream realm. I just couldn’t quite see it clearly.

“For the time being,” I began, “you will need to play along with him. Keep him on the hook, and never let him get what he wants. I’m guessing he’s already attempted to get your location and find out as much information as he can?”

Taking her lower lip between her teeth, she worried at it before answering. “Yes. Now that you mention it, he did seem to pry, but so carefully it always made sense. I explained it away as my brain working through things.”

I nodded. “Of course, because that’s what he wanted you to believe. Not that I love to give the devil his due, but he’s earned each of his monikers. He’s had plenty of time to hone his craft.”

She huffed out a breath. “So I just play along and let him lead me like a lamb to the slaughter? What if he catches on?”

“Then you force him out.”

“How?”

“The same way you end any other dream. You wake up.”

“I can’t just will myself awake,” she said with an incredulous laugh. “Can I?”

“I suppose the only way to know for sure is to try,” Grim grumbled. “Just... take one of us with you when you do it.”

“What do you mean? That’s not how the dreamwalks work. I can’t force people to just fall asleep and wake up at my whim.”

I laughed. “Yes you can. You’ve done it more than once.”

“No, I haven’t. I have to seek out your subconscious realm”—she waved a hand as if we should all have a fully comprehensive understanding of said realm—“which is how I join you in your dreams. How can I do that if you aren’t already asleep?”

“Merri,” I murmured, placing a hand on her knee, “did you really never stop to consider that your seeking us out in that realm is what makes us fall asleep and join you there?”

“Well . . . no.”

“All right, then. So the next time you dreamwalk, you will make the choice to end it at random. Control all aspects of how it starts and how it finishes.”

“But it’s not my dream. I’m not in control at all.”

“Hellcat,” I said with a chuckle. “I think we’ve just arrived at the crux of the issue. This whole time, you’ve believed that you are simply a passenger, but the truth is far more complex.”

“But aren’t I a passenger?”

“No, sweet girl. You’re not just the one driving the car. You’re the whole fucking vehicle. And the road. And the map.”

“Really?” Her nose did that adorable thing it always did when she was uncertain. I wanted to smooth out the little ridges with the pad of my thumb. But not while Grim was here to bear witness.

“Tonight with Sin, test the theory. What do you have to lose?”

Determination flashed in her eyes. “Tonight.”