Page 38 of Malice: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #3)

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

MERRI

I pushed my index finger through the Scrabble tiles in search of my final two pieces.

“Are you trying to figure out what letters they are through osmosis?” Dahlia teased.

“Maybe,” I said with a smirk as I plucked up an A and a D and then added them to the rest of my lineup. If Sin were here, he’d definitely have something to say about giving me his D.

“Well... I’m waiting.” Dahlia sat back in her chair, her gentle smile only making her prettier.

Glancing around the day room, I frowned momentarily.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s so empty. Where are the rest of the residents?”

She shrugged. “Probably off on some Blackwood-related excursion. You and I have more important things to do.”

I laid out my tiles, beginning the game. “D-A-N-D-Y,” I announced as each piece settled on the board.

“As in Yankee Doodle?” Dahlia snickered.

“As in tight pantaloons that do nothing to hide a bulge.”

“Respect,” Dahlia said, selecting her own tiles and setting them up vertically through mine.

“Soulmates?” I asked. “How did you manage to come out of the gate with that? Lucky bitch.”

“How would I know? This is your dream.”

It was a dream. This time it felt so real. I could even read the words we were spelling, and everyone knew you couldn’t read or taste in dreams.

“E-X-I-L-E, and it’s a triple word score. Booyah!” I pushed back from my chair, lifting my hands up and beaming with pride after getting to use that X . And against a writer too.

Dahlia’s laughter filled the room. “Dramatic much?”

“These days, you’ve gotta take the wins where you find them.”

In quick succession, Dahlia laid down her next word without saying anything.

“Destiny?”

“Yep.”

Soulmates and destiny. Was I sensing a theme? Or was I reading way too much into words a romance author was intimately familiar with?

“D-E-A-T-H.”

Dahlia blinked at me. “You trying to tell me something?”

“I dunno, are you?” I asked, watching as she spelled eternity with her next set of tiles.

Eternity. Yeah, it was her trying to tell me something. Especially with that look on her face. Dahlia Moore didn’t play with words unless she wanted to send a message.

“Dahlia, why are you here?” I laid my hands on top of the table and looked her dead in the eye. “We both know it’s not because you want to play a game.”

“A mutual friend sent me.”

“Who?”

She looked around the empty room and then shook her head. “The ghosts are always listening.”

“So you came to pass along a message, but you’re worried about being overheard? How does that work?”

Dahlia huffed out a breath. “I didn’t exactly get a choice.”

“Gee, thanks. It’s great to see you too.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean that part. It’s great to see you, obviously. I just mean, there’s a lot going on, and right now I much prefer staying close to my mates.”

There was that word again.

“It must be nice having mates.”

Confusion flashed across her face, and she cocked her head. “You should know.”

“What?”

“You’ve found yours, haven’t you?”

The question brought me up short. I was falling in love with them; that was something I knew for sure, but that didn’t automatically mean they were my mates. I didn’t think succubi had mates. Did they?

“I can see you working this out in your head. There’s no doubt they are your mates, Merri. Fate brought you together.”

“Lilith did that.”

“Just because there was a middleman doesn’t mean it wasn’t fate at work.”

My chest felt tight and warm all at the same time. “They’re only connected to me because of the dreamwalks. I’m not a shifter or vampire. We don’t do mating bonds.”

Dahlia inspected her nails before locking eyes with me. “Uh-huh. So would you say my mates and I aren’t really bonded? None of them are vampires or shifters.”

“Kai is a dragon.”

“Not the same. He’s a fae who inherited a dragon curse from his father.”

“Tor?”

“Also cursed. But still not a vampire or a shifter.”

She had a point.

“Well... I’d definitely call them your mates. But how did you know without the... you know, biting and stuff?”

Dahlia laughed. “Bonds occur in all kinds of ways. Just because a bite is the best-known way to solidify a mate bond, it’s far from the only way. Cas and I forged ours during sex.”

“Sex?” I snickered. I supposed if succubi did have mates, that would definitely be the way to seal the deal. As soon as the thought registered, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as memories of my time with each of my men hit me.

“Yep. He started getting all glowy and literally levitated. It was pretty fucking amazing.”

Glowing.

Oh. My. God.

Flashes of the dreamwalk with Grim in front of the fireplace ran through my mind. The way we’d been surrounded by tendrils of golden, glowing threads that seemed to pull us closer to one another. And that same golden glow had surrounded Chaos and me when we’d had our stolen moment by the lake.

Did that mean we were . . .

“And there’s, you know, the way we can sometimes feel what the other is feeling, even if we’re far away.”

This time, my mind flooded with images of Malice.

I’d always been pretty in tune with people’s emotions, but there were points when I’d been with him where I would have sworn that his thoughts and his emotions were running through my body.

Nothing tangible like his voice in my mind, but his influence all the same.

“We’re stronger together, you know,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “Which really came in handy when we faced off against my mother. Come to think of it, the same is true for Sunday and her mates. Rosie and her men too. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“What do you mean, Sunday and Rosie? Who are they?”

Dahlia smiled. “They’re basically our cousins. Well, kind of.”

“Our cousins?”

“My mother is Death. Sunday’s is War. Rosie is mated to the sons of Pestilence.” She reached out and took my hand. “That leaves you.”

“My mother is Famine.”

Dahlia nodded. “Don’t worry. None of us will judge you for having a shitty mom.”

I shook my head as so many different thoughts zoomed around in there, making it hard to focus. “I don’t understand how having mates makes you stronger.”

Dahlia shrugged. “Well, for us, it was part of a spell Kai came up with. Something that would allow one or all of us to sort of lend our power to another if they were in need. It doesn’t work that way for the others.

From what Sunday told me, each time she bonded with a new mate, she unlocked a new part of her own power. I have no idea how it works for Rosie.”

I thought back to the fight with the demons and how I’d tapped into my inner horsewoman and taken them all out.

Had it been because I was reacting to Sin getting hurt like the others suggested?

Or was it because I’d unknowingly mated the four horsemen and, in doing so, unlocked my own horsey powers?

Or was it a combination of both?

Oh fuck.

I dropped my head into my hands and just breathed for a moment. Everything was so complicated. All the fucking time.

“This is a good thing, Merri. You are coming into your full power. You’re going to fight, and you’ll win. But you have to trust them.”

“You want me to trust the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

I already did, but I just needed her to address the absurdity of the statement.

“If you can’t trust your mates, who can you trust?”

“Women who visit me in my dreams, apparently.”

Dahlia smiled. “I hope you trust me. I think you’d have eventually figured it out for yourself, but sometimes we just need a little nudge to allow ourselves to believe in something we didn’t think was possible.

For me, it was seeing ghosts. For you, it’s visits from old friends in your dreams. You should feel lucky.

Fate could have sent you the creepy ghosts.

” She shuddered, and her gaze flicked to the doorway as though she expected to see said ghosts.

“Don’t ignore your destiny, Merri. For all our sakes. ”

Before I could open my mouth to tell her I wouldn’t, I was unceremoniously ripped from the dream, sitting bolt upright in bed and gasping for breath.

Don’t ignore your destiny. The world was counting on me and my mates.

My mates.

As I let the word settle in my head and heart, I couldn’t deny how very right it felt. The five of us were meant to be together, destined.

Throwing off the covers, I stumbled out of bed and snagged my robe, but my eye caught on the shadowy figure sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I screeched as Grim stood to his full height.

“Where do you think you’re going, wildflower?”

Grim

Merri, sleep rumpled and bathed in moonlight, might be my favorite iteration. She’d always had an otherworldly sensuality about her, but like this, there was a raw vulnerability to her that was undeniable. Few would ever get to see her this way, and I was one of them.

I didn’t take that gift lightly. Which was probably why I was such a possessive and overbearing arsehole when it came to her. Not to mention undeniably horny. I’d spent my existence in a state of control which rivaled that of a monk.

Until her.

She stared at me over her shoulder, no longer startled. “Well, I was coming to find you and the others, but it seems your stalking predilection took care of the first part of my plan.”

“You were frowning in your dream. Why?”

Her eyebrows snapped together. “Do you ever take a break from being a bossy pain in my ass?”

“No. What were you dreaming about? Was it Lucifer?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Grimsby. I’m sure.”

“How can you know?”

She threw her hands up in the air. “What’s the point of asking me what I dreamed about if you won’t believe me when I tell you?”

I narrowed my eyes and glared at her. “You’re hiding something. Why?”

“I don’t have to tell you every single thing. You’re not my father.”

“I damn sure am not. But you’ll tell me because if you don’t, I’ll still have you over my knee.”

“Doubtful. You wouldn’t risk accidental skin touchage.”