Page 41 of Malice: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #3)

Chapter

Thirty-One

SIN

" W hat the hell was that? Seriously, what is wrong with you? I know you're emotionally stunted, but that ”—I gestured dramatically to Grim—“is not the way you respond to someone who tells you that you are their soulmate.”

Grim, the snooty fuck, looked completely unruffled.

He had the emotional range of a mealworm.

No, you know what, that was offensive to mealworms. He had the emotional capacity of a thimble.

.. for ants. The guy could be doing bookkeeping or suffering from anal fissures, and no one would ever be able to tell the difference.

“I didn’t see you speaking up,” he answered calmly.

“You didn’t exactly give any of us a chance. You just steamrolled right over all of us with your bullshit decree.”

“And then you stayed silent.”

“Because I was processing, Grimsby. Processing takes time. She just dropped a major life-changing bomb on us, and I needed a fucking minute.” Raking my fingers through my hair, I loosed a heavy sigh as my frustration really came to a head.

“We have to go tell her you are a dumb asshole and fix this.”

“You will not,” Grim snapped.

I looked at Malice and Chaos. “You two want to get in on this conversation, or are you going to stick to the statue impersonations?” I squinted at Chaos. “Weren’t you the model for a few of those?” I put my thumb and my forefinger super close together. “You and your micropenis?”

Chaos frowned. “There’s nothing micro about me.”

“Well, tell that to your itty bitty heart. Why were you so quiet? Do you really think she’s wrong?”

I couldn’t believe the way they were reacting. Like there was any possible reality where Grim was right and Merri wasn’t our mate. The moment she said it, my heart screamed, “Yes!” It was my head that needed a minute to catch up so I didn’t say something stupid, like “That’s impossible.”

“You better hope she forgives you,” I said, pointing a finger at Grim and then waving it at the other two for good measure. “I’m not going down with the ship. We found love in a hopeless place, and I’m not letting go of it.”

“I’m pretty sure part of that’s a Rhianna song,” Malice murmured, eyes downcast and expression completely shuttered.

“It is. And she’s right.”

Chaos pinned Grim with a look. “Is it even possible? What she said? Is there any way we could actually be her mates?”

“Absolutely not,” Grim said.

“Yes!” I shouted. We had both answered at the same time, so I spun toward him and demanded, “Why not? Why is it so impossible to believe? I mean, fucking Hades gets to have a mate, why not us?”

“Because Hades is more than his title! We are and will only ever remain chained to our purpose. Shepherd forth the end of days until we finally succeed.”

Bullshit. All of it was bullshit.

“Really? Then why the fuck did we agree to try and stop the apocalypse this time? If that’s all that matters, why do a damn thing to keep this one from sticking?”

“Because it wasn’t the right time. They cheated.”

“You are so full of shit.”

Grim didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare at me.

“The worst part of all of this is that I think you actually believe the crap coming out of your mouth. It’s not just some put-on act.”

Grim offered me a pitying look, and it took every bit of self-control I had not to deck him. This was insanity.

“You know what? You can lie to yourselves all you want. Take the chicken-shit way out and lose the greatest gift the universe has ever given you. But allow me to remind you of my power. You can’t lie to me.

Not when I felt your reactions to her words.

” And then, because I wasn’t about to let a single one of these motherfuckers off the hook, I called them each out.

“Hope.” I pointed to Malice, who still wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Joy.” I pointed at Chaos, whose jaw clenched in response. “And fear,” I snarled at Grim.

“Careful,” Grim warned.

“Of what?” I snapped. “You just ruined everything that mattered already.”

I couldn’t look at them any longer. Not without trying to kill them.

“I need to go find Merri and fix what we all broke. While I do, do yourselves a favor and pull your heads out of your asses.”

It was all just too much. I’d gone from feeling very little about anything to feeling everything all at once.

I knew that was because of Merri and what she’d unlocked in me, and I wasn’t stupid enough to resent her for it.

It was sort of like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Judy Garland wakes up in Munchkin Land and everything was in technicolor for the first time.

Who the hell would ever choose grayscale when you could live in color?

I needed to tell her that. To apologize for not being able to find the words of reassurance when she needed them most. To explain that I might be new at this, and thus a little slow, but it didn’t mean I loved her any less.

She was right. We were soulmates, and I was not prepared to lose her.

Furious with Grim for putting my relationship with her at risk, but also near to bursting with fear that I’d waited too long to speak up and she’d never forgive me, while also simultaneously filled with love for her...

It was just all too much.

“You know what?” I snapped, pausing on the threshold on my way out of the library. “Fuck book club. I quit.”

“Didn’t you do that already?” Malice queried.

“Yeah? Well, this time I mean it!”

Chaos

“Well, that was dramatic,” Grim murmured.

“He wasn’t wrong.”

The words left my mouth almost without my permission. They were the truth, and simply put, I wouldn’t lie. Not to them or to myself.

Grim looked at me, his eyes wide. “What did you say?”

“He’s not wrong, Grim. I felt our souls weave together. She’s mine. She’s ours. I don’t doubt it.”

“No,” Grim said, shaking his head.

“Deny it all you want. It doesn’t make it less true.”

Grim turned to Malice. “You agree with me, don’t you?”

Malice took a second to collect himself before finally lifting his eyes. “No.”

“No?”

“No, I don’t believe I do.”

A harsh laugh escaped Grim. For possibly the first time ever, he looked like a man on the brink. There was no hiding the emotion running through him. Even his hand shook when he ran it through his hair.

“You can’t be fucking serious. Has everyone lost their collective minds?

You do remember who we are, right? What it is we are supposed to do?

There’s no room for soulmates. We have one purpose.

One. And Merri, as beautiful as she is, is not it.

” He braced his arms on the mantel over the fireplace and hung his head as another bitter chuckle left him.

“I mean, I can’t even fucking touch her.

Death doesn’t get a mate. It’s impossible. ”

“You keep using that word. Maybe it doesn’t mean what you think it means,” I offered.

“Fuck off.”

“Is it really so hard to believe?” Malice asked.

“I know that you’ve spent your life believing a certain set of facts, but if science has proven anything, it's that our understanding of the universe and our place within it is always evolving. And when new evidence presents itself and proves that your understanding of the world has been incorrect, that isn’t a poor reflection on the masses who believed incorrectly.

It simply means there was more to learn. ”

I could see Grim unraveling, his posture changing as he realized none of us agreed with him. Striding across the room, I joined him by the fireplace before placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Malice makes a strong case for possibilities, old friend. After all, the earth was flat until suddenly humans realized it was round and they weren’t going to fall off the edge and into oblivion.”

“And if you need a more personal example, I never thought I’d be able to procreate until Odette got pregnant.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is accept that we do not know everything.

The world is filled with mysteries. Even from us.

Maybe you were right, Grim. Maybe it was impossible for the four of us to have mates because it was before Merri existed.

But with her birth, a new possibility was created, and with that, our next evolution. ”

“Stop talking science to me,” Grim muttered.

I caught Malice’s eye, and he shrugged.

“I tried,” he said.

Grim was so close to the edge. I knew Death like I knew myself. He was stubborn and determined, holding tight to his principles, even to his own detriment, but eventually, he would see truth if truth was there to be found.

“You can touch her in dreams, Grimsby. You can have her just as we do. Tell me you didn’t feel some sort of shift between the two of you. The rest of us have experienced it. I don’t think you’re exempt from that.”

His only outward response was a visible shudder. He didn’t want to admit I was right, but I could see plainly enough that I was. So I kept pushing.

“Fate found a mate that you could be with. Perhaps it's not in the traditional manner, but it’s no less real. Would you really spit in the face of destiny after all you have been through? She is everything you ever wanted, right there, just waiting for you to accept her.”

Grim shut down before my eyes. I’d been so close to reaching him, but my words backfired.

“I don’t deserve a mate. Leave me. Go after her if you must, but I am not her mate. I never will be, and you three are fools if you think you will ever be granted a happily ever after.”

I had one last card to play.

“You could lose her, Grimsby. Forever. Is that really worth risking?”

His knuckles turned white where they gripped the mantel, but he spun away, cloaking himself in shadow so no more of his secrets could betray him. “I never had her to begin with.”

“You heard him, Chaos. Leave him,” Malice said, standing and making his way to the door. “Let him cling to his lies. Perhaps the rest of us can mend some of the damage he’s caused in the meantime.”

“It wasn’t just him,” I pointed out. “Our silence didn’t help.”

“We are not normal men. Merri will take that into account.”

“Will she?” I asked, following him out the door.

“We can only hope.”