Page 23 of Unholy Vows

Malachai

I sensed her the moment she crossed the threshold into my domain. Her footsteps were cautious as she closed in on the wolf she knew was lurking beneath the shepherd’s veneer. The corner of my mouth lifted, and a knowing smile curved my lips.

I knew she’d come.

My Little Sinner was one thing above all others.

A curious mouse.

It’s how our paths crossed after all.

“You’re late.”

Layla’s footsteps stalled at the sound of my voice.

I had no fucking right to feel so damn excited by the fear pouring off her in waves — but I did.

“How did you know I would come?”

I didn’t bother to hide my chuckle. The sound was low and haunting as it rang out across the empty church. Slowly, I turned to look at my Little Sinner.

She stood there, frozen for a moment, before her eyes trailed up my body to meet mine. Her hands trembled, fingers white-knuckling the keys she gripped like a lifeline, as though they might shield her from the thing she feared.

Me.

She was afraid, but defiant in the face of her fear.

Her pulse throbbed in her throat, visible under her skin, and I could almost hear the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat, loud and erratic. It echoed in the silence — a beautiful, broken symphony of her terror.

And yet… her refusal to yield burned like fire in her eyes, daring me to come closer and close the distance between us.

She wouldn’t make this easy on me, and I couldn’t figure out whether that thrilled or frustrated me.

“You and I, here in this moment… it was inevitable.”

“You couldn’t possibly —” Layla began before she cut herself off. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m here for answers, and you’re going to give them to me.”

I raised an amused brow at her challenging tone.

“Ask away.”

I spread my arms wide, a crooked grin twisting my lips.

Layla hesitated for the briefest moment. Then she straightened as she leveled a defiant glare at me.

“You killed that man?”

I didn’t have to ask which man she was referring to, seeing as she had caught me red-handed.

A careless mistake on my part.

“You know I did,” I said, my voice low and husky.

I relished how her body shivered at my words. As much as she tried to fight it, my Little Sinner couldn’t hide the way my presence affected her.

Layla wanted me, despite her better judgment.

“And he’s not the only man you’ve killed, is he?”

When I only stared at her, she huffed, her irritation flaring.

“You said they . When you left that message on my mirror, you said they deserved it.”

“If you already know the answer, why ask the question?”

Layla’s whole body stiffened, and she swallowed thickly. My response made her uneasy, frightened even, but she’d come here for answers, and she wasn’t leaving without them.

“Come here,” I commanded, as I traced my tongue over my bottom lip.

Layla crossed her arms over her chest, her stance a direct challenge to my command.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Layla’s arms tightened around her as if she were trying to hold herself together. Then she stepped forward, closing the distance between us. I gripped her chin between my thumb and forefinger, angling her face upward and forcing her to meet my gaze.

“Stop fucking around, Layla,” I said, my lips hovering over hers. “Ask me the one question you really want an answer to.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why do you do it?”

“Because I have to.”

“Are you some kind of religious vigilante?”

I almost laughed out loud. I used the cover of the cloth to hide in plain sight. Religion served me, not the other way around. I didn’t kill bad people to right the world’s wrongs.

I killed them because predators made for better prey.

“No,” I said, sliding my hands to her waist and pulling her against me.

Layla trembled in my hold, but she didn’t pull away. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and I knew she was working hard to make sense of everything.

“You’ll find no explanation that will satisfy you, Layla. I was born this way. That’s all there is to it.”

“So, you’re a sociopath?”

“If you need a label to feel better, try ‘psychopath.’”

“Are you going to kill me?” Layla looked up at me then, her round eyes full of some emotion I couldn’t pinpoint. I tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as I stared back at her.

“I thought about it,” I admitted. “That first night we met in the cemetery. I had my fingers around your delicate throat, seconds from snuffing out your life.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Her eyes widened as if she were shocked she’d asked the question.

“I’m not bound by the constraints that hold the rest of society captive, Layla.

Other people are guided by their morality, their laws.

But me? I see the world in its purest form.

It’s black and white, action and reaction, desire and fulfillment.

When I feel an urge, I act on it. That’s the only truth I know.

It’s the only truth that matters. In that moment, holding your life in my hands, the desire to keep you — to claim you — was so visceral I knew nothing in this world or the next could stop me from having you. ”

The shudder that racked Layla’s frame wasn’t from the cold; Her pupils darkened, swallowing the whites in a subtle but unmistakable dilation that told me every nerve in her body was on high alert, the fight-or-flight response failing her, leaving only the thin, intoxicating strand that ran between predator and prey.

There was something special about witnessing a person’s cognitive defenses weaken, like the crumbling of seawalls in front of an incoming tide — beautiful, helpless, inevitable.

She studied me for a long moment, and I would have given anything to peel back the layers of her mind and glimpse her inner thoughts.

In the silence that followed, the rational side of Layla’s brain rallied its final, desperate assault. I could almost see the battle play across her face: the trembling jaw as she stifled the urge to speak, the deliberate way she set her lips and forced her breathing to slow.

She tried to work through the puzzle; to find a solution she could understand.

But this — whatever dark new thing existed between us — wasn’t a problem that could be solved.

It was something primordial.

Her eyes flicked across my face, mapping the small scar above my eyebrow, the uneven stubble at my jaw, the faintest trace of a smile that I let out, knowing it would only provoke her further.

I braced myself for a slap, or a scream, or some grand moral repudiation.

I’d have welcomed any of those with the reverent patience of a collector receiving a rare and exotic specimen.

Instead, she closed her eyes for the briefest heartbeat, as if resetting some internal compass, and when she opened them again, they were clear and unclouded by fear.

Only resolve burned there, hard, and dry as flint.

“I want to help you,” she said.

A wicked grin slowly spread across my face. I’d lowered the disguise that I hid behind and showed her every rotten part of me.

And what did Layla do?

She didn’t run for her life like any sane person would. No, my Little Sinner sank into the darkest depths of her soul, lighting the world on fire and dancing in the ashes.

She was fucking perfect. And she was mine!

I reached a hand toward my forehead, but Layla stopped me.

“I swear to God, Malachai, if you are about to tip that imaginary hat of yours, I am going to murder you.”

An abrupt laugh burst free of my chest, surprising me.

“Let me tell you a secret, Little Sinner,” I purred. “God abandoned this place the moment I crossed the threshold.”

I leaned in close to her, my lips brushing against the shell of her ear.

“He can’t hear you.”

I expected terror to seize Layla. But instead of fear, I watched in awe as need banked in her chocolate gaze.

“On your knees,” I growled. “It’s time for your penance.”