“I don’t want them. We need them.”
“We need to worry about Kitty, first. I’m not leaving her.” I stood, ready to chase Paddy out of the kitchen if necessary to get our priorities back on track.
Paddy nodded. “That’s what they’re for. You need to set up a meeting with Malokin. Tell him what happened. Tell him everything but what I did. The more you tell him, the more likely it is he’ll believe you. The last thing he knows is that you were fighting Fate.”
“No, She’s not going anywhere near him. I’ll set up a meeting,” Fate said.
“Won’t work. He’ll never meet with you again. He knows you double crossed him.” Paddy walked over and laid a hand on my shoulder. “She, on the other hand, fought the whole time. He might still be willing to meet with her.”
Fate physically removed Paddy’s hand from my shoulder. “She’s not doing it.”
“Yes. I am.”
Chapter 34
Out of Stock
Hours had passed since I’d called Malokin, and he’d agreed to meet with me tomorrow. Since then, Fate’s new softer side had disappeared completely. He’d barely spoken to me since we’d argued about the new plan, and I was relieved we had company.
Half of Fate’s living room was filled with his guys, called over by Fate in preparation for tomorrow. Paddy occupied the other half of the room.
Fate’s guys couldn’t stop staring at him. Although they tried to do it discreetly, they weren’t fooling anyone. It made sense. They’d thought they knew it all and had seen it all, which was a reasonable expectation, considering their collective history.
But then there was Paddy. He looked like he had a foot in the grave, and yet he had as much presence in a room as Fate. Paddy seemed quite unperturbed by the attention and was making himself very comfortable at the bar.
“This stuff is really great!” He lifted yet another bottle. He must have made it halfway through Fate’s alcohol stash by now, but it seemed to have no effect on him at all. Since I’d changed, my tolerance was twice, maybe three times that of a normal mortal. Paddy was a bottomless pit.
“Karma!” he bellowed across the room, to where I stood in the kitchen. “Does Fate have any more of this,” he paused, holding the bottle up to read the label, “Chivas Regal?”
I wanted to yell back, why are you asking me where he keeps his stuff? The guys were speculating on my familiarity with Fate’s home as their eyes watched me, waiting for my response. The craziest thing was, I actually did know where he kept the liquor backups. I’d walked past the stuff in his garage enough to know right where the extras were. In the end, I’d decided it would be easier to just get the bottle for him as opposed to dragging out the subject.
“Yeah, he’s got a few spares in the garage. I’ll get you one.” I headed toward the door off the hallway, relieved to have a few minutes by myself. The coming respite was stolen when Fate appeared behind me, following me toward the garage door.
“Oh good, you can get it,” I said, not looking for the confrontation I knew was bound to be coming.
His arm wrapped around my waist, steering me along with him anyway. I took a few steps away from him, farther into the garage, preparing myself for the fight to come. He shut the door and then stood there, blocking it.
I spun, my hands on my hips, as I said, “You know, just once you could ask me to do something you wanted.”
He paced halfway into the garage. “I asked you this morning. Look how well that worked out.”
Fate had actually asked me several times to not call Malokin, and I’d done it anyway. I’d taken advantage of the fact that he’d been handling me with kid gloves to avoid a full-blown war. Since then, hour-by-hour, I’d watched his frustration build and knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
He closed the distance between us. “You aren’t going tomorrow. It’s a bad idea, and I shouldn’t have let it get this far.” His voice was firm. I wondered if I was going to have a fight to leave the garage when another possible motive for his actions slammed into me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I asked anyway. “Is it tomorrow? Is that why you don’t want me to go? Am I going to die?” What if he said yes? Could I still do this? The question made my knees go weak and I grabbed onto the shelf, refusing to sit even though I wanted to. Because, as far as I was concerned, the question wasn’t about going or not, but what would happen when I did.
“I don’t know when it’ll happen.” He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck as he looked down.
I grabbed a bottle of Chivas off the shelf, relieved to be ignorant of the exact moment of my death. Just because I’d asked didn’t mean I wanted to know. It would make it easier to go into tomorrow without being certain I wouldn’t come back.
“Eventually, we all die,” I said, staring off into space.
“Humans do. Not us. We can live for eternity, if we want.” His hand gripped my shoulder, turning me toward him. “And you won’t die; you’ll just disappear.”
When he looked at me, I could see in his eyes that he still didn’t understand. The way his head tilted toward me and he watched my expression, as if he expected me to come to my senses at any moment.
I knew the possibilities. I wasn’t in denial. It just changed nothing.
“You know how I feel. I can’t have this fight again.” I needed everything I had to keep going. Why couldn’t he understand that this wasn’t some sort of death wish but something I had to do?
“If you won’t listen to reason, you give me no choice.” He dropped his hand from my shoulder and straightened up to his full height.
“You could stop me, but you won’t. Because that would cross a line, and you know it.”
“I forced the other issue.” He looked down at where my tattoo was.
“That was different, and we both know it.” I laid a hand over my hip, which had been wrapped and taped with gauze until there wasn’t a trace of light showing through any longer. I still felt the odd warmth there. “I understand this. I was losing myself. I wasn’t thinking rationally anymore, I was in a constant state of desperation, trying to hold the pieces together, even as they were ripping apart. But you know this is different. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do this, and I couldn’t live with you.” I leaned my hip against the shelf.
“What if I stop you anyway?”
There was a look in his eyes that made me think it was a very real possibility. He came closer, crowding my space. There was no denying it. I was an emotional mess, and it would feel so good to just let him shoulder all of this.
His eyes settled on my lips when he was mere inches from me. His fingers trailed my jawline and then urged my chin up. His thumb gently rubbed over my lower lip, parting it slightly as his head leaned forward. His lips touched mine and his tongue teasingly darted in my mouth, daring me to respond.
It was the first kiss we’d ever had that hadn’t been coerced by Cupid. That’s what made it so alarming when my senses seemed to be drowning in the taste and feel of him, no less acute than before. Pressed along me as he was now, I had that same overwhelming urge to get as close as possible. My hands wrapped around him as he pulled my hips snug to his.
His one hand cupped my ass and his other wrapped around my back, he surrounded me. That special sort of energy that was uniquely him was on full blast and overwhelming me, and I didn’t want to fight it.
Then his lips broke contact with mine. “Say you won’t go.”
He wasn’t going to give me a chance to answer, but his words yanked me sharply back into reality. I turned my head before he could kiss me again. Putting both palms on his chest, I pushed away from him.
“Please, don’t ask me to do something I can’t.” I eyed him, wondering what the true purpose of the kiss had even been.