Rhys shook his head. “The main question is, can they be trusted? If what Max said is true, then any with living fathers can be tracked by the Fallen who sired them. They have no free will unless their sires are dead. We have to consider them security risks as well as victims.”

“All the more reason to shift focus,” Malachi said quietly.

Rhys glanced over his shoulder. “Are you saying what I think?”

“We must start going after the Fallen, not just the Grigori.”

“A monumentally more difficult task,” Rhys said. “And not one that will be popular with the council.”

“Rhys.” Malachi fought to explain. “The Grigori we met in Sofia—the ones Max has come to a truce with—they’re not like the others. They’re… more like us. Yes, they are wilder. Untrained. Hungry. But not mindless drones. With their sires dead, they had free will. They were struggling to control themselves, but they were trying.”

“Not unlike the Irin now.”

Malachi frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Surely you can see the parallels,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “We’ve been without widespread Irina influence for only two hundred years, and where are we as a society? Declining. Touch-hungry. More and more aggressive. We’re completely out of balance. We need…” Rhys’s voice grew rough. “Our race is dying without the Irina, and not just because so few children are born.”

“Then we bring them back. On their terms, not because of some compulsion act dreamed up by old men. And we work to save the women we can, even if that means fighting with the council.”

“You’re ready for this fight.”

“Yes.”

Rhys smiled ruefully. “You’re almost panting for it.”

“And what if I am?”

“Yes.” He drained his coffee. “You definitely seem more like yourself.”

Chapter Fourteen

“WELCOME TO VIENNA,” Ava whispered to her reflection. “Your father is an angelic bastard. Your grandmother was driven insane by the angel who raped her. Your great-grandfather is an archangel who kills things for you as tokens of his twisted affection. And somewhere in the middle of this, you mated a four-hundred-year-old man with amnesia.”

She blinked and looked at the cat that had wandered into the apartment when she opened the door to its meow.

“How is this my life?”

The black feline only blinked guileless gold eyes.

“Do you come with the apartment?”

It gave a scratchy growl and jumped down from the dressing table where Ava had been brushing out her hair. It was clean and seemed well fed. She thought it must belong to someone in the building. As long as it didn’t trash her stuff, she was fine with him hanging out. She liked cats and dogs; she just couldn’t keep one herself because she traveled too much.

Ava sighed as she turned back to the mirror. She needed a haircut badly. And a pedicure. A massage would be a good idea, along with her regular medical checkups. She had a bunch of vaccinations that needed updating, and she felt like she’d put off the regular business of life for way too long.

She checked her phone. No e-mails from her mother or father, but one from Luis, asking how her grandmother was. Ava hoped he didn’t feel like he needed to be chatty with her now because she was engaged to the guy who’d threatened his life.

That would be awkward. And frankly a little disturbing.

She shot him back a quick response and checked her calendar, only to realize she had a job coming up. In fact, it was a job she’d booked eighteen months in advance, right before she’d taken the assignment in Cyprus that eventually led her to Istanbul. She remembered it because she felt like the magazine was being overly cautious, booking her so far in advance to cover their summer beach spread for the next year.

Now the shoot was approaching and Ava had some decisions to make. She still had three months before she needed to be on location, but she couldn’t cancel any later than six weeks out and not seriously piss them off.

She also realized that she and Malachi had officially been reunited longer than they’d originally been together in Turkey. She didn’t know why that seemed significant, but it did.

She heard the key turn in the lock.

“Ava?”

“In the bedroom.”

“Why do we have… a cat?”

“He wandered in,” she said as Malachi entered the bedroom. “Seemed nice enough. Probably belongs to a neighbor.” He leaned down to brush a kiss across her temple and flopped on the bed, only to have the cat jump up and sit on his abdomen.

“I don’t think it likes me.”

“Well, you are in his bed.”

“I’m fairly sure we’re the ones renting it.”

“That reminds me, I need to get some money transferred to Rhys to pay him back.”

He frowned. “Or don’t, because the scribe house is covering it.”

“Or let me do it, since I’m not worried about my budget? The house resources are probably strapped with the reconstruction.”

“Ava, you don’t need to do that.”

She spun around in her seat. “Is this going to be a macho alpha-male problem for you?”

“Am I a macho alpha-male?”

“Yes. And I’m loaded. It makes more sense to let me—or let’s be honest, my asshole of a father—cover the bill for stuff like this. It’s a better use of resources. Besides, I’d probably be paying for a hotel and a guide—possibly a bodyguard—if I were traveling on my own.”

He propped up on his elbows, his lips twitching. “Are you saying I’m your bodyguard and guide?”

“No.” Her face reddened.

“Because I am very fond of your body. So guarding it isn’t a problem.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

Now he was grinning. “You don’t have to pay me though.”

“Shut up!”

Malachi scooted off the bed and got on his knees, shuffling over to her as she sat at the dressing table. The cat gave an irritated yowl and abandoned the room. The stool she sat on was low enough that Malachi was level with her when he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. She could see him laughing in the mirror.

“Am I your kept man, canım?”

“If you are, I feel like a lot more breakfast in bed should be happening.”

“Mmmm.” His lips trailed along her neck. “Now I feel this pressure to earn my keep.”

“Coffee in bed, at least.”

It was getting harder and harder to concentrate. The traitor cat had completely abandoned her. She should probably be getting ready for… something.

But he was playing with her. Teasing her. More and more of his personality was coming back. His humor. His bravado.

Ava fell in love all over again every time she turned around.

“All right, you’ve convinced me. I will take the job as your kept man. So…” He lifted her in his arms and turned to the bed. “Now it is time for work.”

TWO very work-filled hours later, they met the others in the back room of a coffeehouse off Bäckerstraße. It was dark and smoky in the front room, the walls plastered with movie posters and flyers for avant-garde art exhibitions, but the small back room was bright and clean. The smell of coffee, beer, and sausages filled the midday air.

And Ava’s friends, both scribes and singers, filled the room.

Suddenly she was fighting back tears.

Orsala sat in quiet conversation with a nodding Rhys. Mala was signing to both Leo and Sari, who was holding Damien’s hand as he read from a tablet computer with a frown on his face. Max and Renata were there, even though both were pointedly ignoring the other by checking their phones.

Malachi unwrapped his scarf and hung it with the others tossed over a bench near the door.