Malachi turned, recognizing the voice that laughed in some shadowed corner of his lost memory. “Volund.”

“Yes.”

Malachi scanned the room, reassuring himself that Ava was nowhere near.

“She is not here,” the angel said. “I have tried. He has shielded her from my sight. He excels in such things.”

Malachi stepped closer. “Show yourself.”

The slim figure rose and grew, abandoning the sculptural facade he showed the human world. Here, Malachi realized—in dreams—he could see the angel’s true face. All traces of human flaw fled from Volund’s visage. Blue eyes bled to gold. His skin, pale before, grew luminous as the moon. His hair, a sandy brown that would blend with the human masses, became true amber, translucent in the glow of the candles flickering in the center of the room.

He was utterly beautiful. A god to human sight.

Malachi was transfixed.

The angel’s eyes glowed with barely restrained power, like the sun hiding behind a morning fog.

“Do you love me?” Volund stared into Malachi’s eyes.

“No,” Malachi said. “You do not want to be loved.”

Volund smiled with closed lips. “No, I do not.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to be feared. Worshipped.”

“You were not meant to be worshipped.”

Volund laughed, the cynical smirk marring the angel’s handsome face, which melted back into a more human appearance. Stunning, but less otherworldly. And yet it was as if his power had simply condensed. Black energy licked along Malachi’s skin.

This is a dream.

“If you think I have no power over your dreams,” Volund said, “you are mistaken, Scribe.”

“I am protected.”

“By whom? Jaron guards your mate, though you know not his reasons.” Volund’s blue eyes danced. “You are nothing.”

Malachi took a deep breath and closed his eyes, breaking the connection with the monster who taunted him and willing himself to return to waking.

“You are nothing.” The voice was different.

Malachi opened his eyes, and the angel had departed. Left in his place, the phantom of the Grigori soldier he’d killed on the rooftop in Oslo.

Brage’s expression held nothing of the arrogance he’d exhibited in life. His blue eyes were blank and hollow. His face was as beautiful as the day Malachi had slain him.

“We are nothing,” Brage said. “Nothing.”

“You are an illusion.”

Then the corner of the Grigori’s mouth turned up, and Malachi saw the wicked edge.

“Since when have dreams ever been illusion for those of our kind?”

“I am nothing like you.”

Brage only laughed.

Volund appeared over his shoulder, his human face now a mirror of his son’s. He embraced his child, stroking the hair back from his forehead and closing his eyes in sensual pleasure.

“I can be patient,” he whispered. “Now that I have found you, I will find you again.”

“Go away,” Malachi said, stepping closer to the sacred fire.

“For now.”

A spark of recognition showed terror on Brage’s face, as if illusion had passed from his mind and stark reality intruded. The Grigori’s eyes widened in horror. His mouth opened in a scream.

Volund pulled his child into the darkness and was gone.

Malachi bolted up in bed, a harsh gasp ripping from his lungs. He looked around the room, but there was nothing. No trace remained of the ritual room or the angel’s darkness. He looked down.

Ava slept beside him, and she did not wake.

HE didn’t tell Ava about his dream. Malachi didn’t know if it was a nightmare or a vision, and his mate had too many other things on her mind.

The train that took them along the coast of Liguria chugged steadily, stopping at the small towns along the route, exchanging a mix of humans for other humans varied in age and shape. Grandmothers going for a visit. Tourists with cameras. Hikers with backpacks. They came and went, and Malachi wished that he and Ava had reserved a private car. If that was even possible. She was firm in her belief that their best concealment was the routine of the mundane, so he indulged her.

Currently, he could not fault her reasoning. She managed to fit in with the humans with ease. She was the native, the tourist, the anonymous traveler with a small satchel and a camera. Unless he had the preternatural senses to feel her power, he never would have noticed her.

“Hmm,” he mused, watching her as she snapped pictures out the window.

“What are you thinking?”

He was thinking about Volund’s unexpected ability to invade his unconscious, but he didn’t want to bring it up. Luckily, his mind could turn to pleasant things very quickly when he was with her.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

It was true. Ava wasn’t a woman who felt the need to fill the air with chatter. He wondered if years of traveling alone had trained it out of her or if the constant voices that had once plagued her were company enough.

“I am thinking… you’re very beautiful.”

He loved the slight flush she gave him when he complimented her. It made the offer of his praise all the more satisfying.

“You’re the only one who’s ever said that.”

He was surprised, but not overly. Humans could be very superficial, and Ava’s physical features were not the most astonishing thing about her. Pretty, but not uncommonly so. Clear skin. Dark hair. Her eyes were the most arresting part of her face, but only other Irin would recognize the unusual shade of gold as anything more than light brown or amber.

No, it wasn’t her physical features that were remarkable. And Malachi loved that only he saw the secret of his mate.

Her beauty lay in her mind and her heart. Quiet strength and resilient humor were not things valued enough by the world.

“Hmm.”

She gave him a quiet smile. “You always did that,” she said. “Before. ‘Hmm.’ You’d be thinking something you didn’t want to say, but I knew it was about me when you would say ‘Hmm.’”

“I often think about you.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

They were sitting across from each other in the compartment. He put his foot on the edge of the bench beside her, enclosing them. Doing his best to block out the world. Ava set down her camera and slid a hand up his pant leg, her fingers playing along his skin.

“I think about you too,” she said. “Some would say I’m obsessed.”

“And you take pictures of me when I sleep. I hear the clicking in my dreams. It’s borderline stalker behavior, really.”

“It’s settled then. We’re both certifiable.” She smiled and closed her eyes, sliding down in her seat and tilting her face toward the sun as it shone through the window. The weather was cool, but it was still sunny.

“So beautiful,” he whispered.

“So handsome.”

“Hmm.” He nudged her hip with his foot when she laughed. “You just like my tattoos.”

He’d seen a few humans on the train eyeing his arms when they sat down. He’d shoved up his sleeves because the compartment was warm, and his talesm were visible. It was a relief, living in a time when body modification was not as unusual as it had once been. Humans did all sorts of things to mark themselves now, so the intricate lettering on his arms was noticed but rarely remarked upon.

“Only yours,” Ava said. “I was never a tattoo girl before I met you.”

“No?”

She shrugged. “I never thought much about them.”

“And you don’t have any yourself.”

“Only the ones you gave me.” Her eyes sparkled with humor. “And those aren’t for everyone’s eyes.”

Malachi supposed a more evolved scribe would try to suppress the surge of possessive satisfaction.

He wasn’t that evolved.

Forcing back a smile, he glanced around the compartment. Since no one was paying attention to them, he decided to broach a subject he knew she’d been avoiding.