Page 17 of Unholy

Malachi inclined his head, unbothered. “As you wish.”

Desperate to put some distance between them, Luke slid out of the booth and walked around Malachi to the door. He didn’t care if the demon followed. Hedidn’t care.

Heshouldn’tcare.

But he did.

Malachi was an explosion of color in his black-and-white world. He couldn’t pretend to be unaffected by his presence when he bloomed like a flower in the sun every time those red eyes turned toward him. It was too dangerous to be around him.

“God,” he breathed into the cool night air. The rain had stopped while they were in the diner, leaving the scent of wet asphalt behind. He splashed through the wet parking lot to his car.

“Luke!”

Another fresh wave of panic crashed through him, and he sped up. He couldn’t turn around and look at Malachi again. There was too much temptation to lean into him, to let him keep telling him wonderful things that no one else dared to say to him. He was too scarred, too scary, too old and broken. It was better to be alone, because no one wanted him, anyway. No one but Malachi, the worst choice in the entire world. The only choice that would upend his entire life.

He threw himself into the car and drove away without looking back.

He berated himself the whole way home. Maybe he was lonely, but he didn’t hate it. He liked hunting demons; he was good at it. Every moment he spent in Malachi’s presence put his standing with the guild in danger. No amount of loneliness would be cured by spending time with a demon. In fact, it would do the opposite. He would be banished, and he’d never be able to see anyone from the guild ever again.

Not that he saw them muchanyway, since he’d stubbornly worked alone for five years now.

He shook himself, pushing that sinister little voice away. He would not upend his entire life to spend time with a halfling, no matter how charming or handsome he was.

It started raining again before he got to his apartment, and he rushed from the parking lot to the squat, U-shaped building. He continued to berate himself up the stairs and in his apartment and in his shower. When he emerged in a cloud of steam, he opened the medicine cabinet and stared at the contents. The antidepressants were right there on the middle shelf, staring back at him.

He was an idiot. A lonely idiot. He’d forced himself to be alone for so long that ademonwas beginning to catch hiseye. It was fortunate that he had a therapy session with Maxwell tomorrow. He clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe hewasdepressed. It couldn’t hurt to actually try the medication. With a sigh, he popped one of the pills into his mouth and swallowed it with a drink of water from the sink.

But he couldn’t steer his thoughts away from Malachi as he turned out the lights and collapsed into bed. Malachi, falling back on his ass with his arms and legs around Luke, cradling him like he was something precious. Fingers sliding between his own. Malachi’s easy smiles and smug red eyes. His glossy hair, like spilled ink, and his canvas-white skin. His corded forearms and long legs. The pressure of his feet around Luke’s under the table.

What would those long fingers feel like on his cock? Would he wear his rings? Would that wicked tongue tease his tip or paint a long, wet stripe up his shaft?

Luke growled in frustration, slipping a hand into his pants and wrapping his fingers around his hard length. He thought of the way Malachi’s lips pursed around his straw, the way his pale teeth looked biting into his lower lip. His hand stroked quickly, too eager to make it last. He imagined what Malachi would look like as he came, if his dark brows would draw together, if his mouth would open wide, if he would scream Luke’s name. He swiped his thumb across the head, gathering the precum there and spreading it down his shaft.

He imagined what Malachi’s lean, porcelain body would look like naked. He was obviously muscled—lithe, like a swimmer. He could’ve been carved by Michelangelo himself. Perfection incarnate. He fucked up into the tight ring of his own hand, imagining it was Malachi’s tight hole. Or better yet… He slipped his other hand into his bottoms and spread his legs wide, curling it below his sac to press against his entrance. Was Malachi big? Would he stretch Luke wide? He pressed the tip of his finger inside. It had been years since he’d done this, but his body remembered the burn. His cock jerked in his hand as he began to move his finger, and ropes of cum splashed his stomach and chest.

With another frustrated groan at himself, he went lax. This wouldn’t help thingsat all.

Chapter 7

Luke

The medical wingof HQ was like a miniature hospital. There was a small waiting room with blue chairs and a handful of magazines and New Testament Bibles on low tables. A triage room held eight cots and basic medical supplies. Curtains around each cot provided privacy. Further down the sterile white hall were a handful of private patient rooms for the more serious cases that needed a longer recovery time. Luke himself had stayed in one of those rooms on multiple occasions. It was as unpleasant as any regular hospital stay, he imagined, although the food was probably better.

Today, he checked in at the front desk of the medical wing, manned by one of Maxwell’s trainees, and sat mechanically in one of the blue plastic chairs against the wall. No one else was there, so he didn’t have to wait long before Maxwell appeared around the corner and offered him a smile.

“Good morning, Paladin Morgan. Right this way.” The fluorescent lights gave his umber skin a cool sheen as he led Lukedown the familiar path to his office. His white lab coat flapped behind him.

Maxwell’s office was smaller than Sloan’s. A pair of windows framed his black metal desk, and filing cabinets on either side made for a tight fit as he rounded the desk and sat in his leather chair. Scattered paperwork decorated his desk, and he had pushed his laptop into the corner, setting it on a stack of files as though neglected in favor of pen and ink.

There were two guest chairs, both comfortable leather ones with padded armrests. Luke sat in the one on the right. He always sat in the one on the right, and Maxwell cast him a knowing smile as he did. It was part of their routine.

“How have you been for the past couple of months, Luke?”

It was ‘Luke’ here, and ‘Paladin Morgan’ outside of these sessions.

He’d practiced his answers in the car, because he had been to enough of these sessions by now to know how to tailor his answers to avoid giving away more than he intended. But now that he faced Maxwell’s polite concern, he felt himself waver.

“I’ve been… fine?”

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