Page 36 of Unholy

He turned his head to one side, peering at red eyes overhis shoulder. “I don’t suppose you could answer any of those?”

Malachitskedregretfully. “I’m afraid I’m not high enough up the chain for that kind of knowledge. I appreciate the kind of curious mind that thinks to ask them, though.” His fingers threaded up through the back of Luke’s short hair, as though petting the mind in question.

“I guess I had nowhere else to ask them, so I wrote them in there.”

“Your priest or your teachers wouldn’t have tried to answer them?”

“I don’t know. They might’ve tried. It would just be speculation on their part. Maybe I didn’t want to hear that. Or maybe…” Maybe he’d been afraid they wouldn’t answer. Maybe he’d expected them to tell him to stop wondering about such things and go back to his training. Sometimes adults didn’t like being asked questions they didn’t know the answers to.

“Maybe you thought they wouldn’t?” Malachi guessed softly.

Luke swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Maybe they wouldn’t have liked those questions. Maybe I didn’t want to stand out by asking them.”

He thought back to that moment in the commander’s office, Sloan’s icy voice saying, ‘don’t disobey me again. I won’t be so lenient next time, no matter how many lives you save.’ Standing out wasn’t always a good thing.

Malachi kissed his shoulder, hugging him a little tighter.

Luke sighed. “I should shower.”

“It’s almost dawn. You should come to bed and let me get you dirtier.”

Luke chuckled. “You severely overestimate my stamina.We had sex this afternoon, and you blew me during the patrol, and I’ve stayed up all night hunting demons. I need a nap and a meal. Andthenmaybe more sex.”

“Wow,” Malachi deadpanned, “you humans really are fragile.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Stay here and keep the bed warm. I’ll take a quick shower.”

“You don’t want me to join you? I’m something of an expert at washing your back. Very thorough.”

Luke reluctantly stood, abandoning the warmth of Malachi’s embrace for the cold practicality of real life. “Yes, but that wouldn’t make it aquickshower. I’d rather lay in the bed with you, which I can get to faster if you let me rush through the shower.”

“Fine,” Malachi said with a pout and flopped back on the bed. “You’re a real slave-driver, y’know?”

“I know,” Luke drawled. “What a hardship, asking you to wait naked in my bed.”

In the bathroom, he left the door open a crack and undressed hastily while the water warmed up. He checked repeatedly over his shoulder before he slipped behind the shower curtain, certain Malachi would appear in the bathroom despite his acquiescence to wait in the bedroom. He’d come to expect Malachi everywhere he went, like a sinfully hot shadow, but apparently hecouldbe convinced to listen, because Luke soaped up and washed his hair without interruption.

When he emerged in a cloud of steam, scrubbing the towel over his head, Malachi was in the bed, as promised, propped up on a pillow and watching a video on his phone with the volume low.

“You should get a TV in here,” Malachi saidconversationally. He didn’t look up but stretched an arm across the bed, inviting Luke closer with a wiggle of his fingers.

The simple domesticity of it had warmth blooming in Luke’s chest. He’d been alone for so long, and a part of him had been resigned to being alone forever. He’d never thought he would know what it was like to share a space like this with another person. Seeing someone waiting for him in the bed, commenting on things they thought the living space needed.

Guilt and a quiet sort of horror filled him at the thought of how closely he’d come to leaving all this behind.

When he didn’t move, Malachi turned his screen off and looked over at him. “Luke? What’s wrong?”

Luke lurched into motion, dropping the towel and sliding under the blankets. He didn’t stop until he was right on top of Malachi, a knee on either side of him and his face in Malachi’s neck.

“Treasure?” The phone clattered to the bedside table, and then Malachi’s arms were around him, tight and possessive and perfect. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

“I’m really glad you came over today. I’m glad you didn’t let me push you away. It was stupid.”

“Oh.” It was breathless. Maybe a little disbelieving, and then Malachi’s arms tightened, his body relaxing under Luke’s. “I’m glad, too.”

Luke sighed, inhaling the leather and spice scent on Malachi’s skin. “Can I sleep like this?”

His flat palm swept up and down Luke’s spine in slow, soothing strokes. “Absolutely.”

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