Page 25 of New Nebraska Home

The confidence in his voice made me feel a little better, but something in my stomach still told me the situation was dangerous and everyone was far too close to the edge to know when to stop.

“So, you want to burn people,” Malik said, his gravelly voice low and just above a whisper. I could imagine the fierce look he was giving that kid.

“No, sir, it was an accident. Please, don’t hurt me. I won’t do it again, please,” the kid begged over and over.

“Tell me why?” he barked.

“Why what?”

“Why you would terrorize this girl? This is her home, where she lives in peace. Why come after her and shatter that peace and her window?”

“Because,” the kid’s voice sounded stronger, like he gained power from his beliefs. “She is a whore who lives in sin with men unlike her, not of her kind. And keeps an abomination under her roof. A creature made from unrighteous fornication.”

“Did he really just say unrighteous fornication?” Brock whispered in my ear. I bit back a snicker. His phrasing was definitely a choice. It was almost distracting from the hatred that filled his message.

“Excuse me?” Callum said, and Malik let out a low growl that should have scared me, and maybe if he had been fully clothed and I hadn’t been memorizing the long lines of his naked backside, I would have been terrified.

Instead, it made my heart race for an entirely different reason. It didn’t help that I could smell Callum’s cologne, dark spicy and something that reminded me of old books and passionate sex in the stacks of a library—not that I had ever been bold enough to do something so scandalous.The most daring thing I’d ever done, that one time, was share an awkward fumble in the back of my ex’s pickup truck right after I’d started community college and thought I was a real adult then.

Taking that and adding the soothing warmth of Brock’s body pressed against my back and his arms wrapped around me. I was having a very difficult time focusing on the matter at hand.

“Who sent you?” Callum asked.

“I’m on a mission of the highest order, and you can kill me if you want, but it doesn’t matter. More will come. We are unstoppable and will wipe the filth like you and your whore and the abomination—”

“That’s enough,” Malik roared in the kid’s face, and I could only hear him whimper in fear.

“Don’t listen to him, sweetheart. He’s just an—”

“—an impressionable child that someone has brainwashed into believing the ignorance of those who mislabeled their hatred and the word of God.” I finished. “This isn’t my first rodeo with this kinda ugly, but I was sure hoping I was done with it.”

“Me too,” Brock said while wrapping his arms around me and holding me tighter. This time, it was not to keep me in place, but just to hold me. To comfort me. Or maybe he was looking for some comfort of his own.

Callum stepped back, letting the kid go, giving me the perfect view of what was happening.

Malik had both of his hands on the kid’s chest, fingers spread wide, and I could see the kid’s white t-shirt starting to smoke and blacken around Malik’s hands.Some smoke also seemed to linger around Malik’s lips.

“No, please,” the kid cried out again, then let out a pain-filled scream.

Malik took a step back, removing his hands, and I could see where he’d not only burned through the kids’ clothes, but also made the skin under it bright red. Not enough to blister, it was a superficial burn at worst. He was scared shitless, but he would be fine.

“Are you ever going to come back here?” Malik asked, looking the kid dead in the eyes. There seemed to be something about Malik that screamed alpha to other supernaturals.

“No,” the kid was shaking, and the scent of urine filled the air. I could see the kid’s pants darkening with the piss running down his leg.

“Are you going to tell your little psycho friends that this house is protected?”

“Yes, sir.” Tears stream down the kid’s face.

Malik leaned in closer and whispered just loud enough for me to hear. “Come back again and the girl’s mercy won’t be enough to save you.”

He let the kid go, angling his body to give him an escape route.

The kid ran hard, tripping over his own feet down the stairs onto the sidewalk.

Malik spit after him a few times and I could see the little sparks hit the back of his calves and his heels as the kid leapt in the air and ran faster.

We all watched the kid run, not really doing or saying anything for a moment.

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