Scorpius smirked and sauntered past. “We don’t joke, killer.” Orion gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“This is the devil realm? Isn’t it supposed to be a land of fire?”
Malum pointed up at the golden sun. “It is.”
I blinked. “Aren’t you supposed to share half a planet with the angel realm? Isn’t their side cold? Also—do you see the miniature ponies?”
I’d thought Malum had been spinning a fairytale when he’d described what peace felt like to him.
Now I understood.
He’d been telling the truth.
Malum rolled his eyes. “The sun melted the glaciers that cover most of the other side of the planet, and it plunged the angels into a perpetual ice age.”
Team devils, I’d always admired their psychotic attitudes and unwell demeanors.
“Wait.” I narrowed my eyes as I thought about geography and climates. “That doesn’t make any sen—”
He interrupted, “We don’t have any oceans or glaciers on this side of the planet, so our biomes are split. It makes perfect sense.”
I stumbled as I remembered the passage about how the OPA had come to be. The sun god had increased the temperature of the realms to kill the invaders.
He was so real for that.
“But this place is actually nice,” I said as I changed the subject, “and you’re a devil.”
Malum frowned, and flames leaped off the tops of his ears. “Now you’re starting to piss me off.”
I would have argued further, but I was too distracted because a baby goat with a purple bow jumped past. It chased after the miniature pony.
“What’s with all the cute animals?” I debated the merits of sprinting after the goat and forcing it to love me forever. “And the bows?”
Orion and Scorpius looked over their shoulders at Malum pointedly.
The leader of the kings, slayer of monsters, assassin with a knife tattooed across his throat, turned bright red.
Orion had said something about seeing a softer side of Malum at his home, but never in a million years would I have believed this.
There was soft, and then there was marshmallow squishy.
Malum cleared his throat. “They were going to be butchered, and I had the land.” His face turned maroon. “It was the right thing to do.”
I gawked at the man who’d tormented me at Elite Academy.
He refused to make eye contact.
Every time I thought I was beginning to understand him, he showed me another side.
The man had layers, or a severe personality disorder that needed heavy medicating.
The twins weren’t the Jekyll and Hyde, Malum was.
“Just to be crystal clear,” I said slowly, “you hate women and think they’re pathetic, but have miniature creatures with pink bows as pets?”
“I don’t hate women, I’ve told you that,” he said as he walked quicker toward the front entrance of the stunning estate. “Not anymore.”
I walked faster to keep up with him.
I giggled. “If only everyone at Elite Academy could see you with your ponies and goats.”
Flames trailed after him. “They’re not my animals, they’re the estate’s animals.”
“And you own the estate,” I said. “Just admit you like bows and secretly wish you were a woman.”
It all made sense.
I gasped. “That must be where all your repressed rage comes from. There’s no shame in owning it, I won’t judge. Gender is just a construct—"
Malum stopped walking, and I bumped into him.
He glared down at me. “I don’t want to be a woman, Arabella.”
“Denial is the first step to accepting yourself.” I shot him with a finger gun. “I honestly don’t mind.” I chewed my lips and really thought about it. “Actually—I think I might prefer it.”
Bronze fingers grabbed my chin and tipped my head gently back.
Malum leaned close—whiskey and tobacco assaulted my senses—as he whispered inches from my lips, “I don’t want to be a woman, I want to own one.”
My lips parted. I tasted his breath on my tongue, and it was like smoking the world’s most dangerous drug.
“Um, what?” I asked, unable to think.
Malum licked his lips slowly. “I want to own you, Arabella, body and soul. I want to earn your forgiveness. I want to spoil you. I want to show you what it means to be the Revered in the ancient illustrious House of Malum.”
“That’s a lot,” I whispered.