Malachi by Shiloh Walker Read Free Book Online

needed to talk about. He sat up on the piled furs and looped his arms around his legs, staring into the darkness before him.
    Against his belly, his cock still throbbed, full and aching from the dream.
    Why do you think we will never meet?
    The sound of her voice whispered through his mind and Malachi glanced down at his rigid flesh. “You may be wise to wish we never do, witch,” he muttered. “For if we do, it is possible you will not be able to walk for a week.”
    Possibly longer. It would take years to satisfy this burning need.
    Rising to his feet, Malachi padded towards the small stream that ran through the back of the cave. The stream was part of the reason they had chosen this particular cave when they came to this land. Mountainous, green, it possessed deep valleys and endless stretches of forest. A beautiful land.
    But before he reached the water, he heard a sound. A scream.
    His fangs dropped and he whirled, heading down the twisted pathway that would lead to the entrance of the cave. Malachi paused only long enough to grab the bracae he had shucked before heading to bed. It had been his experience that helping a frightened woman sometimes only scared her more if he was naked as the day he was born.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Damned warring people.
    The tribes that inhabited these lands were a damned nuisance at times. They were arrogant, proud, constantly seeking new lands. They even traveled south to war with the people Malachi had been enslaved by. That should have made him smile, because they did much damage.
    However, they also brought back slaves. Whenever they conquered a people, survivors were made into slaves.
    And that infuriated him to no end.
    It had been a woman screaming earlier, one who had been taken as a slave and she had tried to escape. But even though it had not taken him long to reach them, by the time he had got there, it was too late. The woman had thrown herself in the bitter cold water of the river. The men chasing her had tried to get her out, but the current pulled her away.
    Malachi had found her body. It had taken nearly half the night. She had been a pretty thing, but there had been bruises on her flesh that made him see red. Rape and slavery or death.
    What a choice to make.
    He would be paying those men a visit, come nightfall, but the girl’s pale face would still haunt him.
    There was still some distance to go when he smelled the smoke. He also felt it—pain. Burning and hot, like flames licking at his flesh.
    But the screams he heard were not his own.
    It was Alys.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Nothing left to even say good-bye to.
    Malachi released the holy man, watching as the old gray-haired bastard fell back on the pile of straw he slept on. It was the local priest—he did not belong to the man who had been called Messiah back where Malachi had been held slave.
    This one, like these people, worshipped trees, the mountains, nearly anything and everything found in the world.
    This man had burned Alys.
    She had been found feeding from one of the men in the tribe. Some sort of trap had been laid just for her after she had been seen by one too many people.
    “How could you have kept coming back to the same place, Alys?” Malachi whispered, his voice husky and rough from the grief he held inside.
    They had trapped her in one of the homes and burned it to the very ground. Her ashes were mixed with the rubble of the home, and that was all he had left to whisper his good-byes.
    And that was not the only thing that had burnt this night. He had seen the smoke drifting from the mountainside. About half way up that mountain had been where he and Alys had lived and he knew the smoke he had seen was coming from their cave.
    The old priest was still staring at him, his eyes wide with fear, but he was unable to scream. Malachi had taken care of that. This man would speak to no one of Mal’s visit—he would not even remember it come morning. But Alys’ death would not be forgotten, not by this