AI debut

[safeashouses]

I was no stranger to waking up disoriented and in new and unusual places but this was a stretch even for me. I had grown used to the island, the ins and outs of it, and while it would never be ideal (I was missing some very important members of my family, after all) it was something that I could live with. If nothing else, I felt guilty that I had a place that was safe from Souls and any other external threats where I could live openly as a human and not have to worry about getting hijacked again.

I had a little hut with a garden that I shared with Wanderer and I spent...an inordinate amount of time with Nick and for the first time since the Souls first showed up on earth, I was happy, relaxed and free to do anything I wanted. So of course that all had to come crashing down on me, didn't it?

It started with disappearances. People were being snatched up left and right and I lived in constant fear that Wanderer or Nick was going to be next. I didn't know how to ensure that they would stay on the island with me because it seemed like the disappearances didn't care about families at all; a mother might disappear and leave her children behind, a father next. I didn't want that for my little family, small as it was, and I didn't know how to stop it.

So I fought. The only thing I have ever known how to do in my short life was fight and I took my aggression out on Nick's heavy bag more often than not. I didn't put a dent in it, thank god, but between the two of us it got plenty of work. I had just finished working it over something good and had headed up to the Compound for a shower when it happened. One second, I was pulling open the door and expecting the fresh, cold air of the air conditioning to hit my sweat-soaked face and the next I was faced with air conditioning...but not the right room.

Instead of the haphazard quality the Compound always had with so many people living there and using it at any one time, this was a cool, quiet hotel lobby. There was a clerk at the desk and a few people milling around and I panicked, remembering the night I had originally been caught by the Souls when I was trying to hide my brother. Was I back home? Were these people or had they already been caught? I ducked around a corner into a hallway and backed up, running straight into a laundry bin full of dirty towels. Great. Even better was the fact that I had been spotted and I instantly cast my eyes down, hoping they hadn't noticed I was missing the tell-tale ring around them.

Maybe I could just hide under the towels until everyone left.

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[safeashouses]

"Missed me? You just saw me an hour ago," I said, laughing a little. I had always prided myself on my independence, even in relationships, and Nick and I had a fairly easy-going one that didn't involve a lot of clinginess.

"Are you getting soft on me?"

[malachai]

"Not quite," Nick smiled, a little. "Or maybe just for me. I've been here almost a year now, and you disappeared off the island a few months before I came here."

He wasn't about to comment on the getting soft thing. Not yet, anyway.

[safeashouses]

I sobered, my smile dying down a little bit. If it had been a year and change for Nick since he'd seen me, that was a lot of time to be by himself and to contemplate his newly found singlehood.

"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disappear. I don't think anyone can control it, though."

[malachai]

"I know you didn't." Nick closed the distance and cupped her face in his hands. Even though he knew she wouldn't have exactly been upset to go back home, to her soul mate, he also knew she wouldn't willingly leave them without at least a goodbye.

"There's nothing to apologize for, cher."

[safeashouses]

"I'm still cher, then?" Maybe I hadn't been replaced. It was bad of me to think of Nick that way but people cope with loss in different ways and I wouldn't be angry with him for finding happiness with someone else if I was gone. How could I, when I had done much the same on the island without Jared?

But Nick felt different than Jared. I felt like this relationship was something I wanted to hang on to.

[malachai]

Nick laughed and leaned in to kiss her softly while he thought about the changes in him here at the hotel. That sobered the smile off his face. "Unless you'd rather not be."

[safeashouses]

"I want to be," I promised him. "I just didn't know if you'd moved on since there's been a long time between when you last saw me and me turning up here."

I wouldn't hold it against him. I couldn't.

[malachai]

"I had dinner with a woman here a few times, but I haven't seen her in a while," Nick told her, then sighed. "That wasn't really what I meant, though. I wasn't sure if you would want to be. I'm different here, Mel. Back to who I used to be before the island."

His eyes found hers, wanting this out from the beginning. "I'm not entirely human."

[safeashouses]

"Not human how? Not human like Wanderer isn't human?" I had come to terms with my sister and her way of existence and it didn't bother me nearly as much as it used to. I imagined it had a lot to do with the fact we weren't sharing headspace anymore.

[malachai]

"No, not like that," Nick responded with a shake of his head and a deep sigh, one hand carding through his hair. "Remember when I told you I knew what it was like to hear a voice not quite your own in your head? I can hear it again here. My demon side."

Might as well, he thought, get it all out in the open from the start. "My father was a demon, a powerful one, and when he died, those powers transferred to me. They were locked away from me until the second time I died, then they hit me all at once and I had a hard time controlling them, and the...urges they gave me. A need to inspire fear, anger, pain in others because those feelings feed the demon's power."

He went quiet, waiting for her to process what he'd said.

[safeashouses]

"Oh," I said aloud, trying to process that. It was a lot of information all at once and a lot of things I wasn't entirely familiar with. I did not particularly care for anything that wanted to inspire fear and anger but I loved Nick. It was hard to deal with.

"How are you on control now?"

[malachai]

"Better than I've ever been since it happened. I think all the time spent human, working through a lot of the things that kept me angry all the time, and the break away from that incessant voice, helped a lot. I can still feel all of that, but it doesn't affect me like it used to."

Nick risked a little quirk to one side of his mouth. "There's a little bit of a perk with the whole demon thing."

[safeashouses]

"What's that?" I said, brightening just a little. I had been worried that he had found someone else and the relationship I cherished was over and I was definitely glad that wasn't the case. I don't know if I could be really welcoming to Nick's new girlfriend if he'd found one that wasn't me.

[malachai]

"When I shift into my demon form, I look a little strange. Or a lot strange, but I can control it as well as I control the other aspects of it and I can partially shift if I want to."

He let his eyes go, watching through eyes that made his vision red-tinged at the edges which told him his eyes were the demon's bright blazing yellow. After a minute, he locked it back down again until his eyes were back to the blue she expected. Better she see that first before he threw the wings at her.

[safeashouses]

"Huh. Well, it's kind of weird," I said, wanting to be honest, "But also cool, and more cool than weird. Congratulations, Nick, you're a badass."

I had the sneaking suspicion he didn't need to be told that but I was nothing if not sarcastic sometimes. Besides, it was true.

[malachai]

"I think I can handle cool weird," Nick said on an exhale of relief, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. She had to see it all before he'd completely relax.

Her badass comment, though, made him laugh. "I am, huh? Too badass to kiss?"

[safeashouses]

"I'm down for kissing if it won't ruin your rep," I said, grinning at him and looping my arms around his neck. I hoped it still felt as good and easy and natural for him as it had felt on the island.

"I am always down for kissing."

[malachai]

In any other time, he would have made a quip of some sort. But not now. "Melanie," was all he managed before he lowered and took her lips in a deep kiss. The first touch of her lips, the first taste of her tongue on his, and he groaned low. His arms tightened around her, nearly lifting her off her feet.

[safeashouses]

It was almost like I hadn't ever kissed before. This kiss was something new and different and it felt like coming home after a long time even if I had just seen Nick before wandering through the door to the hotel from the island.

I pressed up close, so close that I didn't know where he ended and I began, and kept kissing him as if my life depended on it.

[malachai]

Nick groaned against her lips, one hand fisting in her hair to keep her head anchored to his, as if he could keep her from disappearing again. He knew no amount of grip could do that, but for now, it felt like enough.

And then it didn't because he wanted more and standing in the middle of a hallway wasn't the place for that.

"Melaine," he repeated, trailing his lips along her jaw and down her throat.

[safeashouses]

"Hmm?" I was the kind of hazy that only happened after a long stretch of toe-curling kisses and Nick could get me there faster than anyone else I had ever known. I was not really functioning on all cylinders.

"What's the plan?"

[malachai]

Nick's hands were inches away from cupping her ass and lifting her right off her feet, his instincts screaming at him to do just that. "I should let you get settled, take you to see your sister."

His tone indicated how little either option appealed.

[safeashouses]

"Yeah, probably. I need to make sure she's okay." I had the slightest bit of disappointment in my tone because I loved my sister and I was responsible but I was still human and wanted to be selfish for a moment.

My unselfish moments were solely the result of Wanderer having been in my head all those months.

[malachai]

Because he knew the little alien was fine here, but also knew how protective Mel was, he nodded.

"I'll take you to her," he said. But it had been a long time since he'd seen her, touched and tasted her.

"In a minute." Then his mouth was on hers again.

[safeashouses]

I wanted to protect my sister but I couldn't really protest when Nick's lips were on mine and he hadn't seen me in so long.

I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close.