Free Darkness Falls by A.C. Warneke

“Especially the return of my dead husband.”
    “I’m right here,” Jack tried to interject but both Jiro and Malorie were ignoring him.
    Grabbing her shoulders, Jiro turned Malorie until she was facing him, his expression dark. “You’re marriage has ended, Malorie. You’re bound to Feryn.”
    “Jesus, Jiro, do you think I don’t know that?” she asked.
    “She’s my wife,” Jack growled from behind her.
    Looking past her, Jiro smirked, displaying his sharp fangs. “Bondage trumps marriage.”
    “You’re not helping,” Malorie grumbled, glaring at her mate’s brother.
    “Sorry.” He said the word but it was apparent that he wasn’t sorry at all. “What are we going to do about this?”
    Reaching up and pressing her fingers and thumb against her pounding forehead, she shook her head and tried to figure out what to do. “We can take him with us when we go to New York tomorrow. I’ll be able to get him a new identity and some money to start a new life….”
    “I’m not leaving you, Mal,” Jack protested. She felt his fingers at the small of her back, the discreet contact something from their days hunting vampires. What was he planning?
    Spinning, she grabbed Jack’s arm before he did something foolish, which at that point could have been anything. Glaring at the man who had died twice, she shook her head, “Don’t.”
    “He’s a vampire,” Jack hissed.
    “Even after spending all of that time among the vampires, you still have so much to learn,” she told him, keeping her place between the two males. “Jiro is not a vampire, Jack. He’s an Aradian, like Taella only not insane.”
    A tortured moan came from between Jack’s lips at the mention of Taella’s name and she wasn’t sure if it was because he missed her or because he feared her. Leaning against Jiro and borrowing his strength, she took Jack’s hands in her own, “We’ll get you a new identity, Jack. You can go anywhere you want, be anything you want to be. You’ll have a whole new life.”
    “But you and Toby won’t be in it,” he said thickly, swallowing the emotion down. “I’ve lost everything, Mal, you can’t take my son away from me, too.”
    “I didn’t say I would,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure how it would ever work since Toby knew his father had been killed by vampires.
    “Let me see him now,” Jack murmured.
    “It’s too much,” she said. “Maybe in the morning but it’s late and right now I have too much to deal with and I can’t… I just can’t.”
    “Don’t send me away,” he pleaded, squeezing her hands, his brown eyes begging more eloquently than any words. “I’ve been in the darkness for so long let me have this, please.”
    “Jack,” she breathed, torn. She had loved him and had mourned him and she didn’t know what to do. Dealing with Jack so soon after her argument with Feryn was too much and the pressure was giving her a headache. Shaking her head, she looked at him with sad eyes, “Do you have a place to stay?”
    “I’ve been staying in one of the houses,” he said, color burnishing his cheeks as he looked away from her in shame. Straightening his shoulders, he gave her a boyish grin that she had loved when she was a girl. “But I’m running out of food and I am going to go insane if I am left to my own thoughts for company.”
    “God, just find a room and crash here,” she said, ignoring the huff of indignation from Jiro. “Just don’t… just keep your distance from Toby. I’ll have to figure out what would be best for him.”
    “You’re not kicking me out?” he asked, the hopeful expression almost breaking her heart because there would never be anything more than friendship between them ever again.
    “We’ll take you to New York,” she repeated. “We’ll figure it out once we get there.”
    “Malorie,” Jiro murmured in a low voice. “Do you think this is such a good idea?”
    “Not at all but what else am I supposed to do?” she asked, her