Page 11 of A Bond in Flames

Death said something to one of them, again in that language I didn’t understand, before he turned to me. “She won’t hurt you unless you mistreat her. She understands verbal cues.” He still held my wrist, and even through the leather, I felt his touch pulsing through my arm.

I tried to pull away, but he turned to me, and his other hand came up fast, wrapping around my throat in a firm hold. I gasped and grabbed his wrist, trying to get him off, to pull away, but there was no dislodging him.

Was this how I died? Death having some random psychotic break and choking me to death?

“They only understand one language,” he said, voice low as he held me, gasping and thrashing, immobile in his grip. “Stop fighting me.”

I realized when I gasped in a desperate breath that I could breathe. At least he wasn’t trying to cut off my airway. Warmth filled my throat, and little sparks danced down to my chest.

He dipped his face close to mine. “Now when you speak to her, she’ll understand you.” He was right there, closer than he’d ever been to me before. Goddess, I’d actually felt his warm breath against my lips.

Blinking, I tried to fight the pull, but I was sucked into his gaze, like a black hole dragging my soul from my body. He didn’t need to cut off my breathing; I was holding my breath all on my own.

He released my throat suddenly, and I gasped in another lungful of air, but the reprieve was short-lived because he gripped my waist before I knew what he was about to do and hoisted me onto one of the beasts.

What I wanted to do was jump right the hell back off. I was disoriented and freaking the fuck out, but I had to get it together. No, I wasn’t a warrior, but I was no slouch either. So instead of letting him see how rattled I was, I scooted forward on the beast to the only place I could sit comfortably, where there was a natural groove behind her shoulders. Death wrapped a girth belt around her belly, just behind me, and strapped on my pack, then slid on leather bridle-like headgear over her beaky jaw, secured it, and handed me the reins.

I gripped them while Death ran his hand down her long nose. “Thank you, Zuri, for your service to my consort and me. I know being away from your loved ones will be painful, but you and your family will be rewarded for your sacrifice.”

I heard the words as he said them in another language, but this time, I understood them. “That’s her name? Zuri?”

“Yes.” He ran his hand along the larger beast on the other side of him. “And this is her mate, Raze,” he said as he secured Raze’s girth strap, then tied his wooden staff to it. He slid the bridle on before swinging himself up onto the beast’s back. “Let’s go,” he said, and Raze started walking.

Zuri instantly followed her mate, moving up beside him, so close that my leg kept brushing Death’s. I tried to steer her away, to put more distance between us, but she wasn’t having it.Awesome.

Death rode toward an opening in the forest.

“So where are we going?” I asked, because the silence was making me jumpy. I glanced at his staff. “And why do you need that?”

“My staff has many purposes, including a weapon.”

“You’re Death, what do you need with weapons?”

“I’m never without my staff. We’re also going to the Outer Realm, beyond Limbo, beyond everything, and I need a weapon because my powers will be significantly weakened there,” he said.

Fear coiled deep inside me. “Going there kind of sounds like a seriously dumb thing to do, then.”

“Perhaps, but it is necessary.”

“Why?”

He stared straight ahead, and his strong jaw tightened, the muscle there pulsing several times as if he was grinding his teeth. I didn’t think he’d answer, but then he glanced my way. “Because Somnus has been asleep too long. It’s why he suffers, why he’s in pain. He’s fighting it. If I don’t wake him, he’ll fall into an eternal slumber, never to return.”

Obviously not good for Somnus or Death. “Why won’t he wake?”

Death looked away from me again. “Because time moves differently in the dream realm, and his task there is of the greatest importance. He can only leave for a short time before he must return, but he must leave. He must wake occasionally, or he never will again.”

This journey was obviously dangerous, so what the hell did he think I could do? Why was he making me go with him? “And there’s something in the Outer Realm that can wake him?”

“No. What we need is in the Night Realm.”

His mother’s realm. “So we’re going there as well?”

“Yes.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

“It will take two days and nights to pass through Limbo’s forests and reach the gateway to the Outer Realm. How long it takes to reach our destination after that will depend on what is waiting for us on the other side.”

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