Page 56 of A Bond in Flames

“That is where you’re wrong,” he said roughly.

I growled in frustration. “So what happens if I do figure everything out? What happens then?”

“Good things, little witch, really fucking good things.”

I dropped my head so it rested against his chest. “So no pressure then?”

He chuckled low, his fingers sliding into my hair and massaging my scalp. “I believe in you,” he said and kissed the top of my head.

His attempt at trying to keep things light, to pretend he wasn’t tense, failed, because like I had been for a while now, I felt it. He was more than tense. There was this deep hollow feeling inside him, a feeling of total hopelessness. It was cold and lonely and desperate. No one deserved that. I hated that Death lived with it. Goddess, it must be torturous.

Lifting my head, I held his magnetic gaze. “I promise you, Mors, I will do everything in my power to do what it is you need me to.” I didn’t know if we would stay together, if I’d grow to love him the way he said he loved me, or if this thing between us would last—if I’d even survive it—but he didn’t deserve to live a life missing a part of himself, and that’s what this was, what I was feeling. It was like Death was missing a part of his soul, and I wouldn’t stop until I helped him get that back. I thought about what he said to me after he’d been drinking ambrosia, about what would happen if I left him, and my heart squeezed tight. I pressed my hand to his chest and smiled up at him.

“I know you will, love,” he said, not holding back, not asking for more from me, but not hiding the way he felt about me either.

He believed me, but he was afraid to believein me. I felt that as well. “What you need to know about me is, when you become my friend, I will fight for you with everything I have.”

“And am I your friend, Zinnia?” His eyes glinted, but he wasn’t making fun of me; he truly wanted to know.

“You are most definitely my friend.” Which astounded me after all we’d been through, but it was the truth.

He tucked my hair behind my ear. “I don’t know what I did to deserve that honor, but I am privileged beyond measure.”

He was serious. There was no sarcasm in his voice, no rancor or doubt. He truly felt that way, and it broke my heart to know that Death had been so lonely for so long. Taking his hand, I started back toward the castle. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m going to cook your dinner tonight. Do you like dumplings?” I glanced at him.

A smile curled his lips, and my heart did a dramatic flutter. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to find out?” I asked.

“I’d love to.”

* * *

Death wiped his mouth with the napkin and sat back. “That was exceptional.”

“Well, there’s more where that came from because I looked after Jazzy on my own most of the time, and we ate a lot of bland food, cheap and easy, so when we went to stay with our aunts in Roxburgh, I asked Else to teach me to cook. We spent a lot of time in the school holidays cooking for the family. I loved it, which is another reason I love a big garden.”

“Where is your mother now?” Death asked, and there was a coldness to his voice that had me straightening in my seat.

“Last I heard, she was in Paris, but she could have moved on by now,” I said. “It’s fine. She does her thing, and we do ours.”

“She abandoned you when you were children,” he said, his voice deepening.

“She was around when we were young, just not when I was old enough to be responsible for Jazzy. She does love us, but having kids just wasn’t her thing.”

His gaze slid to the stairs and up, to where Somnus slumbered.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“About what?” he asked, all innocence.

“About sleeping in your brother’s room tonight and paying my mother a visit in her dreams.”

His jaw tightened. “I just want to talk to her.”

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