Page 69 of A Bond in Flames

“I’m going to fuck you all night, so when you leave me tomorrow, you’ll feel me with you. I need you to feel me with you,” he rasped.

He thrust faster, deeper. “Mors—”

“Will you think of me, my love? Will you think of me while you’re gone?”

There was no missing the desperation in his voice. “Yes,” I said, telling him the truth.

He thrust faster still. “I’ll be counting down the minutes until you return,” he said, his eyes flashing, the shadows swirling. “Without you, I am only darkness. Without you, I am a starless sky. I am nothing.”

Tears burned my eyes. The things he said… I could love this male, this version of Death, and I could believe that he loved me—but it never lasted.

Sliding his hand between us, he rubbed my clit as he fucked me harder, kissing me, breathing my air and sharing his. Our hearts slammed together as if they were one, our bodies caught in a violent rhythm, an animalistic dance that came so naturally, as if we’d been doing this dance our entire lives, an eternity, not just weeks.

Arching against him, I cried out as I came again. Death hissed, grabbing my thigh and holding it high, the other hand cupping my face. “You are my beginning and my end, my everything, my sweet Stella,” he groaned and came, pulsing fiercely inside me, grinding against me, filling me over and over until we were both spent.

And this time when he called me Stella, it didn’t feel wrong—it felt so right.

Wrapping his arms around me, he rolled to his side. We stayed like that, me locked in Death’s arms while we caught our breath. He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Rest while you can. The night has only just begun.”

* * *

Death was gone when I woke, and I wouldn’t lie, I was disappointed.

My feelings for him were complex, but there was no denying that I did have feelings for him, strong ones. But we’d said all that needed to be said last night, all that could be said. He’d taken me all night, only letting me take short naps before he reached for me again, and I gave myself over to him willingly.

My body still ached, and my skin felt branded by his hands, his mouth, and he was right, I felt him. With every step I took, I felt him inside me. I quickly showered and dressed, then braided my hair. I was about to leave, but something stopped me. There was something I felt compelled to do first. Rummaging around in my pack, I found the small wooden box that I’d made when I was a kid. I used to keep my earrings in. I took them out, zipping them in the side pocket of my pack, then grabbing a piece of paper from the small desk in the corner, I quickly wrote a note, folded it, put it inside the box, and placed it beside the bed. Then I slid on my pack, and Hemlock scurried up my arm and climbed inside; he’d be asleep before we made it out of the castle. I looked around my room a final time and took in all the other little things that sat on shelves and on the dresser, the pictures and the keepsakes, and then my own now here for eternity with the rest. I didn’t know what was going to happen, what the future held, but this place, this room—the females that came before me—were now part of my story, and I wanted to be remembered along with them.

I picked up the rest of my things and headed downstairs. I said my goodbyes to Egon and Lyle, then walked out the wide front doors—and pulled up short.

Death stood outside, waiting.

He said nothing, just held out his hand. I took it, and we headed down the stairs and started down the skull path that led to the gateway. He’d never walked me to the gate. He always left the castle before I did, moody and quiet. I glanced up at him now. He kept his eyes trained forward, a look on his face I couldn’t read, but his hand gripped mine tighter.

“Will you be seeing the hounds while you’re away?” he asked, still not looking down at me.

“Probably. Why?”

His jaw tightened. “Hounds are unpredictable. But then so are wolf shifters… and crows. Just make sure you’re careful.”

“None of them would ever hurt me,” I said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

He didn’t reply. Was he jealous?

“Death?”

“Mors,” he said.

That was the first time he’d ever asked me to call him that. “Mors?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to sleep with anyone while I’m gone. You have no reason to be jealous.”

He stopped, forcing me to do the same. “While you’re away, I am sick with jealousy, not just of other males, but of everyone who gets to be in your presence, Zinnia, when I can’t be.”

He was trapped here, unable to move through the mortal world, at least not in his corporal form. He could use Somnus to visit dreams, and his soul could leave here when he recruited a reaper, like he had with Magnolia, but otherwise, he was stuck. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely; there was nothing else I could say or do to make that easier on him.

He started walking again.

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