Page 80 of A Bond in Flames

“Right, the highlights.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and gave her hand a light squeeze before I let it all go, everything I’d been holding inside. “I’m not the only consort Death’s had. He’s had… well, I’m not sure of the actual number, but all have died horribly. I’ve tried to contact them, but I can’t, and he won’t tell me anything. Apparently, I have to work it all out myself. His brother, Somnus, lives in the Dream Realm protecting their younger sister from their mother, Nox. Her name’s Marigold, and she’s in a temple Death created as a child in the Night Realm. She’s been locked in stasis for some reason since she was three, but I have no idea how old she truly is. Up until last month, Death never touched me. Now… things have, ah… well, progressed. He says he loves me, Else, that he’ll release me from our bargain, but he wants me to choose him, even if that means death… for me. Even if that means leaving everyone I love and only being with him for as long as I survive. And those females, the one’s that came before me, I… I feel them, but I can’t reach them. There’s nothing, just… goddess, there’s just an empty void. And I have these visions, or maybe they’re just dreams, I don’t know, but in them, Death comes to me, but I can’t reach him. I also have visions of the past, of those females, of their lives, their deaths, but that’s all they can give me, and I have no idea what any of it means.”

Else blinked up at me. “Boy, you weren’t kidding. And that was just the highlights?”

I chuckled and wiped away the stray tear that had fallen without me realizing it. “I had a full-on month in Limbo.”

“You can say that again, Zinny girl.” She squeezed my hand back. “Did you know the mother and Nox hate each other?”

“They do? Why?”

“Not sure, but they fell out over something a very long time ago. It’s mentioned in a few history books.”

“I had no idea.”

She shrugged a narrow shoulder. “Gods are touchy, and they get bent out of shape easily.” Her eyes cleared and locked on me. “As for Death… well, nothing is ever as it seems. Do you love him?”

“Things have been far from smooth sailing. I… I care about him, deeply. There’s this connection, a magnetism pulling me toward him that’s so strong, sometimes I feel like I’m being torn in two, but love….”

“Okay, let me put it this way, pumpkin. If you dropped that brick wall you’ve built around yourself, if you forget the other consorts and the visions and the brother and Nox and the kid in stasis and all the other things, if you shove that all aside, and it’s just you and him, do you think you could love him?”

My heart thumped in my chest, and my palms grew sweaty. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. “I… I…”

She gave my hand another squeeze. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Fuck.

“I just, I don’t know what any of it means, what the visions are trying to tell me.”

She studied my face, her eyes bright with life even though her body was failing her. “What if they’re not just visions? What if they’re something else?”

I stilled. “Like what? An alternate realm? Another timeline? Nox beaming a lie into my brain? I’m due to go back in less than a week, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do.”

She shrugged a frail shoulder. “I wish I had the answers for you, but what I do know is it never hurts to look at something from a different angle. To wipe the slate clean when you’re having no luck and try again.”

* * *

Home: Week Four

Death stood behind me, his hands on my rounded belly. “Are you afraid?” he asked.

I shook my head. “How can I be afraid when I have you by my side? How can I be afraid when we’re about to meet our child?”

“Aster,” he rasped against my ear. “My star, my love, my light.”

I woke with my hands on my flat stomach. I was in my room at Jasmine’s house. No round belly. No baby. No Death. Loss washed through me with such force, I had to bite back a sob. I wanted the vision back; I wanted it all back.

Aster, the first of Death’s consorts. She’d given him a child.

The visions were becoming more intense, more real. More brutal on my frail emotions. I was raw from my days with Else and my nights in the past—Death’s past.

I shoved back the covers and quickly got dressed. My time was up. I was supposed to go back tomorrow, or not, a decision that, on paper, should be easy. Life or death? Who wouldn’t choose life?

But either way, I wasn’t going to leave my family, not yet, not while they still needed me.

Snatching my phone off the bedside table, I checked for missed calls or texts. Nothing, thank the goddess. Else was still here, still with us.

Shoving on my boots, I scooped up Hemlock, put him on my shoulder, and walked out. Jazzy and Ren were already gone. I didn’t bother with breakfast; my stomach was too knotted and filled with nerves, and the sadness from that dream still hovered around me like a dark cloud. My hands fell to my stomach. For a moment, I’d felt what it would be like to be pregnant, something I would never experience for myself, and I wanted it back; I wanted to be back in that dream with Death.

Stop.

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