Page 17 of Bound to Death

A sigh escaped my lips when the person I least wanted to deal with popped up on my phone’s lock screen.

Fucking Zelus. He was on the hunt for his Counter Soul. Cleverer than most, he was the only one I worried about finding me withmine.The others didn’t care enough to chase me around, but Zelus was invasive on principle.

He lived to fuck with me every chance he got.

Given his nature, it made sense. Always desperate to cause devastation. Endlessly bored by his existence, so he found distractions in the humans he lived to torment. Sometimes the other Horsemen for a real challenge. He had the blackest heart of the four, which was saying a lot, seeing how our entire purpose was to maintain balance through pain and suffering.

If he was reaching out, it meant he was onto something. He might be sly, but I’d figured out his tells a long time ago. Whenever he latched onto something interesting with any one of us, he’d reach out. Stubbornly if we didn’t reply right away. This was his third text this morning. I’d need to be careful what I divulged to the nosy bastard and how I moved around with Asha. If he found her, he wouldn’t let up until I took her soul. He might even try to take it for himself; he was just that much of an asshole.

She’s mine.

I pocketed my phone without looking at the message.

The beauty in front of me tilted her head in curiosity. “Not a fan of whoever messaged you?” My eyebrow rose, and she laughed for the first time since she discovered last night wasn’t a dream. “I mean, I know you’re not exactly human, but that was a pretty universal look for someone who wasn’t happy to be bothered by that particular person. The face I make when Asshat—er, my boss—calls. Or maybe just receiving a text bothered you in general? I don’t know. I’m still trying to process you being Death and…having a cell phone.”

“Me having a phone is what you’re most curious about? Not the fact that I’m here with you?”

Mumbling, her eyes dropped to her lap. “Well, that, too. Obviously. But someone wanted to play twenty questions…”

Twenty questions?

Still, it would appear Zelus had competition. I shouldn’t be surprised that Asha picked up on my genuine distaste for the Horseman the humans liked to call Pestilence, but I rarely gave my thoughts away. I was…out of sorts after watching the little human sleep all night. I’d never craved something so fiercely after already claiming it, but the second she appeared in the light of the kitchen, her body aglow and my shadows reactively reaching for her, I was desperate to have her again.

I’d never admit it, but she put me off balance.

In all the time I existed, nothing and no one could challenge me. Not that they ever did. Even Zelus knew better. He walked a fine line, and if he ever crossed it, he’d pay the price. I existed outside the usual planes of good and evil. My existence was ultimately a benefit to both, so I generally stayed out of their squabbles.

Unlike the other Horsemen, I was perfectly content to do what I was always meant to do. But I couldn’t deny that the night I crossed Asha’s path, something changed in me. I craved. I yearned. I chased. And after last night when I thought for sure fucking her—ripening her—would satiate those cravings, I was surprised to find that if anything, they’d gotten worse.

Fucking hell.

Stealing a glance at me, Asha got to her feet. “Well, I guess you’re done answering questions. Not that you answered many.You can…uh, leave? Go hither? Be gone to the underworld or whatever? Door’s over there.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. She was in the middle of turning to head out of the room but went rigid when my laughter echoed off the time-worn wooden floors. She stood stock-still as if she’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. Then her eyes tracked back over to me.

Getting to my feet, I towered over the frightened human. Her eyes followed, but she refused to move. My little raven wasn’t one to flee even when she should. “Forgive me for being short with you. You’re the first human I’ve revealed myself to in…quite some time.”

Her breath whooshed out of her, and then she clicked her tongue. “Bet you say that to all the girls.”

Again, I was chuckling against my will. What was it about this woman that had such a hold over me? Surely the fact that she was my Counter Soul was to blame for why I’d become practically unrecognizable since the first night I caught sight of her. I knew immediately she was meant for me. Meant to be ripened and used to bring the end of the world.

“I swear it isn’t a line, Asha. I know better than to pull one on you.”

Her eyes danced across my face, skeptical at first, then firm in a way I’d never seen before. “Okay, say I believe everything…why me? What do you stand to gain, Death? Are you here for my soul? But then why save me in the first place if you just planned to collect it anyway?”

Yes, cleverer than most. My little raven didn’t miss a goddamn thing.

Thankfully, she quickly rambled under her breath, no longer speaking or looking at me. If she had, she would’ve noticed the strain in my jaw when she accused me of the very thing I was there to do. But her head was elsewhere, caught in another oneof her mumbling rants about how crazy it was she watched five men—if you could call them that—die at the hands ofliteralDeath. Despite the circles her rant took, it was clear she believed I was who I said I was.

I heard every word but decided to move forward with the plan. I’d dance around the truth and blame the ache in my chest on the power of a Counter Soul and not because the very thought of her soul disappearing forever ruined my pulse and shredded my insides to bits. This was fate’s trick. Humanity’s failsafe measure to thwart the apocalypse. A mere obstacle, and I’d do what was necessary to accomplish my goal.

“You intrigue me,” I whispered, crowding her with a few steps.

Still, she didn’t step away. She held her ground. What a brave girl she was. She leveled her gorgeous green eyes on me, the power of someone with a soul worth shepherding the end of humanity in her stare. “Why?”

I held her by the neck, the growl waiting in my throat when her eyes fluttered shut. “Call it intuition, but there’s something about you, and I won’t leave until I figure out what that is.”

Her mouth opened to a soft, barely-there breath, and the urge to kiss her made it difficult to focus on anything else. Until my phone’s vibration went off over and over, an insistent annoyance in my back pocket. Not a text but a call.Fuck.The spell was broken, and Asha broke the contact between us by taking several steps away from me.

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