Page 31 of Bound to Death

“Them?”

His icy irises sparkled with amusement. “The angels.”

Angels?! As in, more than one? Fucking fantastic.

Taking me by the neck, the gorgeous killer fused our bodies together. “Before we go in, I need your permission to do something. Think of it as a little insurance policy to ensure they won’t do anything to you.”

Do anything to me? What did angels have against me? I was hardly the worst sinner of the bunch. Okay, so I’d kicked afew asses and made a habit of saying the Lord’s name in vain—honestly, I still didn’t believe that person existed even after everything I’d learned—but I hardly thought that my lack of faith and history of ass-kicking warranted the wrath of every angel out there.

When I finally realized that my companion was still waiting for me to answer, I gave the silent supernatural predator a nod. “You’ve seen me naked, sir. And that’s after telling me that you control shadows and ravens and, you know, take souls for a living. Not sure if there’s much you can do that’ll surprise me anymore.”

For this being an alley to an elusive angel club, it was pretty unspectacular. It looked like every side street I’d traveled, if not a little weather-worn and isolated. Guess angels didn’t travel in flocks like badass birds of the sky to get here. Although, that’d be a funny sight, angels migrating together.

The shadows around us moved in agitation, and a few ravens flew overhead, cawing in their obnoxious way. Several landed on the railings, chattering at Thanatos. He turned his head. I was seriously worried for a second he’d caw back, and my image of him would be ruined. Hard to find a dude cawing sexy. I’d remember it every time he touched me, and the mood would be destroyed with it. But instead, he nodded at them and one flew off.

Something was up.

Cursing under his breath, the towering man turned his head back my direction. “We don’t have time, little raven. Do I have your permission?”

It felt weird that Death was asking for my consent when he was fully capable of taking what he wanted, but after the day I’d had, I didn’t have it in me to test my luck by making him wait out of sarcastic spite.

“You do.”

The area around his eyes went inky, growing like black vines down his cheeks. If I hadn’t seen it before, I might’ve been terrified, but the thrum between my legs signaled an entirely different response thanks to his daily barrage of sexy touches. Thanatos’s white-grey eyes glowed, traveling from mine to the area his thumb brushed on my neck.

My breath seized when I caught sight of his incisors. They were razor-sharp points. Wait…did he always have fangs? Where had those come from? I’d never seen them before. Was I somehow led astray by a vampire claiming he was Death? Leave it to me to be bamboozled by Lestat.

As if hearing the thoughts swirling around my head, Thanatos hushed me and fused our mouths together in a possessive kiss. With so little effort, he quickly eased me back into the safety of his touch. “I’m not a vampire.”

I could feel his amused smile against my lips, and I scoffed unattractively. “I didn’t say you were.”

“But you were thinking it.”

“Again with the mind reading. I don’t believe you anymore when you say that you can’t. You can’t fool me, Lestat,” I grumbled, and he responded by nipping my lower lip.

Another raven cawed, and the frustrated God of Death shot his eyes over to it before hissing something under his breath. It definitely wasn’t English. Or any language, really. More like a series of whistling exhales that were both dangerous and erotic sounding at the same time. Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him to be speaking snake or something. Not that it made sense that he’d hiss instead of caw, but what did I know. Maybe ravens spoke snake, too.

He caught me thinking a little too hard on the subject, and the sigh he let loose was enough to annoy me. “That’s not the language of snakes, Ash. Why would I talk to my ravens in the language of snakes? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“What…I…you never know! I don’t know how this supernatural stuff works,” I whispered, narrowing my eyes on one of the ravens because it was clearly laughing at me. “And stop reading my thoughts, asshole. I mean it. I’ll smite you. You’ll wish Death could die after I’m done with you.”

His mouth twitched, but he didn’t give me the satisfaction of a laugh. Bastard. I was days away from dying, and he couldn’t even bother to laugh at my lame jokes? So rude. Ems would be doubled over already.

“Forgive me for leaving you out. They can understand any language, so I’ll aim to speak to them in a way that won’t leave you out.”

I wanted to argue with him that it didn’t matter what he did if I was going to be dead in a week, but something stopped me. If he wanted to be a weirdo and talk to his damn birds out in the open, have at it. But he continued without giving me the chance to rant spitefully.

“We’re out of time, Ash. She’ll be here very soon.”

She?

“It won’t hurt, but we need to share blood so they know just whose you are. I won’t take much, but you might.”

I might?

“Wait…you mean here?!”

His tongue was already pushing its way into my mouth, coaxing mine into action. Because that was his thing—do whatever he wanted and leave me to figure out the rest on my own. I should’ve been angrier than I was, but when the guy kissed like the Devil, it made my usually clever brain go to mush. Worse, I wasn’t even sorry. Might as well enjoy it if the hours before it was all gone kept ticking away no matter what I did.

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