Page 29 of Bound to Death

Fuck, I don’t know what to do anymore. What will it take to keep her when I know she’ll be dead in a week?

“That mark…” I started, staying as close to her as I could manage without losing sight of her face. My voice was low, entreating, and more desperate than it’d ever sounded. “If I don’t get it removed, you’ll die in a week. In four days, you’ll fall ill. In five, you’ll be in a coma. In seven, you’ll breathe your last and succumb to the illness.”

“And I won’t in your realm?”

Fuck.

“You will.”

“Then what’s the point?” she clapped back in a tight voice. She was surprisingly calm for someone who’d been told her death was imminent. “I’d rather spend the last days I have with Ems. She’s…”

The tightness in my chest was unbearable when a tear broke away from my little raven’s eye. It was only then that I realized she wasn’t calm at all; she was silently grieving.

I’d forgotten how brave Asha was. It was all there in the eyes she cast my way. She knew nothing she did would change the fact that she was about to die. The only thing she wished for was to spend her last days, hours, and minutes with her friend. Her chosen family. Maybe a part of her understood the day she crossed paths with Death that she wouldn’t leave the encounter alive. I’d never seen anyone look so beautiful as she did accepting her fate with grace and determination to make the most out of it.

But I wasn’t ready.

She might be willing to accept that her time had come, but I wouldn’t. Even should it be the last thing I did as the Reaper of Souls, I’d save her from her fate. I’d find a way. If she died in my shadow realm, I suspected that I could keep her soul there. I’d never done it, but no other being was permitted to wander there without my invitation. I could keep her for myself and bend the rules of life and death, forever if I must. But first, I had to persuade her to come. I had to give her what she wanted first.

Hope.

“There might be a way.” My eyes wandered over her face, memorizing every detail. “But we can’t stay here. It’ll endanger your friend. Pestilence will expect us to flee. We can takeadvantage of that. Tell your friend I’m taking you on a spontaneous getaway.”

“Just tell me one thing, Thanatos.”

I stiffened, worried she’d demand an answer I couldn’t risk giving her. “If I answer this one question, will you promise to come with me?”

I hated how desperate I sounded, but if she knew everything, I couldn’t keep her safe. She’d stay. She’d die. Her soul would disappear like it never existed. I couldn’t bring her soul to my realm if she died here on the human plane. I’d either be forced to leave her to wander aimlessly until the end of time or deliver her for the apocalypse. I couldn’t keep her. I’d lose her forever.

“Why are you doing all of this for me?”

I opened my mouth, at a loss. “I—”

“I’m just someone who intrigues you. Why would you go to all this trouble for some human who’s going to die someday, anyway?”

Why was she so clever? Why couldn’t she just blindly do as I say? I struggled to answer because even I didn’t know why I’d gone to such lengths to keep her safe, or why I refused to take her soul when it was part of my duty as one of the Horsemen to bring the end of the world. What did one human’s soul matter? Why would I ruin everything to keep her?

“If I told you that even I don’t know why, would you believe me?” I posed to her finally after a long pause, choosing honesty for once.

I hadn’t expected her to smile, but when she did, the tension in my chest eased. “Actually, yes I do.”

“Then you’ll come with me?” I couldn’t keep the hopeful lilt in my voice from surfacing.

I needed an answer so I could keep her safe and figure out how I’d argue my case to an angel who’d surely refuse it. Zelus wouldn’t remove his mark, so the only option left would be toconvince Asha to come to my realm. I had four days to make the little human need me as much as I desperately needed her. Four days to endear myself to Asha so she’d give up her afterlife to be with me.

I ran a hand through my hair.

It was pathetic to think that I’d gone my entire existence not once needing anyone, and the first person I wanted was someone I couldn’t have. Someone I had to beg to stay. To think, a powerful being like myself was so quickly brought down to the same level as the humans I sent to their awaiting afterlife. But I’d lost all sense of propriety when my eyes connected with the mark that would take my little raven’s life.

Fuck who I was. That person didn’t exist anymore. Whatever I had to do to keep her, I would, and it didn’t matter how desperate I had to be to achieve it.

Asha’s hands cupped my cheeks, and the touch startled me out of my head. “I guess you and I are going on an adventure, huh? Who would’ve thought my first vacation in years would be with Death. Doesn’t get any weirder than that.”

The overwhelming rush of relief that hit after she agreed to come with me eased the tension in my body, but it was far from over. If I kept her away from Zelus, it’d give me time to call on the angel. Zelus couldn’t quicken the illness if he wasn’t around her, and those precious few days could mean the difference between whether she lived or died in this realm. It would give me time to convince her to come to mine. To make myself someone she couldn’t live without.

Then I’d figure out a way to keep her with me forever.

I’d never wanted something or someone so much I was willing to test the limits of my power, but I would for her. If I could keep my little raven from dying, I’d have time to figure out the rest. Whatever it took for more time, I’d do it.

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