Page 57 of Right Hand Of The Reaper
I felt like there was something else he wasn’t telling me, some other reason why I was now sitting here in this bed. I could sense him holding back but, maybe I was reading him wrong. I’d just met the guy and he had just saved my life. I didn’t remember calling him but the whole thing was like a fuzzy memory. All I could remember was the pain, Thane’s face and… Heat rushed up my neck. “You kissed me.”
“Yes,” he replied a little breathlessly, his gaze dropping to my mouth briefly. “I gave you the Kiss of Life. Literally.”
“So, what happens now?”
Thane frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m dead.” Fuck. Saying it out loud made it seem even weirder. “But I’m not in any kind of afterlife and I’m still breathing.”
“Only because you’re still used to it. That’s why you panicked. Your body doesn’t need to breathe, so it wasn’t, but your mind flew into a panic because it still thinks you should be.”
“Oh,” I replied lamely, unsure what else to say.
Thane reached for me, wrapping his large hand around mine. “It will take some getting used to. And I am sorry this has happened to you. I never meant for anyone to try and find me, let alone put their lives at risk for mine.”
“I followed Roux. She is everything to me and I would lay my life down for hers in a heartbeat. She cares for you, Thane. She wasn’t going to let you face whatever this is alone.”
He squeezed my hand and something like sadness flared in his eyes. “I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re now bound to me in a way you’ll never be able to escape.”
I flinched. “What?”
He smiled at me, but it was a sad one. “In order to save you, I bonded your soul to mine. You are now marked by Death. Congratulations.”
“What?” I said again with a slow blink. This wasn’t sinking in. It was bad enough that I was fucking dead, but now I wore Death’s mark. Holy shit.
Thane stared at me like I was an idiot. “We are forever linked. While I live, so do you.”
“So, if you die…?”
“Then you cease to exist, and your soul will end up wherever mine does.” He said it so casually, as if he were discussing the weather and not my fucking soul.
“Wait a minute. How am I even talking right now?”
He sighed and I was starting to get annoyed with him. Excuse me for asking how the fuck I was walking and talking when I should bedead!
“You’re being kept alive by my death magic. Roux has that too. It’s how she branded her mark on your soul. While I’m alive, I keep you fuelled with the magic.”
“Will your magic ever run out?”
“No. It will only run out when I die. Which is unlikely since I’m, you know, Death.”
“I feel different. Is that normal?”
He cocked his head to the side, a frown curled through his blonde eyebrows. “Different? How?”
“Like there’s something burrowed under my skin.”
He pursed his lips, and I had this sudden urge to touch them. Would they be as soft as they looked? And where the fuck did that thought come from? I’d never thought about kissing a man before. Yes, I wanted to play with the twins, but that was purely out of curiosity to how they’d react to my power. It wasn’t sexual, was it?
His eyes blew wide, and he muttered something under his breath. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“Wait, Thane!” But it was no use. The man had bolted from the room like his arse was on fire leaving me alone with the fact that I was dead. I placed my hand over my heart and there was nothing. Just a stillness that had me feeling very weirded out.
What the fuck was I going to do now?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Roux
