Page 27 of The Deathless One
Thankfully, he had entertainment waiting for him. It took him a long time to find every remaining soul of previous gravesingers. They were particularly good at hiding in the ink, but he was particularly good at finding them.
Looping the chains around their necks had barely satisfied his need to see them punished. These souls were so weak, merely a hint of what they used to be. What he wanted was to punish the one who remained out there. The one who should have summoned him by now.
He’d waited, and then he’d succumbed to the darkness of his realm. The ink claimed him, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him into the shadows of his own power. This was where he would replenish himself. This was how he would gather his power, if only it didn’t drown him while he did so.
Then he heard her. The whispering need flowing through his realm and through that tiny thread of hatred that connected them.
For a moment, he forgot that he’d vowed to remain separate from this new gravesinger. He forgot that years of manipulation and pain shouldmake his mind scream when he heard Jessamine’s voice. Instead, all he heard was the softness there. The begging.
“Deathless One.” Her voice filtered through all the memories.
He turned his face toward the sound of it, as though he was turning his face toward the moonlight. A cool breeze. A frigid kiss that burned away the fever in his body. The whispered promise of trust and perhaps a connection that would lead him out of this place.
Such dreams were fairy tales that would never come true. She was like all the others, he reminded himself. She was a witch, and a witch only knew power. Even if she had no interest in it now, she would use him eventually. There would come a time when power was more important than connection. It always ended up like that.
But he still wanted. He still dreamed.
Even the magic of this place could not hold him when a witch summoned him. It was why he found his body dragged out of the black muck, coughing up obsidian blood that dripped down his chin and splattered upon the equally dark ground. His ribs ached. His stomach rebelled at the pain as hands tried to drag him back into the abyss, leaving dark bruises behind.
He couldn’t stay away even if he wanted to. Jessamine’s voice pulled at him. Tugging deep in his body, forcing him to return to the realm of waking. Like a drop of ink in clear water, he manifested in the shadows of the altar room.
She’d chosen the same place to meet him. Though he ached and exhaustion crept into his vision, he knew this was by design.
Jessamine was far too intelligent. She knew how to choose a battlefield of wits, and for some reason, she had chosen this one again. To conquer him? To bury a memory?
No, he decided, looking at her as she knelt prim and proper before the altar. She had summoned him here to defeat a nightmare. The dark circles under her eyes betrayed her.
“Sleeping better?” he asked, trying to keep his voice unaffected. But even he could hear the hoarse crackle in the words.
Her head snapped in his direction, a disapproving scowl already on her face. “I could ask you the same.”
“I don’t sleep.”
“Hmm.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked him up and down. “You sound awful.”
“Being dead does that to a person.”
“Thank you for the cat,” she said. And there it was again. That softness that made her long lashes flicker against her cheeks as her gaze dropped. “It… helped. Even if I’m not certain it actually is a cat.”
No. He couldn’t suffer through this again. Jessamine had bared that swanlike neck to him, and it made himneed. He wanted to bite down on it, to leave his mark even more than that scar that wrapped around her throat. He wanted to mar that pretty skin until it was covered with bruises made not by his hands, but by his mouth.
The Deathless One needed to control this situation. He sat down on top of the altar before he fell down, staring down at her kneeling between his legs. “Pretty picture,” he murmured.
Her face turned bright red. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
Tsking, he leaned back on his hands. The altar felt a little more real today. He could almost feel the texture of the stone and how cold it was against his palms. That was strange. He usually couldn’t feel anything at all in this form.
Except her.
He curled his fingers around the stone so he didn’t touch her again. It was hard to ignore the memory of her soft skin in his hands. Or the way she’d swallowed against his palm, her heart beating rapidly against his scarred fingertips. She’d been so fragile in his arms and yet didn’t struggle to free herself. Stupid girl. But brave, he’d admit.
She glared up at him, all regal indignation, as if he owed her something.
“What?” he finally asked, exasperated with her already. “What do you want now?”
