41
DAY 367 A.F.
I lay in Death’s bed, staring at the black ceiling, clutching the emerald necklace he’d once given me.
For the last two days, I’d avoided Lark, stealing into this room and spending the nighttime hours here. My guard wolf waited outside the door.
I hadn’t slept since Aric had ridden away, hadn’t eaten. I both wanted and feared the dream of him I sensed was coming. Somehow I knew I would relive the past the next time I slept.
I believed everything Aric had told me—what he’d said felt true. I’d been married to Death. This explained why I’d always felt a connection to him, some kind of soul-deep bond—why I’d stared at his card when I was little, as if gazing at a picture of a loved one.
When I’d fallen for Jack, it’d been sizzling and combustible. The blazing inferno. What I felt for Aric was like a wave pounding against a shore for all time. He had two thousand years of longing, lifetimes of it, and now I’d tapped into that well forever.
I knew I would never be the same. My relationship with Jackson had felt fated. Whatever I had with Aric felt . . . endless.
Why hadn’t he returned? What if he never did?
Lying on his bed, surrounded by his addictive scent, I longed for him, longed to take away the pain I’d delivered.
If he could survive whatever I’d done to him, I could at least witness it.
I stopped fighting sleep. . . .
“Now that we’re wed, perhaps you will call me by my given name,” Death says as he escorts me to our extravagant lodgings—only the best for my highborn knight.
As soon as we cross the threshold, he releases me to yank off his hated gloves.
“But I will always know you as Death, my love,” I say, my voice all sweetness.
No matter how he’s treated me over these past weeks, I will never forget the menace in his eyes when he stabbed me. I will never forgive his arrogance when he assumed I would accept him just because he spared me.
He never asked for my hand, merely informed me that I was to marry him, that we would bow out of the game. In his mind, he is death, and I am life; therefore we belong together.
All throughout the planning of this ceremony, I kept hidden my true motivations. He might have quit the game, but I continue to play. And I know I cannot defeat him until he lowers his guard with me. He will, now that he’s my husband.
Today, I became his wife. Tonight I will become his doom.
“?‘My love’ will do for now,” he says, his lips curling, all confidence. He reaches for me, eager for our skin to touch. “As lovely as you are in this dress, I crave to see you without it.”
My bridal gown was a gift from him, cut from the most exquisite emerald green silk. Upon seeing the finery, I’d felt a disturbing amount of girlish glee. Then I’d remembered I’m the Empress, a killer of the first order.
“Of course, my love. If you’ll assist me, you’ll soon have what you crave.” What you deserve. I turn, presenting my back to him.
As he begins to unlace my stays, I fight the tension building in my muscles. He draws the silk from my shoulders, brushing searing kisses across my skin.
He’s been impatient for this day to come, and even more so about our first night as man and wife. Yet Death will never know me this way.
Throughout my childhood, I was taught that he is my enemy. That his inevitable desire for the Empress would prove to be one of my strengths—and weaknesses.
Because a lesser Empress would desire him back.
The woman in me feels attraction toward him. He is charming when he wants to be, and he’s beautifully formed. Never have I seen his equal. I admit my breaths shallowed when I joined him in the temple earlier today—he was stunning in his impeccable attire.
But this union is doomed because the Empress in me sees him only as a kill to be made. A predator viewing prey.
He has no idea, confident I am now his. Earlier, as we toasted our wedding vows, he whispered in my ear, “You belong to me. Forever.”
When my dress slips down my body, pooling at my feet, he turns me, the better to survey his new belonging.
The possessive gleam in his eyes makes me bristle. The thinly veiled hunger. His appetites are so marked, I’ve barely been able to hold him off thus far. He is too intense, too carnal, too desirous.
The boy called Death is so full of . . . life.
He lays me upon our bed, then disrobes himself. Yes, he is beautifully formed—everywhere. My body helplessly responds. But I have control over my own appetites.
Once he joins me, he grasps my hand to kiss my palm. “Empress, I will make you happy, for all our days.”
Our limited days. If we exit the game, we will age. Though immortality beckons?
His hand is covered with icons, there for the taking. I disguise my greed as I count them.
With a proud mien, he twirls my new ring on my finger. A symbol of ownership? I can view it no other way since men of his culture do not require one, just as livestock do not brand their masters.
To me, the ring is as detestable as a collar, and that I cannot abide! When I taste bile, my path becomes clearer: I crave his icons more than I do his breathtaking body.
As he leans down to kiss my neck, I ask, “Will you fetch me wine for my nerves, my love?” I muster a teasing smile. “In this, I’m an anxious innocent.”
He inhales, quelling his eagerness, though it roils from him. His manly needs, his lusts. “As you wish.”
He turns his back to the Empress. How trusting. How foolish. The heat of battle rises, taking me over. Without a whisper of hesitation, I slip soundlessly from the bed.
Before he can react, I shove my poisonous claws into him, hissing in his ear, “Till Death do us part.”
I woke with tears streaming down my face.
Husband. He was my husband. And I had betrayed him.
Somehow he’d survived my poison. Somehow he’d gotten the upper hand and ended me.
“Forced me to kill my bride,” he’d said with such pain in his starry gaze. No wonder he hated me—he had every right to! How could I have been so evil?
It was one thing to battle an enemy, to fight and prevail; quite another to exchange sacred vows with someone you had every intention of murdering that very night.
No wonder I’d had no chance of seducing him. I don’t handle vipers. He’d learned not to trust, he’d learned so young.
All his hardness, his ruthlessness, had been honed by me.
That Empress had seen only his hungers. She’d ignored the tenderness in his expressions, the warmth in his eyes as he’d beheld her. He had intended to make her happy.
To make me happy.
Yet even when blind to all he offered, that woman had fallen for him. She’d just refused to admit it.
Could I?
Suddenly my feelings for him were clamoring, too big for my chest. I felt like his wife. I needed to explain to him that I would never betray him. But he remained away. Leaving me alone in his bed.
Return to me, Aric.
Silence. Too much silence. I didn’t want to be alone right now. Dashing my sleeve over my face, I hurried from the room, startling Cyclops. Together we climbed up one flight of stairs to Lark’s bedroom.
A light knock. I had no idea what time it was.
Lark opened the door, rubbing her eyes. “What’s up, girl?” She wore a football jersey and leggings. A baby squirrel peeked its sleepy eyes from her mane of black hair.
“C-can I come in?”
When she swung her door wide, I entered. In all this time, I’d never been to her room. It was just as I might’ve pictured it—posters of animals plastered the walls, cages and aquariums lining shelves. Her falcon rested on a wooden perch next to her bed like an alarm clock. She had a tiger lamp, kangaroo sheets, and a thick smattering of live butterflies coating the high ceiling.
I knew there were no monarchs. Months ago, Matthew had told me that the last two were thousands of miles apart and flying away from each other. Again, I felt gratitude that Lark was caretaking these treasures. Still, I couldn’t let her think I’d softened toward her too much. “Kangaroo sheets, Lark?”
“Dude. Don’t judge me,” she said without anger.
My presence had agitated some of her menagerie, but a single wave of her hand quieted mewls and caws. “So you wanna talk about it?” She climbed back in bed, scooting a snoring hedgehog from her pillow.
Did I? Where to even begin? As I sorted through my thoughts, I crossed to her bay window, staring out into the stormy night.
Somewhere out there both Aric and Jack roamed the world. Jack had broken my heart, and I’d broken Aric’s. “Did you know Death and I were involved in a previous game? Married?”
“Um, some cards speculated.”
“I just dreamed about it. About how he used to be.”
“I tried to tell you he’s not all bad,” Lark said. “From what I understand, you kinda put him to shame on the evil front. Like judges’ scores of ten.”
“I did. Nothing could be worse than what I did,” I murmured.
“Once he gets back, you two kids can work things out. I’m confident about that. You’ve seen the way he looks at you when you dance, right? Well, you can’t imagine how he looks at you when you aren’t aware. You’re still a lock.”
I sighed, not convinced. There was so much in our past to be overcome. When lightning flashed, I said over my shoulder, “I never see lightning without thinking of Joules.”
“I know, right? At least he doesn’t want to off you.”
“For now.” I turned back to the window just as another bolt struck. Lightning forked out over black. Greenish-yellow forked out over red?
My breath caught. Slitted black eyes stared back at me.
Ogen.