Signa would be fully and utterly alone.
“You asked me what I want,” Signa said at last, fingertips curling in the hay, “and it’s to know that you’re not going to leave me, too. No matter what I am or am not. No matter what your brother tries; tell me that you’ll be by my side.”
She stilled when she felt the pressure of him against her gloved hand as he pressed a kiss to the back of it, as fragile as a wish.
You have me. It was a promise that Signa wound around herself, hoarding it. Protecting it. So long as you want me, you will always have me.
“What if I want you now?” Signa was on her knees in the hay, following the sound of his voice and hoping, as she lifted her head, that she was looking at the space where he crouched, invisible to her eyes.
Perhaps it was silly, but throughout her life, Death had been her one constant. He, more than anyone else in this world, had helped her feel comfortable in her own skin. As everything and everyone was working to tear that apart, telling her who she was and what she should be, it made sense that she needed him more than anything else.
Death made no sound as he weighed her words, and when his answer came it was as gentle as the patter of raindrops after a storm. I don’t want to hurt you, Signa. I won’t risk your life.
She knew that, of course. She didn’t want to risk it, either. Without a clue how these new powers of hers worked, or how far Fate was willing to go to keep her from Death, the gamble wasn’t worth it. Yet when he lifted a hand to her cheek and she could feel the leather of his gloves brush her bottom lip, she had an idea. A way to defy the constraints around them and to still have exactly what she wanted—him.
Signa captured his hand in hers by touch alone, smoothing circles into his palm. There was nothing in front of her as far as she could see. No hand she was holding. No eyes she was looking into. She felt him, though. And that counted for something.
Signa… Death’s voice was low and tentative as she skimmed her fingers up his arm, following the shape of him over his shoulder and down his chest. Down and down until he jerked away. Careful. Your skin almost touched mine.
She was so tired of needing to be careful. She’d discarded her gloves when she’d used her abilities on the foal, and they still lay half buried in the hay. She rose to fetch them and slipped the satin over her fingers.
“It’s only a problem if our skin touches, isn’t it? Then we won’t let that happen.” Her lips ached, desperately wanting to pull his face into hers and kiss him. To see him. But for now, this was the next best thing. She took his hand then, guiding it beneath her dress and petticoat, to one ankle, then slowly up the length of her stockings. She leaned into the corner of the stall, lifting her skirts to her knees. The low, appreciative sound Death made in the back of his throat was the most intoxicating music. She didn’t need to guide his hand; he seemed to have taken off his gloves as he undid her boots, tossing them to the side as he brushed his thumb against her ankle. Her calves. Farther and farther up, tracing patterns along her inner thigh.
Warmth flooded her, her lower belly stirring with anticipation as she shut her eyes and focused on the heat of her skin beneath his touch. On the shivers that rolled through her spine.
I love it when you make that face, he teased, one thumb sweeping up to skim beneath her eyes, where her cheeks were undoubtedly flushed. I so rarely get to see it. Usually when we’re like this…
“I’m dead?” Signa offered with a breathy laugh. “Only temporarily.”
It was different to experience him like this, still alive with her blood pulsing. Her breaths came faster as Death gripped her by the hips and pulled her onto his knee, and faster still as her body sparked with electricity and she straddled his thigh. With one hand Death braced her from behind, while the other hand curved up her thigh, gripping her close as Signa pressed into him.
She wanted him. More than she had ever wanted anything or anyone, she wanted to lose herself in him and forget everything. To believe for a few moments that they were a normal couple. If she shut her eyes, she almost believed it.
Beneath her skirts, Death’s hand slipped between her and his thigh, only a thin layer of muslin between their skin.
I want you, too. The low husk of Death’s voice had Signa’s heart thundering. Always.
She rocked her hips into the fingers that pressed against her and let herself be lost to the pleasure. In that moment, Fate did not matter. Nothing did. She wound her arms around Death’s neck and gasped quiet breaths against his shoulder as he whispered her name and curled his fists in her hair.
And as she tipped her head back and lost herself to him, she imagined that Death was there with her in the flesh and that, one day, they would build the life together they’d always wanted. A life in which they would never have to feel this way again.
TWENTY-FOUR
BLYTHE
BLYTHE HAD DREADED THIS MOMENT AS MUCH AS SHE’D ANTICIPATED IT.
She sat in the carriage across from Byron, suffocated by the tight quarters and lack of conversation—and from the navy traveling dress she wore, laced to her neck to look as respectable as she could manage. Byron had already given her an earful about Signa’s sudden departure the night before, and how it would only make things look worse for the Hawthornes, given how helpful Signa had been. Blythe had sat there in silence as he fumed, letting her uncle pace off his anger as she focused on a single speck on the wall behind him and refused to tell him anything more about why Signa left. She couldn’t tell him what Signa had done, or that Percy wasn’t coming back.
At least not yet. Not until she could make sense of that knowledge herself.
Signa Farrow was a traitor who did not belong at Thorn Grove. She was a liar. A murderer. And something even worse than all those things—something impossible that had the power to both take and give life with her own hands.
The weight of this knowledge hadn’t hit Blythe quite so hard as it perhaps should have, and she’d spent the full night tossing in her bed, wondering if some small part of her had known the truth all along. She’d caught glimpses of shadows and seen flickers of impossible things. Things that were sure to get her sent to an institution if ever she spoke of them.
But Signa had seen them, too. Whatever strange world Blythe had dipped her toes into since knocking on Death’s door, Signa was fully living within it.
Maybe someone wiser would have kept Signa around for answers, but the last thing Blythe wanted was for whatever Signa was involved in to affect her father. Especially on the very day when, weeks after he’d been taken from her, she’d finally see him again thanks to her bargain with the prince.
They’d arrived before dawn, while the streets were still quiet. The carriage pulled close to a towering, ruined castle with a foundation that was cracking at the seams. When Blythe had first heard that an abandoned castle had been turned into a men’s prison, she’d imagined prisoners living in comfort, some of them getting more food and better quarters than they’d had previously. But there was not a lick of comfort to boast of at the prison where Elijah was confined, and Blythe had to turn herself to stone as they approached, not allowing even a hint of emotion to betray how she felt.