He lifted one shoulder, the movement making the black T-shirt he wore pull tight across a well-muscled chest. “You called,” he said, pushing off the wall.
Somehow he managed to cross the room quickly without ever looking hurried, his stride confident but languid as he closed the distance between us before I had time to do anything more than let my eyes drink in his form. He leaned down, his fingers brushing featherlight along my cheek before coming to rest on my neck so he could guide my lips to his.
I went willingly, the kiss starting oh-so-soft and then becoming more as we both answered the need that snapped like electricity between us. My hands moved up Death’s chest, feeling the contrast of his soft shirt over hard muscles as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He in turn dragged me closer, engulfing me in strong arms.
The kiss spoke of lost time and longing, and while it lasted, it washed away everything else. There was just him and me. His hazel eyes so close. His sweet breath on my skin. This moment. This connection.
Then the kiss broke, and the world crashed down between us again.
He smiled. My answering smile was slow, feeble.
Death brushed a strand of hair from my face. “What’s wrong?”
I forced myself not to look away.
“It’s been over a week since you visited.” I could have added to the list, but while I had once shared every secret I had with Death, I didn’t anymore. I couldn’t. After all, how do you tell the man you love that when you’d been dosed with a hallucinogenic drug that made nightmares come to life, it had been images of him that had tormented you?
It would hurt him. It hurt me, mostly because it had been manifestations of my own doubts, fears, and the slew of unanswered questions about things I didn’t know about him that had given the visions power. Now the secret hung over me.
And I had to wonder how he kept so many secrets himself.
It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on. My time with him was always too short for such things. Instead I lifted onto my toes, bringing my lips up to his again as I said, “I missed you.”
“Obviously.” He whispered the word against my lips before submitting to the kiss I’d offered.
There was just as much heat in it as our first kiss, but something was different about this one. The desire was still there, but now the time apart wasn’t a desperate need to be made up for, it was distance between us.
When the kiss broke, he leaned his forehead against mine. “I’ll try to visit more.”
“Do that,” I said, giving him the smile I knew he needed. But he’d told me that before. Sometimes he was better at following through with it than other times. Like the Raver had said, our relationship was dangerous. I knew that, and it bought him a lot of slack in the boyfriend department.
“So the bank today was crazy, right?” I said, as I straightened.
Death frowned at me. “Alex, did you call me here to exploit me for your case?”
“You’d rather I exploit you for sex?”
The frown vanished, and he lifted his arms, opening them wide. “Yes, please.”
I laughed, but cut off abruptly when I looked up and noticed the colors spinning in his hazel irises. He was being called away.
Death lifted his hand to my cheek, his thumb trailing along my jaw, the touch both caress and apology. “Rain check?”
“Please don’t go.” The words slipped out before I could catch them.
I wished I could call them back as soon as they escaped. Not because of the potential debt that sprang up between us with the words—and it was a lot; my desire for him to stay was immense and would require him to ignore his duty as a soul collector. But that wasn’t why I wished I could call the words back. No, I wanted to retract them because of the heartbreak that spread across his face.
He couldn’t stay. I knew he couldn’t. When the color spun in his irises like that, someone whose soul he was responsible for was at a crucial moment in their life. One likely to lead to death. He needed to be there to send the soul on to wherever it was souls went.
“Go,” I whispered.
Death leaned forward and kissed me. It was a soft kiss, tasting of sorrow and secrets and duty.
He broke off and leaned his forehead against mine. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”
I nodded, closing my eyes.
He kissed me one more time. A mere brush of his lips against mine.
Then he vanished.
? ? ?
After Death left, I packed up my laptop without ever finishing—or starting—my post on the Dead Club Forums. I’d think about the best way to word my questions tonight and write up a thread when I got to the office in the morning.
Heading back downstairs, I didn’t even bother turning on the lights as I passed through the living room and kitchen to the back door. I’d walked this path so many times now, I could do it blind. I used my key to unlock the double-cylinder deadbolt and stepped out into a yard very different from the one I’d walked through to the front door when I’d first arrived home.
The air that greeted me here was warm and comfortable without a hint of the crisp November wind that had whispered of coming winter less than half an hour earlier. The sun had almost finished setting, but the oppressive blindness that hung over my damaged vision during most low-light situations was lessened, not gone, but less severe. The shadows were deep, but not all-consuming, and I could clearly make out the castle in the distance.
It was a hike to reach it, and for the last portion, I was walking in starlight. Moon-loving flowers bloomed along the path as I walked, offering their light glow to the stars above. It was beautiful. Magical.
Like literally, magical. If I’d walked around the side of Caleb’s house, I would have wound up in the predictable small backyard with two of its sides bordered by the fences of our neighbors. But Caleb’s back door now acted as a passageway into a folded space that had opened to hold my land and castle when I’d been granted my independent status by the Winter Queen. The Faerie castle had wedged itself into mortal reality.
It had been shocking to discover the newly unfolded space, but once I’d gotten over the initial disbelief, I’d accepted that it was home. It wasn’t exactly Faerie or the mortal realm, but an intricate weave of both. My eyes liked it, my magic liked it, and it felt right.
Everyone else apparently liked it as well.