39. Katrin

Chapter 39

Katrin

S hrugging out of Sam's hold, I hobbled to the door, ignoring the shooting pain in every other step. I halted at the threshold, immediately struck by the scent of moss and rotting wood. Evander was well and truly gone. The familiar heaviness of being left behind settled on my shoulders, only this time, I was alone with a veritable stranger. I dared a behind me at the man in question.

Sensing my eyes on him, Sam looked up from where he'd been pouring himself a drink. "Don't look at me like that. I mean you no harm."

"You didn't seem too keen on me yesterday," I snapped.

Sam straightened, a glass in each hand. "I don't dislike you, Kitty Kat." The distance between us shrank, eaten up by his easy, long-legged stride. He extended one of the glasses my way, brows raised in question.

My etiquette training had me accepting the drink before I could think better of it.

"You could have fooled me," I said, sniffing the amber liquid.

Sam barked a laugh as my nose wrinkled.

"It is hard to watch someone make the same mistakes I did."

"But it's not the same. Wasn't that your point? That you and Evander bartered your souls to save others while I was merely protecting myself." My ankle throbbed in pain. Unwilling to make the trek back to the seating area before the fire, I slumped to the ground.

Sam squatted, setting his forearms on his thighs and gesturing at the drink in my hand. "That will help."

I eyed it. In the search for a cure, I'd downed innumerable concoctions, received countless doses of different drugs. I was no stranger to alcohol, but I'd never developed a taste for it. Pinching my nose, I tossed back the entire glass, sputtering as the liquid fire burned its way down my throat.

Sam laughed again.

"If you tell me it will put hair on my chest, I may just kick you," I rasped.

"You're alright, Kat." Sam held out a hand, and I placed the glass in it. Setting it aside, he reached out again, this time taking my hand and hauling me into a standing position. I expected him to let me go once I was again upright, but he gripped me with surprising strength. "If I spoke unkindly, it is only because I envy your potential."

"What do you mean?"

"There are doors still open to you despite the choices you've made." He motioned to my darkened skin. "These shadows, your bargain with Van, neither have sealed your fate. Death may take you tonight. He may take you in a year, but there is still a chance that you will win. There's still a chance for you both to be free. In the end, both options are ones that have been denied to me for centuries."

I stood in stunned silence, noting open expression and watery gaze. He was telling the truth. I'd never thought of death as a gift, but after centuries of lonely existence trapped between life and death, would I yearn for the latter as much as the former?

Still reeling from the revelation, I allowed Sam to guide me to a chair. I stared into the flickering flames, contemplating all that he'd said. Twisting the words around in my mind until I started to question my sanity. At some point, he'd refilled my drink, the glass once again clenched between my hands. This time, I didn't hesitate to gulp it all down. It warmed my belly and eased some of the tension in my limbs. I blew out a breath, glancing at Sam in the chair beside me.

"Do you think I'm on a fool's errand?" I voiced the fear that had nagged at me these last few days. Though I hadn't intended to befriend Evander, our hot-and-cold relationship made me unwilling to share my deeper doubts with him. I didn't have the same reservations about Sam. I didn't care what he thought of me. "Should I accept my fate and be done with it?"

Sam tilted his head, considering. "You cannot go wrong on this path. Either you will thwart Death or you will meet him as you were always meant to."

I pulled at the torn threads of my skirt. "I think if I were dying—and only that—that I could come to terms with that. I don't know what awaits in the Afterworld, but I'm no longer afraid to find out. Don't get me wrong," I added at his knowing glance, "I want to live, but dying doesn't seem so bad anymore."

"See. Nothing to worry about." He sat back, propping his hands behind his head.

"But that's not what's happening," I said, rubbing my shadowed skin. "Death has claimed me—Behryn has claimed me—to whatever end. More than anything, that is what terrifies me. I am merely a pawn in some game, and I don't even know the rules."

Sam nodded in understanding and took a quick sip from his glass. Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on his thighs, eyes never leaving the drink as it dangled between his knees. "I didn't trade my life for my wife's. I would have, but our son—" His voice broke on the word, and he swallowed thickly before continuing. "He was all we had. When he came down with the fever, he was too young, too small to fight it. I gave my life for his. I will never regret that, but I missed everything. I missed him growing up and becoming a man. I missed growing old with my woman, and I missed their deaths. Now they wait for me in the Afterworld, and I may never join them."

"I'm so sorry, Sam."

"I'm not telling you for pity. When you're sitting pretty in that manor, sharing a bed with Van—"

"We've never—"

"I don't care." He cut me off. "When you think you've found the easy way out, that you can just exist in The Between forever, I want you to remember that anything is better than this. This is not living. It's hiding. Don't throw away your possibilities for the safe choice. More often than not, it's not a choice at all."

With one conversation, Sam had turned my world upside-down. He'd known my inner turmoil without me having to voice it, and now, I had to figure out how to accept his wisdom. There was no future for Evander and me. I'd already known, but Sam's confirmation solidified the idea into an impenetrable wall around my deepest desires. The truth was, I'd begun to see myself here, assistant to the Hand of Death. I'd found a part of myself I hadn't known existed, and Evander had completed that version of myself.

I swallowed back the contents of my glass and tipped the empty vessel toward Sam. "I think I could go for another."