XXI

I woke up in the Ferrari of all beds—a king, no, a castle -sized mattress on a raised platform with a thick black comforter and matching velvety soft pillows. When I flicked on the lamp beside the bed, it illuminated the tall ceiling above. My mouth fell open. Sheer shadow cascaded from the ceiling in beautiful lacy designs, draping around me like a protective canopy.

I brought the comforter up to my nose, breathed in the familiar scent of him , then an icy sensation pricked the side of my face.

"Get a good whiff?"

"Ahh!" I jerked back, hitting my head on the headboard.

The shadowed canopy dropped like a curtain falling to the floor. It gathered together in a hissing, whispering cluster of sinister voices as it absorbed back into the Grim Reaper. Death lounged in a leather chair beside the bed. He rested his arms over the length of the armrests with his legs spread out in that obscenely masculine manner. His short-sleeved black T-shirt exposed his tan biceps and the exotic markings etched all the way down to his wrists. A beat-up, vintage baseball cap shadowed his eyes.

I crumpled the comforter in my hands, my stomach fluttering with nerves as I took in the spacious, masculine room. "What happened?"

"You went through some sort of power surge." The long-gloved fingers of his right hand curled tightly around the chair's armrest. "Don't you remember?"

Thinking about the party with the reapers triggered a tingling in my limbs. I'd felt helpless, terrified, suffocating in my own body, in my own light.

Ahrimad . . .

I gripped the comforter with white knuckles as I tried to calm myself. When I exhaled, my breath caught in the air like a fog. The temperature had plummeted to a bitter cold. I turned accusatorily to Death, whose body was tense and stiff.

"I intended to take you back to your room," he explained slowly, "but you started to violently shake. You had a fever of one hundred twelve degrees Fahrenheit. It didn't drop for two hours."

"That's impossible. A fever that high would . . . it would—"

"Kill you?" Death offered, pushing up from the chair. He closed the distance between the chair and the bed with two smooth strides. "Or at least leave you with severe brain damage, wouldn't you think?"

"Yes," I whispered.

We stared at each other.

"Headache?" he asked.

"No."

"Chills?"

"No."

"Seeing double?"

"No."

"Pain anywhere?"

I did a quick assessment of my body. "Um, no."

He pinched my arm.

"Ow!"

"You still feel pain. Good. When's the last time you had your period?"

"What?"

"Well, you see, Faith," Death began in that husky, monotone way he spoke when he was being sarcastic, "when it's that time of the month, a woman begins to—"

I reached back and whacked him hard with a pillow, which curled his lips into almost a smile. "I'm getting the heck out of here."

When I attempted to sit up, he pushed me back down with a single poke to my chest. "Not until I say so, cupcake."

With a growl, I swatted his hand away and yanked the covers off me.

Death kept his eyes on my face even as I felt a breeze on my legs.

"Holy—!" I pulled down the oversized shirt I was wearing and then yanked the covers back up. I had on cotton underwear but no pants. "You changed my clothes."

"Had to," Death said. "You were soaked in sweat and threw up all over yourself—and me, for that matter." He stretched out his gloved hands. "Ever try to get vomit out of leather? Fun time."

I glanced down at the crumpled blanket around me, trying to wrap my head around the fact that Death had taken care of me.

"Take my word for it or don't," Death continued, "but I didn't look at anything or touch any inappropriate areas. You weren't naked either."

"Thank you," I said, "but couldn't you have at least put some pants on me once the fever broke?"

"What do I look like? Goodwill? Besides, all my sweatpants are in the wash, and you don't want my wash mixing with yours. All the blood and gore I get on my pants never comes out in one cycle."

I blinked. Good God.

"Get me a pair of clean pants before I scream," I said calmly.

"Fine. Slip these on for now." He strode to the top drawer of one of his dressers and tossed me a pair of black boxers before facing the door. It felt so weird to wear his underwear as shorts, but the band could roll up, and with the length of his legs, his pants would have been a joke on me anyway.

"Tell me what happened in the den," Death said, crossing his arms. "Leo said your power was triggered and you couldn't control it. Did you have a vision or something?"

My chest tightened at the memory. The lack of control I'd had over my power had almost killed me.

"There was this ringing." My fingers absently touched the faded scar on my forearm. "And this scar, it started to, um, hurt . . . "

"Where Malphas's underling infected you." Death reached for my forearm. The warm, firm touch of his gloved hands massaged my flesh; I felt an electric sensation that lifted the little hairs on my arms. But I had a feeling it wasn't from the mark.

"It wasn't Ahrimad," Death murmured, running his finger down the faded pink line, the only reminder of the horrifying day in the alleyway. He lifted his catlike eyes to mine. "This has Malphas written all over it."

"But . . . I saw him. I saw Ahrimad."

"What you saw could have been a hallucination Malphas conjured. Either a hallucination or a mirage of some sort. He's a master of manipulation. I'm not saying Ahrimad wasn't involved, but he's very weak. I don't think he would have risked communicating with you like that."

"What about the ringing?" I inquired.

Death tilted his head to one side thoughtfully. "When a portal splits open, the void between worlds creates a tiny rift in time. A whistle can occasionally be heard. That's where Ahrimad would come in. Given the circumstances that I met him in, trapped in that mirror under the willow, I would assume he has a vast amount of knowledge about the Otherworlds and how to generate portals. Malphas was able to create a mental bridge to you that was secured through your scar and the portal. It must have been a very temporary portal, like the communication one in Limbo that I used to contact Ace. Lucifer's wards are far too strong for them to have physically crossed through it to get to you, so it appears Malphas found a way around that."

As I watched Death piece this all together, I couldn't help but admire his intelligence.

"So, now what do we do?"

Death looked at me like I was insane. " You don't do anything. I've already rid the penthouse of all the mirrors, and we're removing any other mirrors in the building today."

"Geez. Even the ones in other people's apartments?"

"Everyone in this building belongs to Hell. Therefore, they belong to me, and so do their belongings. They will do what I say." He took off his cap and raked his fingers through the loose midnight curls of his faux-hawk. "This is the first time you've seen Ahrimad or Malphas since the ball, correct?"

I let my eyes drop. "No, it's not."

Leather creaked as Death clenched his hands. "You saw him before this incident? A vision—"

"Not exactly—"

"Then what was it?" he demanded.

"The night Marcy was taken, I had this dream. Ahrimad and Malphas, they were in some sort of . . . mausoleum."

"You kept this to yourself ?" His facial features began to sharpen right before my eyes. "Why wouldn't you tell me?" he growled with a sudden ferocity.

B ecause I don't trust you. Because I've learned the only way to protect myself from you is to keep my secrets, and because I'm afraid, and denial is my favorite coping mechanism.

"Because I didn't think it meant anything," I answered, since I was too stubborn to admit I'd made a stupid mistake. "What happened in the bathroom, I had it under control."

He let out a harsh laugh. "Clearly. Let me go get your wheelchair so you can reenact this ‘control' you speak of."

"Your precious cargo is safe and sound," I snapped. "There's no need to be an ass."

"You don't use your damn head, Faith. What happened to you in the bathroom could have been prevented—"

"A lot of things between us could have been prevented!" The words exploded out before I could stop them.

"Like if I'd let you die from square one?" Death suggested, his own voice rising. "It's time to be a big girl and move on from the past."

"Oh, screw you!" I seethed. "You're just mad I won't bend over and take it from you like your demon slaves."

I instantly regretted my choice of words. I also regretted getting off the bed, because now we were toe to toe.

"Don't act like you aren't the cause of this whole situation, because you are," I said, burning everywhere. "You're two thousand plus years old and can't handle basic emotions. So don't call me childish."

His lip twitched in a brief snarl.

"You're not perfect either," I went on. "You certainly don't have all the answers, and you ," I added, daring to move into him, my tongue dripping with venom, "you have fears too. Or else you would have your precious scythe back by now. Whatever is going on with me, I'll figure it out by myself. You're the last person I want help from."

I strode past him with every intention of leaving, but the room spun.

Death wrapped his arm around me before I could fall, and my heart fluttered as he hoisted me up onto his bed. "I couldn't hear you," Death said, growling the words through his fangs. His hands were firm on my waist, his body standing between my legs. "You called out to me. Then you shut me out, and I couldn't feel you through the bond. I felt nothing . Don't do that ever again, Faith. Next time something awful is happening to you, you keep up those walls, and you keep calling out my name. No matter how much you hate me. Swear it."

The way his hands clung to me. The hoarse drop in his voice, the concern in his eyes. It was a rare glimpse of humanity, and I was stunned.

Was it possible he cared?

"All you do is lie to me and play mind games until you create massive rifts in my trust," I whispered. "You didn't tell me Marcy was safe until it was convenient for you . And you wonder why I keep my secrets?"

"Swear it, Faith."

"Fine," I said, utterly exhausted. "Fine, I won't shut you out again. You're not going to punish Leo for what happened, are you?"

Death's features shifted and grew colder. "Leo is the incarnation of envy. He wants what he can't have."

"You didn't answer the question." I slid off the bed, and the dizziness didn't follow this time. All I could feel was the pain in my jaw from clenching my teeth. The burn in my stomach. A hunger so relentless, it made me want to harm . When I stepped toward Death, those sensations only intensified, and he took a step back. "You're jealous."

"Faith," Death warned in a low gruff, "get out of my face—"

I clutched his shirt to keep him in place, and his menacing glare promised violence. "You're jealous that I spent time with Leo and the rest of the Seven."

Death ran his tongue over his teeth with a dark laugh. "You are getting some real heavy iron balls on you, cupcake."

"Deny it."

Darkness consumed us both.

We manifested across the room. My breath caught as he slammed me to the wall beside the bed, stealing my breath away. "I have nothing to deny," he growled. "If you knew what goes on in my head when you're around. If you were brave enough to cross into the shadows of my twisted mind, you'd see. I have no competition."

Death moved his lips down the column of my throat. "Because any man can make you laugh," he whispered in a velvet-clad voice, my pulse pounding as his bottom lip brushed my bare skin. "Any man can tell you all the sweet, romantic folly you think you need, but none of them can shake the ground beneath your feet. None of them could go against nature for you. Shift a storm, darken the moon, beckon the night." His tongue traced the sensitive part of my ear, sending chills down my back. "Make you feel so good being very, very bad . . . "

It took everything in me to move out from his grasp, and when I did, Death's seductive expression easily shifted to boredom, like a lazy cat that had had all its fun anyway. Still, I could feel his warm presence lingering against my skin even as he slowly slunk toward the bed. He lazed back against the mattress, a strand of black hair falling over his forehead, and leered at me from beneath thick lashes.

A villain's open invitation.

" Good night , Death."

His mouth curved. "Sweet nightmares, cupcake."

I walked out of his bedroom and into mine. The bedside lamps were on, and a black box secured with beautiful black ribbon lay on my bed. I felt lame that my heart fluttered just at the sight.

I ran my fingers over the silken ribbon. I glanced over my shoulder. Death lingered in the doorway, his mouth slightly parted with words he never said. He stared down at the present in my hands in blank surprise.

"Is this from you?" I asked.

Death went quiet, but those mismatched eyes darted to mine.

He vanished into smoke.

"Okay," I said to the empty room. What the heck was happening?

A minute or so later, Death reappeared. His cheeks were slightly flushed, and his hair was sticking up. Like he'd run his hand through it. In his fist, he held a folded piece of paper.

"Here," he grunted.

He placed it awkwardly on top of the present.

I smiled. He'd gotten me a gift.

"Lucifer wants to meet with us tomorrow morning," Death said, his voice tight and unlike him. "Be dressed by eight."

Then he was gone again.

I reached for the card and tore it open, recognizing Death's neat script: It wasn't all a lie .

I sat down on the bed, feeling as though I was floating. The present was heavy. My fingers shook a little as I pulled the silk ribbon, and it all fell away. I popped the lid to the box, and my hand slowly rose to cup my mouth.

Inside was a clear glass display container with a teddy bear inside. Not just any ordinary teddy bear, though. It was Mr. Wiggles, my childhood teddy bear from home. I knew it was him because of the red heart sewn into his chest, a patch that my grandma had made after Aunt Sarah's dog got hold of him and tore out half his stuffing in seconds. I remembered how devastated I had been that day as I opened the glass container to run my thumb over his heart. The teddy bear's left arm, which had been hanging on by a thread, was properly attached now, and his torso was plumper and softer, like he'd been filled with new stuffing. The big, red bow tied around his neck was rich silk.

I thought about my family and the life I'd left behind. I missed my parents so much. They were safe, and Marcy was too. But that didn't change the fact that nothing would be the same again. And all at once, this silly old teddy bear was my everything again. I hugged Mr. Wiggles hard, bursting into tears. Imagine my surprise when his voice box, which had broken years before, went off as I squeezed him.

"I'm Mr. Wiggles, and I love to sing this song! Clap your hands and you can sing along. Be my friend and I'll be yours. Hug me when you're feeling blue . . . "

The exhaustion of the night overcame me, and I slept with him clutched in my arms.

A loud crash jarred me awake.

Cruentas sat at the foot of my bed, his tail anxiously swishing back and forth. I groggily checked the alarm on the nightstand and set Mr. Wiggles aside. Three in the morning.

I heard another slam that sounded like it was from the kitchen.

Jumping from the bed, I crossed the room and unlocked the door. A month ago, I would have hidden under the covers. Now I was creeping down a dark hallway to see what all the commotion was about.

Shuffling. Cabinets rapidly opening and shutting. The sound of a glass shattering. A deep, baritone voice cursed, followed by a cold sensation shimmying down my spine. I relaxed marginally.

Rounding the corner, I peered into the kitchen. Blacker than the darkness of the kitchen, he continued rifling through cabinets, searching for something. "What are you doing?"

Death stiffened. Lowering to a hunch, he leaned over the sink and kept his back to me. "Go back to bed."

The tension in his voice undeniably conveyed pain. I went to the wall and turned the dimmer light on halfway, my eyes widening at the mess of paper towels crumpled all over the counter.

Blood. Blood as black and oily as his demigod father's.

Death had turned his face from the light, but not before I caught the blood streaking his cheek.

"Oh my God! What happened?"

"I'm handling it."

He tried to maneuver past me, but I blocked his way. The fact that he didn't try to manifest around me set off alarms in my head.

"You're bleeding all over the floor!" I cried. "Why are you holding your stomach like that?"

"Because if I don't my intestines will fall out," he snarled. "Now move ."

I blocked his way again. A low warning growl sounded from his throat, but I stood my ground. "I know you don't want my help, but you need my help. Now stop being a stubborn ass and tell me what you're looking for."

Death released an aggravated noise, evidently too incapacitated to fight me. "First aid kit," he muttered. "I thought I had a clotting dressing in the one under the sink to try to stop the bleeding, but I don't."

"I'll find it for you. In the meantime, please sit down."

Death made another disgruntled noise, like he didn't want to be ordered around. He stepped forward to bulldoze past me and staggered. I gasped as he suddenly toppled to the side and sagged against the archway. Reaching out fast, I grabbed his arm and slung it over my shoulder, then hooked my arm around his waist, careful not to touch where his hand was clutching his gut.

"To the table," I ordered. "Lean on me."

We made our way into the dining room, until Death was close enough to a chair to dump himself into it. His massive body hardly fit in the seat, but now wasn't time to get Goldilocks picky on our seat choice.

"Downstairs," Death breathed, his deep voice ragged and weak. "In the closet where I keep the wrap for your knuckles. Large first aid kit. It's blue."

He'd hardly finished, and I was already sprinting to the gym.

With all of the gear and equipment we had been using recently, it took a minute of scrambling and moving things around in the closet to find the kit. When I got back to the main floor, Death was hunched over and worse for wear. He'd managed to shrug out of his cloak and drape it over his chair, but he appeared to be struggling to take off his tattered black shirt.

"You might want to look away."

But I didn't. I set down the first aid kit, taking in the ghastly sight of his injury.

"That looks horrible."

"It'll heal." Using one hand, Death wrangled his T-shirt the rest of the way over his head and then peeled off his right glove with his fangs. He reached for the first aid kit and popped it open. His nails were black and pointed at the tips, like deadly blades prepared to unleash. "Need to sew it up to speed up the process, though."

"I'll call for help."

" No," Death said firmly. "Don't call anyone. This stays between you and me."

"Okay," I said. "But you can't sew yourself shut, can you?"

"I've done it a thousand times before." I watched him attempt to thread a needle with his enormous, bloody hand and noticed the slight tremble to his fingers. Evidently, asking for help was not in his nature.

"Give me that." I plucked the needle from his grasp and threaded it for him. Then I bit the bullet and pulled up a chair to sit in front of him.

"Faith . . . "

"It can't be that difficult, can it? At least not this part." I pointed to the part of the wound where the skin hadn't torn as far apart. "My mom's mom, Grandma Evelyn, she was a seamstress and taught me how to sew when I was a kid." I took the plunge and started to stitch up the wound, and Death didn't even flinch. "She still makes her own clothes, and whenever I see her, I like to watch her work. I've just never sewn up a . . . well, a body ."

I was babbling, but I was focused, and I could do this. I could feel his stare on me as I worked. Suturing a wound was trickier than patching up a pair of jeans, that's for sure, but with his occasional guidance, I got much further than I thought I could.

"So," I said. "You gonna tell me how this happened?"

"Harpies."

"Herpes?"

Death laughed unexpectedly, then hissed with a curse. His first outward sign of pain since I'd started suturing. " Har pies," he corrected through clenched teeth. "With an a."

"Ah, see, that makes more sense. Your accent got a little thick there." I wonder if he knew I'd heard him correctly and had just tried to lighten up the mood.

"Harpies are avian monsters." Appearing to be gaining strength, Death carefully took the needle from me and finished the suturing. "Violent, temperamental creatures that manifest from the Underworld through storms. I had a run-in with a group of them in an abandoned church. Harpies are notoriously unlucky, and there was a whole hive of the damn vultures."

"Can I ask what you were doing in an abandoned church? Other than being insanely cliché?"

Another brusque noise that resembled a laugh. "I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you." On that enigmatic note, Death closed the wound. While I was impressed by his rapid needlework, it was also disturbing that it seemed to have been learned by rote. "The harpies pinned me down and ripped out half my bowels before I managed to get free."

"Ow."

Death cut the string with his talon. "For a mortal who threw up after running half a mile, you have an iron stomach. That was gruesome."

"It was three miles, you jerk," I replied. "And I'm just as surprised as you are." The truth was, I'd been so worried about him that nothing else had mattered. "Let me, um, get some soap and water to help clean you up."

"I don't want—"

"Eh!" I held up a palm for him to shut it, already backing out of the room. "Sit your undead ass down."

The kitchen was an utter mess. I gathered as many dirty paper towels as I could and threw them in the trash. I washed my hands first, then got a roll of paper towels and three bowls. Two of the bowls I filled with clean, warm water, one with added soap, and the third was empty for dirty water.

When I carried my supplies back to the dining room, I saw Death had discarded the rest of his mangled shirt and was lounging back in his chair. The stitches had done their job to aid his supernatural healing, and his skin had already miraculously mended back together. I tried and failed not to ogle the hulking breadth of his shoulders, the obscene swell of muscle in his thick biceps and pecs, and the deep ridges of muscle in his abdomen. An injured abdomen. One I shouldn't have been checking out, let alone been attracted to, all things considering.

Wetting a paper towel in soapy water and internally scolding myself, I began to wipe away the blood from his skin. Keeping my mind out of the gutter was virtually impossible when my hands were rubbing suds all over his body like a freaking car wash. My hand shook as I ran a fresh damp paper towel over his stitches to try to clean the area. When I brushed his lower stomach, he straightened in his chair with a jolt and gripped my forearm tightly.

I looked up at him, those magnetic eyes clashing with mine. Steady. Imploring. Wanting.

"That's enough." His voice had reached a low timbre, and his accent had thickened. "I . . . appreciate your assistance in cleaning the blood off," he continued, the grateful words stumbling out inelegantly as he released his hold on me, "but there's no need to disinfect the wound. I'm not prone to mortal illness."

"Oh. Right." I prayed that my face wasn't as crimson-red as it felt. "In the alleyway," I began, "when all those demons were attacking you, weren't you injured badly like this? You were wearing your cloak, so it was hard to tell, but I swear you didn't seem hurt in the warehouse."

"It's because I don't have my scythe," Death elucidated, lifting his hips off the chair and reaching into the back of his pants to retrieve a new pair of black gloves. "The blade helps me collect at a much faster rate. I'm not as satiated as I normally am. It affects my ability to heal, and it's why the harpies managed to pin me down in the first place."

He stood up slowly and walked to the couch, where he collapsed onto the cushions with a groan. "You should get to bed. It's late."

Sending me off to bed like a child. Was that how he thought of me? I was about to retreat into my bedroom when I thought better. I strode into the living room and stood in front of him with my arms folded.

Death wiped a gloved hand over his face. "Yes?"

"What you did . . . with my teddy bear," I said, "I didn't expect it. It meant a lot to me."

Death shifted in his seat and adjusted a pillow.

"And I need to know . . . " I stepped closer to the couch. "Did you mean it? What you wrote in your note?"

His mismatched green eyes flicked up to mine and lingered. I had my answer.

I closed the distance between us and bent down to press my lips against his. At first, his lips were firm and unyielding against mine, but then he let his guard down, and what I had intended to be brief peck burned to a fiery, aching caress that vowed to ruin me.

I pulled back to find that I'd ruined him too. His eyelids were half-lowered, his mouth parted, his dangerous expression torn between wanton desire and a monstrous hunger. I wasn't sure which side had overcome him the most.

The Angel of Death beckoned me closer with a single inclined finger.

Suddenly, I was in his arms, my knees indenting the soft leather couch on either side of his waist. He clutched my hips with his large, demanding hands and yanked me down to his lap. Our hips ground together, and I could feel his chest hitch as he hissed in pain.

"Your wound," I gasped. "I shouldn't have—"

Death's gloved hand collared around my throat. "Kiss me."

A soft sigh escaped me as we ruthlessly made out, his mouth roughly seizing my lips over and over. My fingers slid up his solid chest to his neck, weaving into his hair and tugging. It drew a growl out of him that rumbled his chest, and his fingers dug greedily into my ass. I felt the sharp points of his talons pinch into my skin through his gloves and gasped. He swallowed my breath in another dizzying kiss as his hands lowered to the back of my thighs and then slid up to my waist, our lips exploring, hot, tasting, battling in the war we had started long ago.

He lifted the fabric of my shirt, warm leather grazing my bare skin as he teased his way up my ribs like climbing a ladder. When he cupped my breasts, my heart beat faster than a hummingbird's against his deadly palms. Nothing but him. There was nothing but him.

Then he was gone in wisps of black smoke.

I fell forward onto the cold, empty leather couch. Death had materialized across the room, panting hard. He had his back to me, a hand braced on the wall.

" Fuck , Faith."

He moved in a blur, threw open his bedroom door, and slammed it behind him. Beyond the door, I heard something crash. I don't know how long I stared at the door in disbelief at what we'd done before I went off to bed.

Whatever we were, it was sick, twisted, sinful. He was dark and I was light, and I wouldn't be foolish enough to let my heart fade into the obscurity of the gray between us.

But now, soon to be fighting side-by-side, I wondered if, like the madness of our bodies pressed together, we would be a force to be reckoned with.