XXV

"Why is it," Death began as he stalked a slow circle around his reapers, "whenever I leave one of you idiots alone with the girl, chaos erupts?"

When nobody responded, Death glared at Wolf. "Were my instructions not clear?"

"You were perfectly clear, my lord."

Death prowled past Wolf and stopped at Gunner. "Have I not been a generous and merciful master to you all?"

"You have always been generous to us, my lord."replied Gunner.

"Are you not all indebted to me?" Death asked Denim, face to face with him.

"We are forever indebted, my lord,"

"Then why the fuck ," Death roared, now standing before Leo, the cords of muscle in his neck protruding like a drill sergeant's, "did I just walk into goddamn World War Three?"

This was hard to watch. In a matter of seconds, Death had made seven incredibly masculine men transform into terrified puppies with their tails wedged between their legs.

Blade muttered something vicious under his breath.

Death vanished in a mist of black and reappeared in front of Blade like a monster straight out of a nightmare. He grabbed the reaper by the shirt, fangs lengthening in his mouth. " What did you say?"

At the sight of Death's own wrath, the crimson in Blade's eyes extinguished to a dark maroon. "I said somebody isn't getting any ass from the virgin," he muttered.

A muscle in Death's jaw twitched. "Am I to assume you're the cause of all this, Blade?"

The reapers shifted as Death calmly slid off his right glove. The sight of his black markings and deadly pointed nails unnerved me. Talons extended like knives from his fingertips. and I braced myself for a gruesome execution.

Leo moved to stand between Blade and Death, holding his bandaged side. "It's the curse, my lord," he said imploringly. "It's affecting all of us, including you, and especially Wrath. I implore you to take a moment and not do anything rash. Especially with the girl here."

As nasty as Blade had been to me, I knew I needed to step in too.

"Don't you think you're worsening the situation with your scare tactics and tyrannical speeches?" I asked.

As I spoke, Death straightened, but he kept his gaze drilled into Blade. "Keep your smart-ass comments to yourself, Wrath. This is your final warning."

He shoved Blade back in line with the other reapers. My heart pounded a thousand beats per minute as Death turned his anger on me. The room darkened like an impending storm. Our eyes connected, and I wished I could pull my head into my shell like a turtle.

"You're all dismissed," Death ordered.

The reapers left.

I could cut the tension between us with a knife.

Death glanced at his watch. "You have another date with Ace in three hours."

"Really?"

Was this what resulted from Death begging for Ace's forgiveness for me? Damn, Ace was petty as hell, and I loved it.

Death glared at me in the large gym mirror. "I offered Ace money for the damage you caused to his property, but apparently, he values your presence more."

I fought back a smile, but Death caught it and narrowed his eyes. He brushed past me and approached the shelves holding various weapons.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I want to see if you've made progress today."

"Sorry, I'm done for the day."

Death shrugged off his cloak, thick muscle shifting beneath his shirt.

"I'm not fighting you," I added, since the guy was clearly not taking the hint.

Holding two swords, Death prowled under a light at the center of the mat. His alien eyes shifted colors, like iridescent green kaleidoscopes. "Stop crying, cupcake." He threw me my sword. Fortunately, I caught it by the hilt. "You knocked me down last night, didn't you? Now we're even." He arched that scarred eyebrow. "Don't you want to know who'll come out on top?"

"I'm not fighting you," I repeated firmly. "Your mood is volatile, your fangs are, like, six feet long, and you look like you want to eat me. More than usual. Besides, I got my revenge."

"Did you? Because you still seem pissy to me." Death rotated his sword in a skilled motion around his body, bringing my focus back to the training. Metal clashed. We moved around the mat as if it were choreographed, his mismatched eyes never leaving mine.

A dangerous grin spread over his face like venom. "You made the correct decision to keep that barracuda. It's tamed down, and your footwork has improved."

"Uh, thanks."

We continued this adrenaline-filled dance. Death came at me with his blade in various movements, and I struggled to keep him off me. My arms felt heavy from all my training with the Seven.

"Stay focused," Death muttered.

"I am."

He moved faster than usual. Metal whistled through the air. I saw the blood before I felt the pain. It gushed down my bicep like a river and splattered the mats. Panic took over. My heart slammed into my ribs. I covered the wound with my palm and stared up at Death in horror. He was breathing hard, the catlike tilt to his irises violently stuttering. Jesus Christ. He looked positively monstrous.

"Death," I panted, "I think we should stop."

His expression went distant. "Stay focused."

A horrible feeling settled over me as I realized he was talking to himself. I thought back to Blade's comment about Death's scythe affecting the reapers' inner beasts.

Death lunged for another attack. The clash of metal against metal rang out. The monster laughed and countered my attack, knocking the sword out of my hand like a toothpick. His pupils expanded over the width of his eyes as he snatched my bicep in a viselike grip and then wrapped his other hand around my throat.

"Death! Death, you're losing control!"

"Stop me," he purred. " Fuck , your scent is so sweet, cupcake. You have no idea what it does to me."

His fingers gripped my jaw, prying it open. His power seeped into my skin like a hot oil, and I sank into it. His magnetic influence. His mouth parted above mine. I imagined Death inhaling and ripping my essence from my body, ending my life, and something triggered inside of me. A will to live. Light cast across Death's face. Shock rippled over his expression as my fist connected with his face. A blinding light ensued, and the stench of burning flesh filled the room.

Death released a bestial howl and reared back, clutching his cheek where the outline of my knuckles was engraved like a branding iron.

I looked down at my hands in awe. A bluish-white fire licked up the length of my fingers. Turning my head, I saw that Death had sobered up. He grinned like a cat. Shadows expelled from his body, flooding the floor. I kept my hand up and imagined a shield around myself. His darkness hit my light like a wall, recoiling back with hisses.

"That's my girl," Death said. He was nearly obscured by his darkness: a mighty creature of the night firing everything he had at me. "You don't need a weapon to protect yourself. You are the weapon."

You are the weapon .

I stood in front of the mirror, nervously playing with the chain of the barracuda around my throat. I wore an oversized Def Leppard T-shirt dress I'd paired with fishnet stockings and low-heeled combat boots. I checked the time.

Thirty minutes until my date with Ace.

Wandering into the main living room, I felt the chill in the air that always seemed to follow Death. I tilted my head to peer at the upper-level glass banister before climbing the staircase and stopping at the top step. Death sat cross-legged on a large area rug. His eyes were closed, and he sat with perfect posture. I shamelessly studied the markings that resembled tattoos across his bare skin, then the curve of his full lips, those long eyelashes brushing against his cheekbones.

He had great cheekbones for a "don't look at me wrong way or I'll skin you alive" kind of man.

The calm state made him appear gentler, softer—two words I would have never expected to use to describe Death. Seeing him like this felt strangely intimate. Like I was watching him sleep.

He was clearly deep into some sort of meditation, and here I was gawking. I started to retreat down the stairs.

"Don't bother tiptoeing," Death said. "Your crackly ankles disturbed me the second you left your bedroom."

Rolling my eyes, I turned toward him. His eyes were still closed, and he hadn't moved an inch. Slowly, I made my way to him.

"Never pinned you as the ‘balancing my chakras' type," I said.

"I'm not meditating. I'm sending my duplicates to do their tasks. Takes a deeper level of concentration."

"So . . . meditation."

A gruff noise. "You're wearing perfume."

"I am."

His eyes slowly opened, lingering for a long, leisurely time on the fishnets before flicking to my face. He said nothing. He didn't have to. He said it all with his hungry eyes.

A coy smile curved my mouth as I took a folded blanket from a black basket. Carrying it to the area rug where he sat, I placed it on the floor like a cushion and sat down so I was directly in front of him.

"Thought you don't wear dresses," he muttered.

"It's a long T-shirt."

"With no shorts underneath." He played it off with a nonchalant tone, but I knew better. It had been a question in disguise. One he wouldn't get an answer to.

"It's not every day I get to leave your penthouse. I wanted to look pretty."

"For Ace."

"For me."

"Hmm." His stare was unflinching.

"How would you know if Cruentas thinks I'm funny and clever?" I asked.

Death tilted his head to the side.

"The note that you had Glenn send me," I explained. "You said Cruentas thought I was funny and clever."

"Because he talks to me. I understand every language. I'm Death." His mouth curved into a slow smirk. "Impressed?"

"A dead guy who can talk to horses and squirrels but can't apologize to a woman. Yeah, real impressive, buddy—"

"I'm not your buddy ," Death snapped. "And I'm certainly not your friend."

Touchy about the friend zone. Made me want to keep pushing his deadly buttons.

"Relax, I'd never be your actual friend anyway," I said, and his eyes narrowed slightly. "A friend of mine wouldn't have kept half of himself from me because he thought I'd run away screaming at the sight of his beast. A friend wouldn't cut another man who hurt me down at the knees but never hold himself accountable for all the pain he's caused me himself."

He said nothing, and my eyes unexpectedly stung.

"One moment you're kissing me, making me think there's something there," I said, "and the next, you're lying to me again. I sold my soul to you because I thought Marcy would die."

"I let you bury a knife into my chest," he growled. "That was my apology."

"You and I have two very different definitions of an apology."

"It appears so."

"I don't know why I even came up." Rising from my blanket, I started to get up, but a hot, leather-gloved hand encircled my wrist.

"Don't go," Death said stiffly. "Stay."

My chest felt so tight. Coming to my senses, I ripped free of his grasp. "How do you sleep at night?"

"I don't." His laughter had an edge as he turned his face away from mine. "If you only knew what goes on in my head when I'm around you."

"Tell me," I said. "Tell me what goes on in your head. Tell me anything . You used to hide under the hood. Now you hide in plain sight. What don't you want me to see? How many more secrets can one person possibly keep?"

His cold, marble features shifted through several emotions, but he remained silent.

"How am I supposed to trust someone who won't let his guard down for five seconds? Isn't that what you and Lucifer want from me? Trust? You barely tell me anything about yourself."

"It's better that way."

"Another half-assed answer."

"You know what your problem is?" Death asked.

I stared at him, shocked that he was deflecting this back to me. "I'm looking right at him!"

"You lead with your emotions," Death said gruffly. "Your feelings guide you through life. That's your downfall. That's your Achilles' heel. When you're upset, you leave all reason to the wolves. Logical decisions are cast aside. There's no balance between what you feel and what you need to do, and that's why your power is so unpredictable."

"What exactly are you asking me to do?" I climbed to my feet and stood over him. "You want me to stop feeling? Smother all of my mortal emotions? Or do you want me to stop seeking answers and stop holding you accountable for your actions?"

"Get out of my face, cupcake."

The threat was calm and quiet. I backed off a bit, but I wouldn't back down.

"You can't handle me, can you? It frustrates the hell out of you. Hate to break it to you—I'm not going anywhere. If I could, believe me, I would . But I can't. I'm stuck here with you and your ancient, decrepit ways. So, suck it up, asshole."

"Watch," he snarled, rising to his commanding height, "your mouth."

"Or what ?" I asked, jabbing at his chest.

Death glared down at my finger through slitted eyes, as if he wanted it to shred it apart with his fangs. Instead, he rolled back a broad shoulder and stalked closer until he loomed over me.

"Or I'll pop the cherry between your legs and shut you up myself," Death purred.

A slow, ruthless burn settled in numerous locations of my body.

Death's mouth cranked up into a wicked, twisted grin. "I wanna ask you a personal question."

Flustered by the way he was staring at me, I intended to put distance between us, but with every step back, he only prowled forward, pursuing me in a slow, predatorial manner.

"What have you done?" he questioned.

"W-what have I done?" I stumbled back against his bookshelves. How had the tables turned so fast?

In an attempt to hide his smirk, Death wiped the thumb of his gloved hand across his bottom lip. "Sexually, Faith. What have you done sexually ."

"You already knew I was a virgin because I wore slacks to the interview. Why don't you figure it out?"

His arm shot out, trapping me in a corner between a wall and a shelf. "So, nothing." His grin widened, showcasing white fangs. "You've done nothing." Like I already assumed , added his wicked eyes.

"My personal life is none of your business," I said, trying to sound as unruffled as possible. I'd never been obsessed with boys and sex the way other girls at my school were. I was pushing the concept of dating to the side until college.

Death reached for a book next to my head, reading the title as if he were interested in it. "Have you ever touched yourself?"

I straightened, burning hot. "I think that's enough questions."

He shut the book with a thump, catlike eyes gleaming. "You have ."

"It's time for my date with Ace," I said and tried to maneuver around him.

Death shelved the book and lowered his arm to block me, while his free hand gripped the shelf next to my head to cage me in. "Now who's running away, cupcake?"

Swallowing a lump in my throat, I tried to concentrate on anything besides how strikingly handsome his face was, or how the delicious, crisp scent of his cologne was like a freaking sex-bomb air freshener. Or the way he had to bend when he loomed over me because he was so damn tall.

"I'm running away because you're a deceitful pig." God, it was so nerve-wracking to look at him when he was this close. "You run away because you're a coward. Two very different things."

"I never run from you," Death said, his voice slipping into a velvet tone. "I run from myself because I don't want to lose control. But then that enticing, delicious scent of your soul reels me right back, and I . . . can't . . . help myself."

I could feel the madness surfacing before I saw it brimming in his eyes. He raised his gloved hand, and I shivered as he brushed the communion cross above my cleavage with a leather fingertip.

"The Fates are laughing at me, you know," Death murmured. "Those twisted three have poked and prodded at their favorite plaything for two thousand years. They know I have a godforsaken sweet tooth. So, they put you in my path. To torture me." His catlike eyes flicked up to pierce into my soul. "To ruin my every waking moment with the temptation of having you. I try not to blame you for what you are, and if you can imagine it, a sliver of myself occasionally wants to even make amends . . . "

Then he moved in for the kill and turned his head in to my neck. My hand braced against his chest, and my breath escaped in a rush.

"But then you go and torment me all on your own," he growled against my throbbing pulse, his gloved hands sliding down my waist to the hem of my T-shirt. "Wearing sexy fishnets for your silly fake date with Ace, and I know you're not an innocent after all. Not in your heart, not in your soul, not in the war between us."

The cold, silver loop piercing on his lip brushed my bottom lip, and his tongue followed in a slow caress that sent chills throughout me. I couldn't breathe. The back of my dress clung hotly to my skin. The fine line between fear and arousal had burned away a long time ago.

"Don't you dare kiss me," I whispered.

"I appreciate your faith in my restraint."

Then he kissed me anyway. His lips brushed mine with a soft, velvet touch, his tongue skimming the seam of my lips in a gentle nudge for more. I opened for a tiny taste. He grabbed my jaw with a gloved hand and deepened the kiss with a slow, erotic caress of his tongue, and I met him halfway, chasing the high. The flavor of him was too addictive, a forbidden nectar awakening a dark, carnal need.

Death broke apart from me and wet his bottom lip. "You kiss like a slut."

I grabbed his shirt, light electrifying my palms. I turned and shoved him into the bookshelf. Death slammed into the shelves with a groan, books raining down. I took a step back with my chin lifted, my arms to either side of me as my power flickered away.

Leaning back against the broken wooden shelves, Death breathed raggedly and watched me from under half-lowered lids like a taunt. "Ow," he purred with delight. "If you wanted to make a mess, you could have said so . . . "

An evil, devastatingly beautiful grin crossed his mouth as I charged toward him. He grabbed me as I lunged at him and crushed me to his strong frame. We made out at a feverish level until he stifled a deep groan that made my knees wobble.

Flickers of images darted in front of my closed eyes, memories like colorful lattice reaching out to me from him. I pushed them away to make a new memory. Death hoisted me off the ground and hooked my legs around his waist. I locked my arms around his neck as he carried me to the couch and sat down so that I was straddling his lap.

His legs were long and powerful between mine, his skin burning hot through the cotton material of his sweatpants. Breaking away again, Death arched his head back against the couch and tilted my body forward. His gloved hands dragged up the back of my thighs to the curve of my bottom beneath my dress.

"You naughty little cupcake," he growled in a deep, rough voice. "No shorts indeed."

Our lips kept at it, our fingers gripping each other's clothes. He kissed a trail up my neck as I bit back a moan that escaped with a gasp as he sucked on the sensitive flesh. As he dragged the tip of his tongue to my collarbone, I lowered myself flatter into his lap and could feel the large swell of him pressed against my inner thigh. The film of what could happen next played out before my eyes, and doubt swam to the surface of my consciousness.

I braced my hands on Death's shoulders, pinning him back against the sofa.

Death looked up at me with wild, lust-filled eyes. At the sight of my face, he instantly sobered and dropped his gloved hands to the sides of my knees. "You all right?"

"I can't." In my heart, this didn't feel right. What he wanted and what I wanted were physically the same, but our emotional needs were so imbalanced. My feelings had yet to be reciprocated the way I needed, and I realized they might never be.

Suddenly, I felt so small and awkward, enclosed in my own inexperience. "I don't want to get things out of my system," I said slowly so that I didn't cry. I felt everything so intensely, so fully, and sometimes I couldn't help but burst into tears. "I'm not . . . I'm not that type of girl." I want to be loved in a moment like this . "I want more than this. More than what you would give me right now."

Death went quiet, staring at me for a long beat before he put his hands on my waist and set me down on the couch beside him. It felt like we were a mile apart.

"Say something," I whispered. "Are you mad?"

"No." Death raked a hand through his hair and dropped his arm over the back of the couch. "I know better. I know you're a certain kind of girl."

"Clearly I'm not because I all but attacked you." Hadn't he felt me dissolving into his touch? "I don't want to regret anything intimate. I want . . . I just . . . "

"You want to feel reciprocated." He answered the unsaid, reading me like a book. "You need this kind of stuff to feel special."

"Yeah," I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Then I'm glad we stopped when we did," Death said. "Emotional stuff, I'm shit at it. Everything besides anger and basic instinct feels so manual, so unnatural, as if I have to learn it all over again. I can't give you what you need. Not without hurting you along the way." A wave of anger flickered over his features with an upsurge of something suppressed. "Don't you understand that I've kept myself from you not for my sake but for yours? That it's the only selfless thing I can remember doing in centuries? If you only knew what I've done to be where I am right now, reigning beside Lucifer as his dutiful prince. If you'd only seen me take the lives I have, all for sport. If you knew the friendships and trust I've broken. I've learned the value of shutting everything out, shutting myself out. I'd break all my rules for you, Faith. Just don't be surprised if you don't like what you see once we're finally introduced."

I realized I was clutching at my chest. It felt like I'd had the wind knocked out of me.

Death rose to his imposing height and extended out a gloved hand. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"To the roof. I want to show you my wings."