Endless Knight(89)

He appeared uncomfortable with my gratitude. “You think I did this for you? In case you haven’t noticed, I enjoy watching you.”


I quirked a brow. “Enjoy is a bit mild for what you do, huh?”


He hiked those muscular shoulders. “It’s late. To your room, then.”


On the landing, I noticed he kept his distance. With a sigh, I asked him, “If I’m the weakest of Arcana, why this continued caution around me?”


“Perhaps because you’re the most tempting of Arcana.”


I smiled. “I’ll wear you down.”


With his eyes emotionless and dark, he said, “You cannot.”


Oh, we’ll see. Death didn’t know this about me, but I liked the occasional battle of wills.

Alone in my room, I lay in bed, lovingly tracing the ballet-shoe laces with my fingers. I couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Amazing. The more I was around Death, the more I liked him.

For the last eleven months, I’d been terrified of him. Now I couldn’t wait to wake up so I could see him again.

That night I fell asleep with my fingers threaded through the laces and a smile on my face.

When my dreams of Death arose, I welcomed them.

38


DAY 325 A.F.

Today, I went almost an entire hour without thinking about Jack. . . .

39


DAY 355 A.F.

“Do the dance you performed yesterday,” Death commanded with the authority of a man who was never denied. He had an arm stretched over the back of the sofa, so at home with himself, with his world.

“You liked that one, huh?” It’d been one of my more daring pieces. Over the last few weeks, I’d pushed myself hard, reclaiming most of the skills I’d lost. And Death had been there almost every day, watching each trickle of sweat.

As I started to dance, I reflected on my new life. Compared to the outside world, Death’s lair was proving to be a paradise. Here, I could dance, read, and even paint.

Courtesy of this man, I now had the supplies for that pastime as well. I’d started painting the walls of my room—because I had a room, a place where I could rest my head every night.

Scenes of sugarcane fields and verdant forests had begun taking shape, much like my mural at Haven. There, in the sunny days pre-Flash, I’d depicted dark clouds over fields. Here, in this shadowy apocalypse, I painted sun-dappled landscapes.

Just as Lark had told me, I could pad down to the kitchen, and there was always delicious food. Apocalyptic delicacies like fresh bread and butter.

In the afternoons (hard to call them that, since they were still dark), she and I would watch movies with dozing wolves, a fire crackling, and steaming popcorn. Sometimes we went “shopping,” combing the attic, which was filled with vintage clothes.

I regularly found myself laughing at her humor. Today she’d given me a broad wink about all the time I’d been spending alone with Death, then said, “I feel like a teapot who’s about to sing ‘Tale as Old as Time.’??”


Maybe I was bonding with her because she reminded me of Mel, who’d been like a sister to me. Maybe it was because Lark was the only other girl here.

Or maybe I was learning that nothing was black and white.

Bad and good were getting blurred in my head. We were players in a game that would make killers of us all; and the man who’d been my standard of Ultimate Evil . . . had sourced ballet shoes for me.

Up was down. Down was up.

As the storms of the late summer raged, Death and I met each night. In his warm study, we would talk into the early hours or sit on his couch before the fire, quietly reading from his collection.

I’d started The Odyssey, had just gotten to the part where Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the lotus-eaters. Those who ate of the lotus didn’t mind their isolation, never wanting to continue their voyage.

Death had read the story in the original Greek. Naturally.

He and I were meshing more and more. There was no one else in the world that he could touch, and no one I knew who could discuss history and literature and art with me.

Being with him felt . . . inevitable. But in a good way.

He’d complimented me on how quickly I learned, seeming delighted to teach me more. If Jack had awakened my desire, Death was enlivening my mind, attracting me in a way I’d never experienced before.

I knew he enjoyed my company as well. Oftentimes I’d glance up from my page and find his gaze on me, eyes brimming with satisfaction.

Much as they were right at this minute, as he watched me dance.

My dreams of him continued, escalating into even more erotic territory. Last night, I’d dreamed he’d peeled off my workout clothes, lifting me atop the barre so he could lick my damp skin, wedging his hips between my thighs. . . .

Yet if I ever admitted to him how much fun I had with him, he’d grow distant. If he ever came close to laughing, he’d close himself off.

It was a constant push/pull with him.

Occasionally, he left the compound. I’d figured he must be out hunting, at least some of the time, but he hadn’t returned with a new icon, and I’d heard nothing on Arcana Radio. Plus, Lark’s laminated player list—the little twit actually did keep it on the fridge door—had had no updates since the Star.

Well, other than her scratching my title out and scribbling in “The Unclean One.” Har.