Endless Knight(93)

I trailed him down the corridor to the outer doors. “Damn it, Aric, can your trip not wait?”


Without another word, he charged out into a blustery storm. From the doorway, I watched, feeling like I’d just missed my one opportunity for . . . something.

Keeping him here suddenly felt crucial.

When he rode from the stable at a blistering speed, I ran out into the rain to intercept him. His mount reared, red eyes wild as its sharpened hooves pawed the air.

“You’ve lost your mind!” He yanked off his helmet, revealing his anguished glowing eyes. “What are you thinking?”


I hurried to the side of his horse, yelling over the downpour, “How have I betrayed you in this life?” When I rested my hand on his armored leg, he flinched. “I have to know.”


He dismounted, his movements deliberate, almost sinister. My heart raced as I backed up a few steps. Had he reached his limit with me?

Once he stood just before me, I had the impulse to run away. Too close, too much, too intense. But I had to know. . . .

He reached down to clamp my nape in his punishing grip. Between clenched teeth, he grated, “You weren’t meant for him.” Rain spiked his lashes. “That you allowed the mortal to have you—it makes me crazed! You gave him everything.”


“You’ve hated me for two thousand years. Tell me why you care who I was with.”


His hand shook. “I care.”


“Why?!”


He tenderly grasped my face with his lethal gauntlet. His touch might be tender, but his expression . . .

Filled with lust and longing and other feelings too seething for me to read.

This had been building inside me for weeks; it might have been building inside him for centuries.

Then his lips were on mine, scalding in the rain, covering, claiming. His tongue swept in, demanding more, more. For someone so out of practice, his kiss was perfection—but savage too, as if it was the last one he would ever have. Surrendering to it, I threw my arms around his neck. Just like in my dream.

Better than.

Incredibly hotter.

Over the rain, I could hear my moans, his groans. He looped his free arm around my torso, squeezing me so tightly against his armor, but I loved it.

As he slanted his lips over mine again and again, I dimly noticed my feet weren’t touching the ground. I clung to him as if I’d never let go, fingers clutching at his hair.

I wanted this kiss to last forever.

Yet he drew back, leaving me dazed, breathless. “Aric?” My lips were bruised, cold without his against them.

Between heaving breaths, he rasped, “I care because . . . because you were my wife. You still are.”


My legs went weak with shock.

“You took vows, then tried to kill me on our wedding night.” Voice gone raw, he said, “You forced me to murder my bride.” The pain in his starry eyes . . .

He released me to mount his horse. With a last burning look, he rode away, leaving me to collapse to my knees.

41


DAY 367 A.F.

I lay in Death’s bed, staring at the black ceiling, clutching the emerald necklace he’d once given me.

For the last two days, I’d avoided Lark, stealing into this room and spending the nighttime hours here. My guard wolf waited outside the door.

I hadn’t slept since Aric had ridden away, hadn’t eaten. I both wanted and feared the dream of him I sensed was coming. Somehow I knew I would relive the past the next time I slept.

I believed everything Aric had told me—what he’d said felt true. I’d been married to Death. This explained why I’d always felt a connection to him, some kind of soul-deep bond—why I’d stared at his card when I was little, as if gazing at a picture of a loved one.

When I’d fallen for Jack, it’d been sizzling and combustible. The blazing inferno. What I felt for Aric was like a wave pounding against a shore for all time. He had two thousand years of longing, lifetimes of it, and now I’d tapped into that well forever.

I knew I would never be the same. My relationship with Jackson had felt fated. Whatever I had with Aric felt . . . endless.

Why hadn’t he returned? What if he never did?

Lying on his bed, surrounded by his addictive scent, I longed for him, longed to take away the pain I’d delivered.

If he could survive whatever I’d done to him, I could at least witness it.

I stopped fighting sleep. . . .

“Now that we’re wed, perhaps you will call me by my given name,” Death says as he escorts me to our extravagant lodgings—only the best for my highborn knight.

As soon as we cross the threshold, he releases me to yank off his hated gloves.

“But I will always know you as Death, my love,” I say, my voice all sweetness.

No matter how he’s treated me over these past weeks, I will never forget the menace in his eyes when he stabbed me. I will never forgive his arrogance when he assumed I would accept him just because he spared me.

He never asked for my hand, merely informed me that I was to marry him, that we would bow out of the game. In his mind, he is death, and I am life; therefore we belong together.

All throughout the planning of this ceremony, I kept hidden my true motivations. He might have quit the game, but I continue to play. And I know I cannot defeat him until he lowers his guard with me. He will, now that he’s my husband.