Endless Knight(98)

Ogen’s drool pinged my cheek. This would be my last sight?

Almost a relief when my lids slid shut and scenes flashed through my mind. I beheld Jack’s face as he’d gazed down at me in that suspended moment of time. So perfectly, I saw him. Heard him. I am home, Evangeline. Finally found the place I’m supposed to be. With my death, would Matthew tell him to stop hunting, to stop searching?

Dimly I perceived a yell. Aric? I managed to crack open my eyes in time to see him speeding into view. Behind his helmet grille, a menacing light burned. I never thought I’d be so happy to see Death charging toward me with both swords drawn.

“You disobey me, Devil? I warned you never to hurt her again.” He had?

Ogen leapt up, releasing me. “Not my boss. I sit upon Lucifer’s knee!”


I sucked in breaths, struggling to rise. This wasn’t over. The battle still called.

When Ogen barreled toward him, Aric feinted right, then struck with his left sword. Ambidextrous. The blade cut deep into the Devil’s flank.

Ogen howled with fury, shattering more lamps. Beating the ground, he charged once more.

Aric leapt over a table, but Ogen caught him with a long sweep of his giant arm, flinging him into the wall not far from Lark. His head snapped against it so hard his helmet was knocked off.

“Aric, no!” I choked out. I threw another wave of vines at the Devil. Connected to so many plants and soaking up the light, I was swiftly regenerating. But even at full power, I could only buy Aric so much time.

Somehow he’d kept hold of his swords. Somehow he rose to a crouch. He gave a shake of his head, as if to clear his vision. “Ah, Ogen, all brawn and no brains. No skill—no style. Don’t you know that quality will always win over quantity?”


Ogen roared so loud it pained my ears. He charged once more.

At the last instant, Aric rolled out of the way, dodging an anvil fist, driving one sword up into the Devil’s guts. Rancid goo oozed.

“B-boss?” Ogen whimpered. He began to shrink as if he’d been deflated.

Twisting that sword, Aric planted his second one.

Ogen’s body dwindled until he was not much taller than Aric. Only then did Death remove his swords—to scissor them at Ogen’s neck.

As Ogen tottered dumbly on cloven feet, Aric said, “Until next time, Devil.” Slice.

The Devil Card was no more. . . .

With an exhausted rise and fall of his shoulders, Aric stared down at the still-shrinking body of his onetime ally.

The battle was done.

Aric’s back was to me. No more cuff on my arm. No helmet for him, leaving his neck vulnerable. An impulse seized me.

The heat of battle? More than.

“I heard you calling for me, Empress,” he said as he began turning toward me—


I’d already bounded up and struck, planting five claws into Death’s neck.

43


All his muscles tightened, but Aric didn’t try to defend himself. Just hung his head and let me stab him—surrendering, allowing me time enough to pump poison into him.

When I released him, he faced me with an agonized look. “Well-played, creature.” He dropped one sword, grasping the blade of the other to hand me the hilt. “Finish me, then. I won’t fight back.”


Reeling with confusion, I took the blade, but made no move to strike. I’d meant to explain my actions, but his expression robbed me of breath. “Y-you want to die?”


With a bitter laugh, he said, “Why would I want to live on for centuries more when I would despise myself at every second?”


“Despise?”


“For coveting you yet again. Over and over, I fall for this. The first time you attacked me, I defended myself, disbelieving it was you. I struck you down before you could deliver a full dose of your poison. You died in the next game before I could find you, but in the third, I watched you and waited.”


I remembered when the red witch had destroyed those galleons. He’d been on the shore, an observer. She’d remarked that Death had always been “fascinated with her Empress gifts.”


“Eventually I revealed to you that we’d been wed—and what you’d done to me,” he said. “You acted so horrified that you convinced me you’d never hurt me again. One night you told me I’d possess you fully. At last, I thought, I’d know a woman’s flesh, my woman. Instead, you gave me your poison kiss.”


I gasped at the unbearable pain in his eyes. The hopelessness.

He wanted to die, in order to . . . forget. To start over.

“Your lips were so sweet that even after I’d comprehended what you were doing to me, I kept taking your mouth. Only at the last second could I break away. It took me months to recover.” He reached behind him to touch the wounds on his neck. “And now this.”


“Aric, wait.”


“I’ve waited long enough.” He yanked off his breastplate, bowing his tattooed chest, offering his vulnerable skin. “What is that saying about being fooled? If shame comes to those fooled twice, then it’s only right that defeat comes to those fooled thrice.” He positioned the end of his sword, forcing me to raise it against him. “You wanted to know what the runes across my chest mean? It’s our story, Empress, a reminder never to give you my trust—and certainly not my heart. Yet I did this time.” Eyes glinting, he rasped, “I desired you before, but I never loved you until this life.”