Death’s Kiss (A Twisted Fate #2)

Chapter 1

Sephtis

The man in front of me was dying. Which was… kind of the point. He wasn’t even putting up a fight.

That was hard to do when you were in a coma.

It would have been the easiest thing to walk forward and brush my fingers across his shoulder, to call him from his body and let his soul rest inside me. I could ferry him to Death’s door and deliver his Vitality.

I could see it—the essence that made up a mortal’s life, their strength and experience—shining around him. A pure aura, uninterrupted by the red lines that sometimes appeared when one was shot with an arrow of Fate.

As I approached him, I couldn’t help but take pause.

How strange that no one had loved him enough to find him. He was beautiful, with soft blond hair sweeping his forehead, and thick dark lashes that spilled in half crescents across pale cheeks.

Beauty didn’t save you from Death, though, and I had a job to do.

Which was why I was confused when I brushed my fingers along the cloth of his hospital gown and pressed them to his bare shoulder…

And just…

Stood.

His skin was cool, but the warmth of life still pulsed through him and straight into me. It was almost scalding—bright and bold, so willing to fight even though it was a battle he couldn’t win.

His was a life that couldn’t be saved, even though he seemed so willing to hold on for something.

And I…

“I wonder, what do you dream of?” I whispered, tracing my fingertips lightly from his collarbone along the side of his neck. It wasn’t permitted, this touching.

It wasn’t encouraged.

And what I was about to do was reserved only for those who needed to be ushered gently into giving up the soul. Vitality was sweeter when freely offered, and Death craved that sweetness. I could have just taken it—as much as he wanted to live, he couldn’t fight.

But…

My fingers trailed across his closed lids and I bent down, pressing my mouth gently to the curve of his lips… and suddenly, I was in another place.

A warm place, with the heat of light on my skin and a man sitting quietly in a field of red flowers.

Dark lashes lifted, and eyes the color of a clear spring sky looked up at me.

“You’re the first person I’ve seen in a while.

” He leaned back, burying his arms in the crimson flowers and smiling up at me.

The light in his eyes made the blue almost translucent, like I was looking into the great still Lake where souls went to rest before it was their time to return to the mortal world.

“You’re the first human I’ve spoken with in…” How long had it been? At some point, I’d fallen into my job and found it easier to ferry souls without speaking to the vessels.

I didn’t understand the need to feign emotional connection. They were dead either way.

But for some reason, I wanted to talk to this man.

“Why don’t you come and sit down? I think I’ve been waiting for you. You look… tired.” He was still smiling at me, soft tawny hair falling into his gaze, the expression so sweet as he leaned back in a cloud of red petals and the whisper of grass.

I can’t get tired, I should have said. Even though, at that moment, with him looking so soft and peaceful among a sea of crimson, I felt tired.

Everyone waits for death, because death waits for no one, would have been another answer.

Instead, I carefully picked my way through the flowers and settled beside him. Glancing down at my pale skin against the vibrant blossoms, I wondered whether he noticed the pulse of black in my veins, the call of Death telling me it was time to bring someone home.

“Do you think we could sit for a while?” He didn’t look at me when he asked. He’d turned his face back up to the sky to soak in the warmth, though I realized I couldn’t see a place where the sunlight actually came from.

Maybe in this dreamworld he imagined, there wasn’t one?

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I frowned, my hand coming up to stroke a wayward petal. Even in his mind, the red color drained and faded to brown, to black… to dust. When I glanced at him, he was staring at me with that same curious and gentle expression.

“It’s okay. I know who you are and what you want. I know why you’re really here.”

“Do you?” He seemed calm for someone who knew what was going to happen to him.

“Because I could not stop for death…”

“Very clever,” I murmured. His laugh was melodic as he settled back into the flowers, nearly disappearing in the waves of crimson.

I had to lean over him to catch sight of his face again—he was small, slender.

He’d probably been compact and well muscled before sickness had stolen it away, but I could see the ghost of it hovering just around him.

His Vitality was still so pure and strong, even though it couldn’t make him whole again.

“You’re very calm for someone who knows who I am.”

He opened one eye to peek up at me. “I told you, you’re the first person I’ve seen in a while, and your voice is…

nice. I’ve been waiting for you, and now we just need to wait a little longer.

Please?” With his last word, the air around us shifted in a burst of color, blossoming into a black sky filled with stars that twinkled a vibrant shade of green.

The low light made my skin shine, made the dark veins running beneath my flesh visible.

Like he could see me—could tell I was Death-Kissed.

They usually couldn’t see me. I wasn’t actually sure I’d ever been seen.

“I…” I frowned, reaching down to pluck a petal from his collarbone. I was careful this time, and the red didn’t fade. “I suppose we could stay. For a while.”

He nodded, closing his eyes again. “Yeah, just for a little while.”

What would it take to make the unfeeling feel? Reapers were not born… we were made. We were formed from the very Vitality and souls we took from mortals—given breath and life through Death’s essence and will. We weren’t created to experience emotion; we were made to do a job.

But for the first time, I wanted to feel.

It was dangerous, and I knew it, even as I stretched my hand out and carefully traced the soft line of Caiden’s palm. He’d told me his name after we’d sat in soft silence for twenty minutes and watched the stars above us drift—I’d been enraptured by the green color pressed into black velvet.

For some reason, I’d given him my name in return.

It was the first time I’d spoken it aloud to a human, and he’d sat with it on his tongue like it was something almost saccharine.

When he finally said it in a soft exhalation of breath, it seemed like he was feeding it back to me, to the very stars above us, in offering to something bigger.

At the touch of my cool skin, he opened one lid and glanced at me.

“What do you think it would take to have more time?” His question came softly, not like he was begging… like he was actually curious.

“Time for what?” I drew my hand back. Just touching him made my skin tingle, that siren call of what I was supposed to be doing hovering on the edge of my senses.

Death was the only thing I could feel—the longing of the soul to leave the body, even when the spirit wasn’t ready.

He was some strange mixture of the two… ready to die, but unwilling to take my hand.

“I don’t know. I think I was ready to go, you know?

I have been for a long time.” His brows came together, and he sat up.

A shower of petals spilled from his shoulders, clinging in his hair.

“I’ve only been holding on because there are people who are going to miss me…

but when I closed my eyes and showed up here, I was… relieved.”

Relieved.

“Then why do you want more time?”

He looked at me again, his head tilting, that messy hair falling into his gaze. “You seem lonely, like you’re waiting for something too.”

“I—” I cut myself off. “I’m not.”

I couldn’t feel lonely.

I couldn’t feel anything.

But I didn’t pull away when he carefully drew his fingers along the dark veins that ran beneath my pale skin.

“You remind me a lot of what I’m leaving behind.

And… I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It almost feels like I’m in this place for more than just me.

Like we’re both supposed to wait here until the right time. ”

“We can’t stay here.” My answer came carefully.

“Oh, I know… not forever. But…” He plucked one of the flowers, turning my hand over to place it in the center of my palm. “Maybe for a little while.”

Just a little while.

I’d never given someone time. I’d never given someone a thought enough to give them more time.

“There’s nothing here for you, Caiden.”

He closed my fingers over the flower, leaning closer to me.

“Sure there is. I never let myself feel anything like this when I was alive. I’ve been sick since I was young—too sick to think it was fair on anyone for me to have hope that things might actually turn out okay.

But… maybe… I don’t know…” He dropped his eyes, and the tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“This is the first time I’ve felt hope, Sephtis.

You’re here. This place is here. It’s the first time I’ve had hope that my world isn’t going to fall apart when this is over. ”

Hope… I couldn’t change anything that was going to happen to him. I couldn’t give him hope. I didn’t know how to explain that when this was over, he wouldn’t have a world anymore.

“I can’t…” I started, but the earnest expression on his face slowly dropping stopped me, caught the truth on the back of my tongue, and made me feed him a comforting lie. “But… I can give you time.”

Impossible.

All of this was impossible, but the light that spilled back into his eyes was warmer than the non-existent sun he’d imagined earlier, and it almost seemed like I could feel it brushing against my skin in the same way his fingers had. Intangible… something I’d never felt either.

So…

What would it take to make a Reaper feel?

“Were peonies something you loved when you were alive?” I asked, plucking another one of the flowers and watching as a soft wind stole the petals from the stem and sent them streaming into my hair.

“Oh, they’re not my favorite.” Caiden sounded amused, and I tilted my head curiously.

“Then why?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” He smiled, the expression soft and mischievous, like he was keeping a secret.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “They make me happy.”

“Happy.” I tried to feel the shape of the word on my tongue, but I didn’t understand it. I’d never been happy.

“You know… that warm feeling. Starts in your belly and works its way up.” He leaned forward, trailing a finger down the black front of my sweater to press gently at my abdomen.

It burned.

It made me pull back—my body still wanted to call his soul forth. Everything I was longed to finish the job I’d been sent for…

And yet…

I caught his wrist as his face started to fall, my fingers gentle as I slid them around to feel the soft beat of his pulse—a heart still thrumming. A body still fighting to live.

A body that had more to give.

A body that had never been given enough, and I…

“We could stay here forever, if you wanted,” I murmured. “In this place, in your mind, mere seconds have passed in the world outside us. But… Caiden… I can’t... I can’t feel things the same way you do.”

The warmth on his face flickered, and the air biting against my skin cooled. Just as soon as it started, though, it stopped. He leaned in and sighed, threading his fingers through mine and shrugging.

“I don’t need forever… just a little more time. And maybe… maybe you could pretend? If you do that long enough, maybe it could be more by the time we leave here. Then we’d both be ready for after.”

Pretend… He sounded so soft for it—so needy and desperate, and I wanted to. I wanted to pretend.

But pretending wasn’t enough, and there wasn’t an after once we were done here.

“I can do more than that… if you can wait just a little longer.”

What were a few minutes between life and death, after all?

It was everything… but for some reason, I was willing to risk it.