Chapter Thirty-Three #2
Thanatos’ shoulders drew tight, as if struck by an unseen blow.
He lingered for a heartbeat, then released a quiet sigh and turned away without a word.
Ash noticed how Mal shifted, a subtle step forward, as though she had expected resistance, expected Death to bare his teeth and argue.
But he did not. He walked straight into the sea, the dark waves swallowing him whole until there was nothing left but churning water and the echo of his absence.
Silence rushed in to fill the space he had left behind.
‘Why was he here?’ Mal asked at last. Her voice was calm, almost careless, but Ash heard the blade hidden beneath it.
‘He comes to check on you,’ Ash replied.
He did not miss the way her purple eyes narrowed, suspicion flickering there like a struck match. She did not call him a liar. She did not press. She knew—he realised—that the full truth would never come from either of them.
It should have saddened him.
Instead, Ash told himself it was mercy.
‘How do your visions work?’
The question caught him off guard. Mal had never asked before, and Ash had never volunteered the truth. It had always felt safer that way. Knowledge shaped choices, and choices bent paths and Ash had seen far too many futures crumble beneath well-meant interference.
‘They’re like win-windows,’ he said at last. ‘I can look through them and see endless possibilities for each p-person.’
She stepped closer as he spoke, close enough that her presence warmed his side. ‘And the gods?’ she asked, her fingers closing around his arm. ‘Do they have windows too?’
‘They do,’ Ash replied, swallowing. ‘But theirs have curtains.’ A faint frown tugged at his brow. ‘It’s h-hard for me to see through them pro-properly.’
Mal considered that in silence, her grip never loosening. Then she nodded, as if filing the knowledge away for later use. Without releasing him, she tugged him forward.
‘Let us take a walk together, husband.’
Ash obeyed without question. Gently, he freed his arm only to lace his fingers through hers instead, claiming her hand as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Mal glanced at him and smiled. It was a soft and unguarded smile, and at the sight of it his heart stumbled in his chest, quickening as though it had briefly forgotten how to beat.
‘You shouldn’t be alone with him,’ she said suddenly.
They halted as wyvern roars rolled across the sky. Both glanced towards the horizon, where dark shapes cut through the air above the sea, vast wings beating against the wind. For a moment, the world felt suspended between breath and heartbeat.
‘He might try to kill you,’ Mal continued quietly, her hand resting over her stomach. ‘He might not be able to end the curse that binds us all. But you would die and be reborn.’
Ash turned to her, his voice barely more than a whisper.
‘You’d be free of m-me. At least in this li-lifetime.’
Her eyes flew wide. She released his hand at once and stepped back, as though struck.
‘Is that what you think I want?’ The words came sharp, almost spitting. ‘To be rid of you?’
He swallowed. ‘It would be easier, would it n-not?’
Mal stared at him, something fierce and aching flashing through her purple eyes.
‘I may be cursed to love you, Ash Acheron,’ she said, her voice trembling with restrained fury, ‘but that does not mean I haven’t fallen for you on my own terms.’
Ash could only look at her. Truly look. At the woman who had overturned his world the moment she had descended upon drakonian soil astride her wyvern, fire and destiny woven into her very bones. From that first instant, he had known his life would never again belong solely to him.
He stepped forward and cupped her face, his hands warm against her cool skin, grounding himself in the reality of her.
‘I will love you un-until my last breath on this earth,’ he said softly. ‘And beyond it. In the afterlife as well.’
The wind carried the echo of wyvern cries overhead, but for Ash, the world narrowed to just her.
Mal; his wife and his curse.
He pressed his mouth to hers, coaxing her lips apart until his tongue brushed against hers. Their bodies answered one another instantly, moving in quiet synchrony, as if they had always known this rhythm, this closeness. It felt effortless. Inevitable. And somewhere deep within him, Ash knew why.
Thanatos.
The truth they shared, the secret threaded through their very existence, pulsed between them like a second heartbeat.
Ash had always been selfish. He did not deny it.
Even if this love had been shaped by Death himself, he would keep it.
He would claim it. He would not let Mal go.
Not completely. No matter what bargains he had to strike, no matter what sacrifices were demanded to keep their daughter safe, he would search for a future where the three of them could exist together. Somehow.
When their lips finally parted, his breath lingered against hers.
‘He won’t hurt me,’ Ash said softly.
Mal searched his face. ‘How can you be so sure?’
Because we are one, the truth whispered inside him.
But he did not give it voice.
‘Because he lo-loves you too much,’ Ash replied instead, his words careful, weighted. ‘He would ne-never do anything to hurt you. Not on purpose.’
Before she could question him further, before doubt could take root, he kissed her again—deeper this time, more insistent. He poured everything into it, hoping the warmth of his touch might drown out thoughts of Thanatos, of secrets, of destinies entwined and half-spoken.
For just this moment, he wanted her to forget the world.
And for just this moment, he wanted to believe they could.
Ash eased Mal down onto the wet sand, the tide whispering close by, the storm-breathed air heavy around them.
With unhurried care, he drew the dark fabric of her dress away, his gaze lingering not with hunger alone, but with reverence at the strength of her body, at the quiet miracle of life she carried within her.
He shed his own clothes and traced her with his mouth, with his hands, learning her again as though the world beyond the beach no longer existed. She breathed his name into the wind, fingers curling into the sand as the waves crept nearer, as sensation overtook thought.
He fucked her beneath the open sky, the sea and storm bearing witness, until her voice broke on his name and he held the sound of it like something stolen and precious.
When lightning split the horizon, Ash smiled as if he were certain that somewhere beyond the surf, beyond the veil between worlds, Thanatos had heard it too. Had heard her gasp Ash’s name.
Ash had always been a selfish boy.
And now, now he had become something far more dangerous than that.