“You’re going to be fine, Rayven. Just go to sleep.”
The heart I’d forgotten I had was breaking. It didn’t seem to matter that I had the power to bring her back to life once she took her final breath. It was fucking agony, seeing her in pain. I was so jaded to death, but with her, it felt terrifying and new.
“And then you’ll revive me.” Her paper-thin words wavered and split with fear. “R–right?”
“That’s right, treasure,” I assured her with a soothing purr, my hand rubbing one cheek while keeping her other pressed to my chest. “I told you I’m never letting you go. Not even in death.Especiallynot in death.”
I knew she was terrified—death was new for her—but she’d learn not to fear it. I would teach her how to be its master.
I plucked the dagger out of her chest as gently as I could. The flames in my eye sockets all but sputtered out when a cry of pain left her lips.
This human had completely fucked me, because how could a god of death need anything so terribly that he couldn’t live without? I fucking needed her more than I needed anything.
As evil a monster as it made me, I’d snuff out every life on Earth if that was what it took to breathe life back into my human.
Through the thin puncture in her chest cavity, I could see straight down to the pulsing muscle keeping her alive for the moment. The blade had pierced its strong wall, and it was gradually beating slower as a stream of blood poured from the wound.
Every pump had more crimson lifeblood trickling down her chest.
Gathering her in my arms, I pulled her higher to cradle her against my chest, rocking her like she was a child. All the while, I whispered that I would never leave her, that she’d never be free of me. That once I brought her heart back to life, everything would be fine.
“I’ll be the last thing you see when you close your eyes and the first thing when you open them again,” I assured her, the promise carrying all the weight of a demonic oath.
“You’re mine, Rayven. Never forget that.”
A lazy smile curved her lips. “You won’t let me go?”
“Never. Not so long as the River Styx flows and the Hells run deep.”
Normally, I didn’t have a kind bone in my body, but I tried my best to comfort her in her final moments.
I knew I was going to be completely fucked for this human the moment I’d dragged her into Limbo, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
I’d likely be forever cold and cruel to the rest of the world. To hell with humans. But this one? This one, I’d worship with every breath I’d take from here until the world fell down.
“Close your eyes, Rayven,” I said, talking her through the slow crawl of her last moments.
“You’re being so…sweet to me. I didn’t know the Lord of Bones could do that.” She breathed in, then out, the smallest little sigh that let me know she was finally comfortable in my arms.
There was that twist of guilt jabbing at my ribs again. I’d let her down. I’d tortured her. I’d terrorized her. I’d taken pleasure in watching her fight me, no matter how high the odds stacked against her.
Her spirit was indomitable, and fuck me, if I hadn’t fallen horns over heels in love with that part of her, with all of her.
Even in death, she was brave.
Her fingers trailed to the gaping wound that exposed her still palpitating heart, its thrum growing weaker as more blood streamed from the hole. “Do you see it?”
Her words were barely intelligible, and I had to lower my skull to her mouth. “Do you see my heart?”
I swallowed and nodded, even though she couldn’t see me with her eyes now shut. “I see it, Rayven, and it’s fucking beautiful. Worth every second I’ve obsessed over its beat, teased it just to hear its flutter.”
“Belial. Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll never leave you again, grave treasure. This I swear.”
Her chest rose and fell one last time, her head going limp in the crook of my arm as her heart ceased to beat. I watched the throbbing muscle go still in her chest.
The agonizing silence that followed tore an anguished roar from my throat.
