Reluctantly, Grim pulled back, our faces still close.
“Wraith has something to ask you, Barbie,” Raze said.
I waited, expecting him to ask if I took Grim as my lawful husband until death do us part—you know, the usual.
“Will you take Grim in death and let life never part you?”
I swallowed. That was so much more intense. My eyes returned to Grim’s and his stare caught me like a hook, stripped of everything but me. No command. No demand. Just a depth that made my chest ache.
You have three lives. Your past, your present, and your future. Grim owned my heart in all of them.
I sold my soul to him in my past life.
Died for him in my present.
Hoped to make a life together with him in my future.
Our past swirled between us in watercolor memories. That empty high school room, where we first collided in pain and blood. The warm, July night when I tried to kill myself and Grim stole my life for safekeeping. And now here, alive only in death.
Death had always been a dark root twisted at our ankles, weaving our stories together.
I smiled. “There was never another ending for us.”
We kissed, sealing our vows in this life and the next.
FIFTY-SEVEN
GEMMA
Present
“Don’t smoke,” I said, taking the cigarette from Grim and repeating the words he’d said so many times before. “You taste better.”
Grim glanced at me as I took a drag from the cigarette. “I told you to stay home.”
“And miss my own funeral?” I batted my lashes at him.
He wasn’t amused. “You could have been seen.”
“I waited until Vander left. No one is looking anywhere but my casket.”
I’d been staying with the Horsemen since my “death.” Grim said it wasn’thishome; it was ours. Zabby had returned. There were no more threats on my life or my family’s. The Horsemen were safe and free from HSOG. They didn’t have to take any more contracts for him. Theycould do what they’d always wanted, keep the neighborhood safe.
Grim stared toward the funeral. Only my family were allowed at the end, when my casket would descend into the grave.
“You don’t listen, Rich Girl,” Grim continued, an unspoken promise of punishment edging his voice and sending a shiver racing down my spine.
I worked my mouth. “I don’t know if you can call me that anymore. Maybe dead girl.”
“Nah.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and dragged me in front of him. “Good girl, maybe, when you behave.” His head dropped to my shoulder, cheek to cheek. I sucked in a chilly winter breath. Would I ever get used to having him?
“Your girl?” I asked.
I felt his cheek stretch against mine with a grin. “Yeah. My girl.”
A broad hand swallowed my lower stomach, lips landing at my neck. Grim kissed slow, languid, punctuating with a bite or a deep, hollow suck beneath my ear.
My eyelids fluttered, trying to focus as the casket descended.
