Mostly because I was too shocked.
Being friends with someone as cynical as Naomi had made me secretly harbor some doubts about the afterlife depicted in the Wölfennite version of the Bible.
So, I hadn’t actually expected angels to greet me at the gates of heaven and lovingly remove the cursed stain of wolfhood from my body so I could live out my eternal life as a human.
But I also had not expected Death to be an actual person.
Yet there Death stood, pale-skinned and dressed in a black turtleneck and leather pants that belled out over heavy black boots. He loomed over my coffin, with a storm of black hair so wild and tousled, it almost appeared to be moving.
I blinked at him.
“So, after all those promises that scary Irish Wolf made Alban, he and his friend just killed me?” I asked Death. “Poisoned me with whatever was in that needle they poked me with and left me to rot?”
Another terrible, much darker thought suddenly occurred to me. “Is that what happened to the original stolen she-wolves? Why they never found them? Were they all kidnapped and murdered in their sleep?"
I looked around frantically, "Please tell me Naomi isn't here, too.”
Death quirked a dark brow over eyes that were a surprising shade of crystal-clear light blue.
They twinkled with amusement before disappearing under silky black lashes as he cast his gaze down.
To my surprise, he wiped theDon’t Screammessage away with his sleeve before writing something with a fat marker he pulled out of his front pocket.
His hand, I noticed as he wrote, was covered in strange tattoos. Symbols—possibly a language, but unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The markings didn’t resemble Hebrew, Chinese, or the Celtic runes I occasionally saw in Faoiltiarn. They felt wholly foreign and otherworldly, full of dots, crescents, and shapes that looked half-finished.
He turned the board around to me:Not Death
“Oh no…” My stomach dropped, thinking of all those times I’d touched myself during what I referred to as the Spring Fire and gorged during what I called the Winter Sloth. Two of the seven deadly sins. Had my mother been right about my general unworthiness? “Did I not—did I not make it to heaven? Am I in the other place? Are you…?” I lowered my voice to a whisper to ask if I was, in fact, speaking to “…the devil?”
This time, the amusement quirked his mouth, raising one side of his lips. More erasing. And soon I got another message:Not Death. Not Devil. Glad you are living. And awake.
“So I’m not dead...” I let out a huge breath of relief before it occurred to me to ask, “Then why am I here? Why did the Irish Wolves put me in a coffin?”
More erasing. Then:Very Long Story. Tadhg will tell it.
“Who’s Tadge?” I winced a little over my pronunciation. I highly doubted I’d gotten that name right. And even possibly ruder, I felt compelled to ask the possibly disabled man standing in front of me, “And is there a reason you can’t tell the long story? Why don’t you talk?”
His light-blue eyes switched to the side with a considering look. He wrote for a bit longer this time before flipping the board:Eschewed spoken words years ago. They are inefficient. Cannot abide that speaking your thoughts requires so little thought.
“Well, I suppose you have a point there,” I conceded. Heat warmed my cheeks. “I’ve felt nothing but silly since I mistook you for Death.”
Another quirk of his lips. And more erasing. Then:Sadie, may I touch you? Help you out of your box?
I jolted a little. “You know my name?”
More writing. Then:Yes. I am Cian, your Shadow King . Consent protocol pending... may I initiate?
He punctuated his written question with a palm-in-air extension of his other hand, and his sleeve pulled back, revealing the bottom of more tattoos crawling up his wrist.
The Shadow King… He wanted to touch me...
A weird sensation warmed my stomach, then rose, clogging my throat. I barely managed to choke out, “Sh-sure. Thank you.”
He came closer, and that was when I realized the delicious lemony smell I’d attributed to heaven was actually coming off of him.
His citrus scent filled my nose, bright and sharp. Also, he smelled… different. Not like a fellow wolf. But somehow familiar. So, not wolf. But also, not human… maybe.
Once again, I resented my sheltered upbringing. Only knowing the other community members of St. Ailbe for nearly my entire life meant I didn’t have the context to suss out the answers to so many of the questions I’d had since making this trip nearly a month ago.
