Page 45 of All Hallows Fate

Death gave him a helpless stare. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll undo this,” Tor said with such unwavering confidence that for a moment I believed him. “We’ll find a fucking way.”

His words made me jump, and I scrambled for the list in my pocket. “A kiss to save a death,” I breathed, waving the paper at my husbands. “A kiss to save Death.”

“You’ve kissed me, little bride,” Death said sadly, defeat in the slump of his shoulders, the slant of his eyes.

I didn’t care. I slid my hands around his neck and kissed him hard, breathless with hope. The list crumpled in my hand as I waited, prayed, pleaded with the universe, with the balance of life and death, with the scales in my pocket.

But when I dropped my heels back to the floor, nothing had changed.

“No, I can fix this,” I insisted before anyone could speak, clearing my throat to dislodge the knot stuck there. “I can save you, I just need the right kiss—”

“Cat,” Death breathed, resting his forehead against mine, shadows sweeping back around him, hiding the decay. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not.” I reached into the shadows draped over him and kissed him again, and again, growing in desperation each time. “This should be working! Everything else on the list has worked.”

It wasn’t fair. It was cruel how my feelings for these men had just begun to return, and now I might lose Death. None of this was fair. This kiss should have worked.

“What now?” I asked, my voice hollow as I looked up at Death, at the others.

“What’s next on your list, lioness?” Madde asked, settling his arms around me from behind.

“A stone to summon spirits home,” I said without looking. I’d memorised every word of the list. Why hadn’t I realised the kiss was for Death earlier? Could I have saved him if I’d figured it out days ago?

“There’s a summoning circle not too far from here,” Pain informed us. “It’s on Hunger’s estate.”

If I ticked off everything on the list, if we stopped Violence stealing more power for himself, could we save Death? It was the only hope I could think of.

“Let me say goodbye to my brother,” I murmured, deflated. “And then we’ll go.”

29

Misery

The only positive to visiting Hunger’s estate was seeing my girl again.

“I know, I know,” I murmured as Peach squirmed in my arms, talking up a storm in her cute noises, giving me hell for leaving her. “I was away too long. And you can’t go home for a while yet, but I’m here now.”

“She chewed up my best chaise,” Hunger complained, his voice as deep as thunder but warm where thunderstorms were ice cold. “I’m thinking about billing you.”

“Bill me, I don’t give a shit,” I replied. “She’s worth it, aren’t you, my baby?” I cooed to Peach, my heart squeezing when she threw her head back and squeaked out a wahoo!

After losing Cat, getting her back as a goddess, every ensuing fight at her side, and now this—Death fading away from us and keeping that knowledge to himself like the prideful, protective bastard he was—one yahoo from Peach and my face crumpled.

“She also pissed in my Armani loafers,” Hunger went on with his itemised bill, his golden-tan arms crossed over his chest, face chiselled and disapproving, with a kindness he could never quite banish from his eyes. “And chewed up my new suit jacket. I paid a fortune on that.”

I arched a brow, nuzzling Peach’s head.

Hunger sighed, his gaze flattening. “Fine. I abused my powers and liberated it from a store.”

“That’s called stealing,” Tor remarked with forced cheer as he kicked his dirty boots against the front step and marched into the house, a weight to his shoulders that had begun to lighten now heavier than ever. Cat died in front of our eyes, and now we were watching Death waste away.

“It was on the sale rack, Torment. I couldn’t just leave it there.”

“You and your obsession with labels,” Tor scoffed, coming across the tastefully decorated room in Hunger’s manor house to scratch Peach’s head. “I hope you didn’t miss us too much.”

“I didn’t miss you at all,” Hunger drawled.