Page 62 of My Undead Love Life

“It would be an embarrassing way to go.”

“Only because you thought it wouldn’t happen.”

His quiet chuckle disappeared into the wind almost as soon as it left him.

The city spread out beyond the roof in broken shapes and buried streets. Cars were half-submerged in snow. The horde attempted but failed to move through the frozen snow around them. Their groans rose and fell beneath the wind, distant but constant.

Oxi tipped his face toward the sky again. “The snow clouds aren’t going anywhere.”

“I know. I miss the stars.” I looked up.

Small amounts of moonlight leaked through the clouds, but even that looked dulled and sickly.

“That’s why I come up here,” Oxi said softly. “To look at the stars.”

I glanced at him. “I didn’t know you liked the stars.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Maybe I want to know more.” The words came out quieter than I meant them to.

Oxi turned his head, and his green eyes dropped to mine. The wind pushed strands of black hair across his face, but he didn’t move to brush them away. He just looked at me with something guarded in his expression.

His gaze lowered to my shoulders, observing my shivering through all the layers I had on. “You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.” I waved a gloved hand back and forth.

“You’re visibly shaking.”

“It’s called winter.”

“It’s called hypothermia.” He reached out, caught the front of my coat, and tugged me against him.

The sudden contact knocked the breath out of me.

Oxi was so warm. Not warm enough to erase the cold completely, but warm enough that my body leaned into him to soak it up.

My arms wrapped around him on instinct, sliding beneath his coat where he opened it slightly to block the wind from me. He smelled like cold air, wool, and almost like clean linens. None of us had been able to properly wash our clothes, but somehow Oxi still carried a clean scent.

“Thanks,” I murmured against him. “I needed this.”

His arms came around me slowly before tightening his hold on me. “So did I.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask…what did you do before all this?”

His chin brushed the top of my head as he looked out over the roof. “I was the heir to the Oxford fortune. Old money.”

I blinked against his chest. “I guess they didn’t actually name you Oxi, then?”

“No.” His breath stirred my hair. “They named me Owen.”

“Owen,” I repeated quietly.

The name felt strange on my tongue. It felt like it belonged among painted portraits and expensive private schools. It didn’t fit the man holding me on a snow-covered mall roof with a cane sword in his hand.

“My entire life was picture perfect to outsiders,” he continued with a sigh. “Private schools. Formal dinners. Charity events where everyone pretended they cared about people they’d never touch unless a camera was recording it. We had maids, chefs, drivers, vacation homes, all of it.”

His arms tightened around me even more. “But behind closed doors, it was a nightmare. My father was an abusive piece of shit, and my mother was an enabler.”