Page 127 of Death is My BFF

“Choose your next words wisely.”

“Maybe you gave me a second chance at life because there’s some good in you,” I found myself saying. “It doesn’t have to be like this.

Maybe we could come to another agreement. Maybe . . . maybe . . . ”

“We could be friends?” His laughter had a sinister edge, and he began circling me again. “Don’t hold your breath. We’re well past friends, don’t you think?”

His power skimmed my neck, a phantom caress that was dangerously enticing. The feeling snuck up the column of my neck in calculated, tantalizing kisses. Although I fought to hide my reaction, his concealed eyes clung to my every movement, intensifying the effect on me. My mouth parted. I gave in to him, and the slow burn of his influence sank hotly into my skin as if it belonged there.

Coming to my senses, I fled to a different spot in the clearing and wiped my neck with disgust, trying to pretend my entire body wasn’t quaking with desire.

“Don’t do thateveragain,” I hissed.

A low, sultry snicker. “Why must you fight me?” In sync, we moved clockwise, changing positions in a dangerous dance, while remaining on opposite sides of the clearing. “Take a hard look at the past few weeks. See any rainbows or unicorns? Wake up. Nothing will ever be the same. You belong in my world.”

“I pity you, Death.” A single tear slid down my face, and I wouldn’t let him see a single more. “I wish I didn’t, but I do. I pity you and all the tragedies you’ve been through that have made you this way.”

“You think I didn’t choose to be what I am today?” His voice was stark, cold, cruel. “You think life forced me to becomethis? Was I dealt a bad hand, Faith, like all the villains you mortals fabricate?”

The void between us closed. “Do you have any idea the sins a man has to commit to spend an eternity cursed as a monster? Would you like to know how many people I’ve killed? How many times I’ve devoured your kind, watched the light drain from their eyes?

How many times I’velovedit? I’ve simply lost count. But don’t be mistaken, I chose to be this way.”

Our stares bored painfully into each other’s, until he turned his back sharply on me. I couldn’t breathe. I’d accessed a part of him he kept tucked away in the darkest corner of his mind.

“It is a choice we all must face,” Death said, and his voice vibrated with conviction. “A crossroads. There will come a time in your life when you have to decide if you are the person you want to be, and if not, you have the power to change. If you don’t make that change, then you risk losing who you’re meant to be. Look at me closely. And tell me, is being a monster such a terrible thing? Because I find who I am now far superior to who I was.”

I was rendered speechless, reeling over his profound words.

“I don’t think you’re a monster,” I said. “You’ve forgotten you’re not alone. Hiding your pain behind a mask just means you’re human.”

In what seemed like an instant, everything changed. A force heaved into me, and the earth groaned as my feet slid across the ground like I was skating on ice. Red circles and various designs emerged from the dirt in front of me. Death stood rigid at the center of the clearing, right in the middle of the intricate pattern on the ground.

“What’s going on?” I exclaimed.

“It’s a sigil,” he growled with a curse, his head moving as if he were reading a message on the ground. “I’m imprisoned. The lines are immaculate.” He lifted his hooded head and bellowed a thundering roar. My eyes widened at the shadows crawling out of the cornstalks, how they barreled toward the sigil and tried to break through it.

Feathers rustled and the shadows dissipated.

“Looks like the cat is caged this time,” said a mocking, cultured voice. I whipped my head to my right, and a scream caught in my throat. Malphas, the raven demigod, materialized outside the sigil.

A thousand thoughts rattled my brain. Malphas had his hands clasped behind his back, a position of calm authority, as if he had full command of this situation. And his eyes were black as coal, unpredictable.

“Father,” Death said, a speckle of panic in his menacing voice.

I looked between both men.“Father?”

“I told you, Faith,” Malphas said with a venomous smirk. “I am the only one capable of stopping Death. He is my son, after all.”

My gut plummeted. Physically, Malphas appeared young enough to be Death’s older brother. I questioned whether this was another game from the Wraiths, like I so desperately wanted it to be, but I knew in my gut this was real. Which meant Death had killed his own father in the gladiator arena.

“Whoa,” I said.Talk about some serious family issues.

I stood rooted in my spot, reliving the horror show in the alleyway. The demons chasing Thomas and I down Main Street, crawling down the buildings in hordes, with their beady black eyes and porcelain skin. All of it because of a vendetta between a father and son.

“I never imagined I’d trap the Prince of Darkness,” Malphas continued. “It was a risk indeed, but all thanks to you, an easy task, lovely Faith Williams.”

A monstrous noise arose from Death. “Touch her, and I’ll rip your head off! You have two fucking seconds to break the sigil!”

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