Page 54 of Death is My BFF

I soared up a spiral of stairs to the high platform above and braced myself on a railing at the top, looking down at the hooded man below. He stood in the same spot like a statue.

“Holy crud, this isawesome!” I exclaimed. “Are you seeing how fast I’m running? I’m like a cheetah!”

“Get back down here!” Death barked, the fury in his voice startling enough to form goose bumps all over my arms. “You arehigh, not invincible. If you hurt yourself, I will not heal you again.”

I shimmied my shoulders to the music in my head, giggling.

“Somebody’s grouchy!”

“I’m warning you, Faith.”

“If you want me,” I purred with a smile, bracing my hands on the rusted railing, “you’ll have to catch me—” My stomach floated up into my throat as the railing broke and gave way. I tumbled over the side of the platform with a scream. The cement floor zoomed in, and I braced for a deadly impact that never occurred. Death had moved across the warehouse in a blink of an eye, cradling my fall with his arms before I hit the ground. I stared up at him in shock, hard muscles surrounding me like steel.

“I knew you liked me,” I said and bit down on my lip to suppress another delirious giggle.

Death set me down with a foreign curse, crowding my space with his intimidating size. I could feel the effects of his blood wearing off as the euphoric humor of the situation slipped away. I finally had the good sense to try to put distance between me and him and took a step back, when Death’s large paw of a hand shot out, gripping the fabric of my jersey, and plucking me a foot off the ground. My gaze leveled with his veiled eyes, and I stiffened.

“Do you have any idea,” Death grated in his thickened accent,

“how close you came to getting yourself killed tonight?” His usual velvet tone had yet to show up, replaced by that feral growl that carried through the storehouse with ease. “All because you provoked that demon. And now you have the gall to try and provokeme?”

I struggled to focus on what he was saying since his scent was so intoxicating it engulfed my senses. Leather, cherries, a yummy cologne with traces of—

Yummy?Sobering up, I tried to tear myself free from his fingers.

“Get your hands off me. Would you have rather seen them take me away?”

“You are afool!” he roared. “A little monstrosity in emo clothes!

Things could have ended much worse for you in that alleyway!”

“I won’t apologize for defending myself!”

He dropped me to the ground, and I landed awkwardly on my butt. “Put your pants back on.”

A single step forward. That’s all he had to do to put me on edge.

His body language was lethal, a raging force of nature aimed to fire.

I crab-walked a few inches back, cold concrete rubbing against my bare legs. I scrambled to my soggy socked feet and backpedaled into the workbench, snatching my discarded sweatpants from the floor, while also making sure the Chicago Bears jersey didn’t ride up and expose my ass cheeks more than it already had. The sweatpants were torn at the leg and saturated with rain and blood.

My brain suddenly revisited the alleyway, when Death splattered my world red. He didn’t have to use weapons. With only his mind and his talons, he could have slain all ofthosecreatures. He’d chosen to use a blade because it was messier, because it was in his nature to destroy.He could effortlessly rip me to pieces.

Leaning back against a row of shelves, I shimmied the cold wet fabric up my legs the best I could and tightened the drawstring at my waist. The effects of his blood had faded, replaced by fatigue and fear.

“You saved my life,” I trembled out. It was all I could manage to say with the blistering sensation of Death’s hidden gaze.

“Saved?” His laughter was low, sinister. “What a polite way to put what I did. I slaughtered every last one of those demons. Tore and cut them to pieces.” Tendrils of darkness curled outward from his massive frame, as if they wanted to attach to the shadows behind him, or maybe, I feared, attach to me. “You’re not much better off than you were in that alleyway. Now you’re alone. With me.”

My knees wobbled at the hunger laced in his cryptic words.

“Whatareyou?” I asked. “A vampire? A werewolf? Demon?”

“A nightmare.”

He slunk closer, taking his sweet time. Behind my back, my hand fanned for a weapon—anything I could get my hands on. I gripped something cold and heavy. A pipe of some sort. It immediately vanished from my hand.

“Too slow, cheetah,” he mused dryly.

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