Page 125 of Death is My Ride or Die

Death crawled onto all fours, keeping eye contact as he pulled the fragment from his stomach and threw it to the ground. Bulging muscles flexed as he planted one foot and then the other to rise to his full height, the wound gradually knitting itself together. He flung his head back and tossed the jet-black hair away from his forehead, then ran his tongue over his fangs.

“You’re mine, cupcake,” he growled throatily.

A shiver rattled through me.

Death held his hands out, inclining his long fingers toward himself as if to beckon me. Those mismatched eyes blackened as the iris and sclera drowned in the color of the shadows pooling across the floor. The shadows crawled toward me, hissing in low whispers, stretching toward my feet. I tried to conjure up a weapon, but they lurched at me like snakes, wrapped tightly around my ankles, and pulled me down to the concrete.

“Not fair!” I shrieked as a shadow grabbed one wrist, then the other. Soon I was bound by his darkness again, fully restrained on the floor as the shadows glided over every inch of my skin. With every intake of air, they tightened like a boa constrictor. I felt them latch on to the wounds on my bicep and thigh and gasped.

Death approached me with an unhurried swagger and straddled my body with his feet.

“You managed to best me, but where you failed is to pin me down.” His shadows peeled away as he grinned and offered me his hand. “Truce?”

XXXII

Death shouldered open a metal door into the parking lot and blew it straight off its hinges.

“Uh.” I indicated the fallen door as we left. “Aren’t you worried someone will break in?”

“To what? Steal a bunch of plywood?” Death summoned his motorcycle. “My shadows will eat them alive before they get one step inside.”

My eyes widened, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “How come Cruentas can manifest all the way to the warehouse, but you can’t?”

“Manifesting a long distance like that would compromise my energy,” Death said. “I already have thousands of duplicates out collecting as we speak.”

“Couldn’t we ride Cruentas back to the penthouse?”

“Cruentas can only manifest one person at a time, and although he’s faster than my bike, I don’t need you throwing up on me your first time traveling on a hell horse.” He glanced up at the night sky. “If you’re feeling bold, we could always fly back. Weather seems to be holding up.”

“Death, I’mterrifiedof heights.”

“You were also afraid of riding on a motorcycle. The harder you resist fear, the more power you give it.”

I saluted him. “Rain check.”

He laughed in a way that made my face burn. “I’ll hold you to it, cupcake.”

He wasn’t wearing a shirt beneath his leather jacket. My chest fluttered as I locked my hands around his bare midsection, his hellish heat keeping me warm the entire ride.

We entered the lobby of his apartment building and took the elevator up.

“You’re not healing,” Death said, inspecting my arm with the rough pads of his fingers. “Get to it before you lose too much blood.”

“I don’t know how . . . ”

He glared.

“Jesus Christ, I’m tired. Can you just drop some of your blood on it again?”

“What if I want to lick your wounds clean instead?”

My eyes widened, and a slow, devastating grin spread across his wicked mouth.

The tension between us had intensified. The elevator doors chimed open, and he stormed out like a predator.

“Death—”

He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me in for a kiss. The smallest moan escaped me. My hands didn’t know where to go and gripped his bare forearms. His tongue flicked against my teeth, and I tasted his blood dripping into my mouth. It poured down my throat like hot, liquid sugar. That strange, sweet, thin texture of a Fallen’s blood. The madness of his bloody tongue slid across my lip one last time before he pulled away. He threw open his apartment door with a ragged breath.

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