Page 101 of Death is My Ride or Die

“Secondaries.” The low rasp to his voice beckoned me closer. My touch affected him, and that gave me a strange sense of empowerment.

I ducked beneath his wings so that I was now in front of them. From this angle, Death wouldn’t have to crane his neck to look at me as I explored his wings.

“I want to see the layers from this side,” I explained with a shy smile.

He said nothing. Only watched me with a perfectly composed face. My fingers trailed over the bottom of his feathers.

“Primaries.”

I raised my fingers higher, stroking the length of the longest feathers of his wings. This act no longer felt innocent. His wings weren’t just feathers and bones and joints: they were a part him, a part he hid from the rest of the world. Death closed his eyes, his jaw pulsing as he slowly tilted his head away from me.

“Primary coverts . . . ” He released a ragged breath. “Faith. Careful—”

I brushed the top right, and suddenly his wings jerked and sliced inward, launching him six feet into the air. I lurched back and ducked, although I wasn’t low enough, and my hand instinctively lifted toward him. A sharp pain carved across my hand like a knife before I yelped and pulled it back, cradling it to my chest. The wings came back, as wings naturally did when they flapped, the sheer force of their power hurling wind into my body and knocking me hard to the ground. Good thing too, or those lethal things could have lopped my head off.

Death planted his heavy boots on the roof, his wings curling inward. “You alive?”

“By the grace ofGod!” I screeched. “What was the hell was that?”

He shrugged. “Reflex.”

“A flinch is a reflex. That was a full-on attempt at a wing bitch slap!”

Death laughed hysterically, and I meanhysterically. The booming sound made my ears feel hot as I glared up at him. “You almost cut me in half!”

“Shhhh.” Grinning, he offered a gloved hand to help me to my feet, and I took it, but not before flipping him off first.

I checked off all my body parts and then peered down at my sliced hand. My fingers trembled as blood oozed from the deep gash.Don’t cry.Don’t cry.Don’t cry.

Death prowled closer, shadows dripping off of his wings and pooling across the ground as he walked. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s a scratch,” I said in my best tough-girl voice.

Lowering to the ground, Death sat back on the balls of his feet. He raised a gloved hand and motioned me closer. “Doesn’t smell like a scratch. Let me see it.”

My heart pounded. I approached him cautiously, my gaze sliding down the length of his deadly wings as they tucked in neatly behind him.

He was another version of Death, his inner beast showing through with unnaturally sharp, demonic features and glaringly catlike mismatched eyes. Seeing him like this, crouched and monstrous, staring unflinchingly at me, was frightening. And a little thrilling.

“You’re going to need a big bandage for thatscratch.” When he touched me, my whole body burned to life. His leather-covered fingers held the sides of my hand as he inspected the wound. “Try to heal yourself.”

“I don’t know how,” I said. “Can’t you fix me?”

“You need to know how to survive on your own, Faith. I won’t always be around to protect you.”

I caught the strange lilt in his voice. “Why are you saying that?”

He rose to his full height. “My wings grew back,” he said, rather than answer my question. “It was a slow and excruciating process, but that pain was nothing in comparison to the day Heaven damned me to the human realm. I was alone, in an unfamiliar era, with no connections to the humans. I had to adapt to survive. It’s not always going to be the best-case scenario. Sometimes, it’ll be the worst. You must be prepared for the worst.”

I looked down at my hand in his to find the wound already healed.

“Time to go,” Death said, his voice bitter. His wings dissipated into shadow, then into nothing. “I’ve made you late for your date with the warlock.”

XXVII

When my hand touched the door of the Crossroads, an awful sensation landed in my gut.

I looked back over my shoulder. Death was parked on the curb, straddling his motorcycle. A tinted helmet veiled his face as he waited for me to go inside.

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