Page 116 of Death is My Ride or Die

“I should never have opened my mouth—”

“I’ll stop,” I said, running a hand over my face to clear the slate. “Please continue. I’m sorry.”

The warlock sighed and continued. “By the time I’d heard the news of . . . what happened to Alexandru’s family, and to Malphas in the gladiatorial arena, Alexandru had already abandoned his childhood home. He’d burned it to the ground.”

“Oh my God.”

“Alex showed up at my door a few weeks after. He’d changed drastically. He was . . . animalistic. He’d lost all his humanity and wielded all Ahrimad’s powers. He was soul-thirsty with no will to live.” Ace swallowed hard. “He couldn’t end his own life, so he begged me to help him. I was young, naïve, and terrified of what he’d become. To see him in his true form like that . . . he was unlike any creature I’d ever studied in my father’s books.”

I thought about the pain in Alexandru’s face in the gladiators’ arena. Had the deaths of his mother, his wife, and his unborn child led him to that point?

“What can you tell me about Death’s mother?”

“Ma chérie.”

“I know. I know this is a sensitive topic, I’m just trying to understand.”

“Alexandru’s mother made a bad decision before he was born. She practiced magic she shouldn’t have practiced. It brought a curse upon the entire family . . . ”

“Are you saying this curse had something to do with her death?”

“All I know is there are many answers the Fates deny me.” Ace’s fingers fisted on the table. “Death vowed to destroy the men who had killed my father if I helped him try to reverse his death curse, so I did. There were spells to help curb his hunger, and I was determined to find a way around his curse. But deep down, I knew there was no hope of reversing it. His soul was marked byDis Pater. Hades, god of the Underworld. Maker of Ahrimad.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

“Even though I’d failed Death, he kept his promise. He brought me the head of the man who’d executed my father. Then he was gone, and Heaven recruited him. Where I saw a friend who had become a monster, they saw a warrior. They would use his death powers for good. I didn’t hear from him for more than four hundred years after that. By then, he’d already fallen from grace. He never told me why, but I have my theories. He’s not the same person I befriended all those years ago. He’s transformed himself a thousand different ways. He’s taken more hits from this life than anybody I’ve ever known, and he’s so entrenched in demise that he’s become Death himself.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Ace added, his violet gaze clinging to mine. “I haven’t remained the same either. I’ve lost twice as much as I’ve won, and I’ve suffered the consequences of my own everlasting appetite for power and vices. But I wonder, wouldn’t you succumb to your sins too, if you were us? Wouldn’t anybody?”

We contemplated this in silence. Hearing such a remarkable story from Ace’s perspective was fascinating to me, and I wished I had been there to see how Death used to interact with him. The fact that they’d beenfriends—the fact that Death had had any friends for that matter—boggled my mind. He’d made a huge point of closing himself off from the rest of the world.

“You’re the only human left who remembers who he used to be,” I said, drawing the warlock’s attention back to me. “When he was Alexandru. I think that means a lot to him.”

A smile played on Ace’s lips. “You give me far too much credit. You’re the one who has the most faith in him now, when he considers himself the worst version of himself. With your help, who knows what transformation he could make next.”

“You say optimistic things like that,” I said, “and I want to believe you. Ever since I met him, our lives have gone to the dogs. I lost possession of my soul and any chance of a normal life.” I released a self-deprecating laugh. “Well, I wasn’t exactlynormalbefore all of this, but I wasme. I had dreams. I wanted to go to college and pursue art. I mean, what kind of life is this, anyway? I’m afraid. I’malwaysafraid. Everyone around me is a sinner or a villain to an unfathomable degree. The scariest part is that the line between what I thought was good and what I know is bad has blurred, and I don’t know what the hell that makes me.”

My eyes snapped to Ace’s hand as it curled tightly around mine. “It makes you human, Faith. It makes you human.”

“There you are,” announced a deep voice. “One needs a map to navigate this place.”

Leo, Death’s head reaper, strode into the room toward us. He wore dark jeans and a casual gray T-shirt that exposed a sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. His amber eyes drifted to Ace as he rose out of his armchair. The two men exchanged a “bro nod” hello.

“Hello, León,” Ace greeted. “It’s been a long time.”

“Two hundred years, at least. Hardly recognized you without your long hair.”

“And I hardly recognized you without that ghastly rat on your face you once called a moustache,” Ace fired back with a grin.

“You had to go there.” Leo laughed, then he slid his gaze to mine. “In case you didn’t know, this guy was notorious in the supernatural world for his long hair. I’m talking straight white hair down to his ass and a different woman running her fingers through it every time you saw him.”

I burst into laughter. “I hate that I can picture that.”

“Ladies loved the hair,” Ace said and winked at me.

“They still do,” I said good-humoredly. “But I’m wondering how you were so suave with the ladies? It couldn’t just be the hair . . . ?”

Leo seemed a little confused by the inside joke, whereas Ace shot me the evil eye and discreetly gave the back of my leg a little whack with his cane.

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