Page 124 of Death is My Ride or Die

“Klutzy, clumsy, girl. Maybe you’re your own worst enemy,” Death taunted from the dark. “Did you know your heart quickens when I talk? Sometimes it’s slight, and other times I feel it pulse through me like it demands to be heard. And then there’s your scent right now . . . ”

“Can’t say I can smell much of anything except public bathroom in this disgusting warehouse lair,” I snarked, tearing my shirt the rest of the way and attempting to tie it over the wound. I managed to loop it around the gash and tighten the cotton knot with my teeth. “Ever heard of Febreze? Or is that your natural form’s stench?”

The air shifted as he manifested closer.

A tap on my shoulder. I kicked backward, but his hand shot out and seized my sneaker.

We stared at each other in the dark. Him, a god, with a single hand gripping my foot mid-kick, and me, a helpless flamingo. I watched him decide what to do with me next.

“Hmm.” Death hitched up my leg a little, forcing me to hop in a puddle of who knows what with my bad leg. I desperately tried not to cry out. “I believe this requires a witty line.”

“You have mysolein the palm of your hand?” I offered between clenched teeth.

White fangs gleamed against the shadows of his face. “That’s the one.”

Death twisted my foot so I rotated around, and I released a small squeal as he spanked my ass. I lost my balance and hit the disgusting cement floor. I was slow to turn over, but he’d vanished anyway. I cursed violently. His laughter thundered around the warehouse, vibrating the metal slates against the walls. This had been a bad, bad idea. As I moved, blood smeared the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs.

My heart pounded as I pressed back against a cement beam to hide and figure a way out of this.

“I must say,” Death’s deep, velvety voice said, traveling from all directions, “I’m impressed by your rapid improvement since visiting the warlock. What did he teach you, anyway? How to bite off too much to chew?”

“There’s strength in fighting against the odds,” I said, edging around the cement pillar. I could feel him lingering around the bend and peered around the side. But he wasn’t there. Still in the dark part of the warehouse, I reached for a wooden crate beside me and slammed my foot into it, snapping off a piece. Then I pressed back into my hiding spot with the new weapon clenched in my hand.

Shutting my eyes, I listened to the dark.

“Ace helped me see what you have been trying to teach me all along,” I said. “I can’t let defeat define who I am or else I’ll never learn. Who I am is not defined by where I came from, or my past, or another person’s opinion. It’s defined by who I want to benow, and I have to live to fight another day to figure that out. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Even if it meansto beard the lion in his den.”

His lack of response spoke volumes.

“You know what I’ve also realized?” I asked, creeping around the pillar. “I’m not the one who’s afraid to take what I want. A cat in gloves catches no mice.”

Death veered around the corner like a summoned nightmare and grabbed me, his hand encircling my throat. He flattened me against the pillar with his muscular thigh pinned between mine. “I’m not wearing gloves,” he hissed.

“Guess this means you can touch me, after all.”

His expression slackened. He looked down at his bare hand around my throat, and my nerve endings tingled.

Death could touch me.

When he didn’t move an inch, I reached up and grazed his black cheek with the pads of my shaking fingers. My palm spread, cradling one side of his face. Patches of his obsidian skin peeled away, the night fading from his features. While the rage that ripped over his expression warned me to remember his unpredictable state, his hand on my throat had other ideas as it slid down to rest on my racing heart.

“Even when I tell you to run,” Death said in a hoarse voice, “even when I’m the worst version of myself, you always stay.” He leaned his hand on the pillar beside my head and lowered his forehead slowly to mine. “Nobody ever stays.”

I lifted onto my toes and brushed my lips gently against his. He tasted like mint and warmth. When I pulled back, his eyes were hooded, as if he were drunk, and his brows slanted inward. He licked his lips, a smirk tilting one side of his mouth.

“Now I could havesworn,” he began in a low drawl against my lips, “that you said you abjured any interest in me—?”

I wrapped my hands around his neck and pulled him in, crushing my mouth against his. His fingers spread down my spine, pressing me flat against his hips.

“Suck,” I whispered in his ear.

He released a soft rumbling noise from deep in his chest. “Suck what?”

“My light beam.”

I slammed my ignited fist into his hard stomach, and my light blasted into him with a sonic boom. Death was tossed back, his massive body flying across the warehouse from the momentum and slamming into a metal structure. He fell hard to the ground without the usual perfectly balanced catlike landing. There went a ninth life. Growling out a string of vicious curses, Death rolled over onto his back. His large obsidian hand reached down to fist the splintered end of a piece of wood wedged deep in his stomach, which sparked with light.

“How’s it feel to be impaled by my wood?” I shouted, adrenaline pulsing throughout my body as I smiled uncontrollably.

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