Page 136 of Death is My Ride or Die

Death freed a low hiss through his fangs, darkness pulsing from his wings. I felt rooted to my spot.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, my teeth slightly chattering from both fear and the cold. “And you don’t want to hurt me either. I think. But if I have to, I will hurt you, so snap out of it.”

Death’s full form prowled toward me in a slow stride. His sinful power saturated the space between us with menace, hunger, and undeniable seduction.

“Death, it’s me,” I said, finding it difficult to form a sentence. I could feel his hold on me even as I motioned for him to stay back with my raised hand. “It’s Faith. You can fight this.”

Death homed in on my raised hand and cocked his head, cold eyes fixated on my fingertips as if he were waiting for something to happen. Realizing this was my moment to scare him off, I focused to try to get a light beam going. I even started snapping a few times. The snapping thing ended up way too jazzy.

Needless to say, Light Beam wasn’t cooperating. Now we both knew it.

Death’s eyes slid to mine like two cynical slits. Doom settled. He grinned, sharp white fangs filling his gruesomely still-beautiful face.

“Give yourself to me, mortal,” Death hissed, completing the cinematic visual. His voice: monstrous and grating. His talons: large and menacing. His hand: outstretched toward me.“Give me your soul!”

Death bared those outrageously terrifying fangs, and I launched the light at his face. Death’s head turned at the last second, and he watched the light burn a wicked hole into the oak tree behind him before fizzling out.

Shadows snaked from Death like little beasts and pinned my wrist to the roof. When Death turned back around from his inspection of the damage I’d caused to the tree, his mouth had quirked up into a slight smirk.

“D-minus.” He worked his jaw again, and his fangs retracted a little into his gums. Darkness shrunk back into his pupils, leaving behind two mismatched rings of green for his irises. “That’s being very,verygenerous.”

I looked up at him, completely dumbstruck.

“I didn’t work you all day for weeks,” Death continued, “for you to wear that doe-eyed look the moment an enemy is about to kill you. Had I truly not been in control, you would have been chunks of meat stuck between my teeth by now. Use your brain next time and not your weird quirks to dissuade monsters.”

As Death continued to roast me into another life, my fury took over as I ripped free from his shadows like a madwoman. “You weretesting me? I almost had a heart attack!

“A heart attack?” His eyes flicked to my breastplate with interest. “Stimulating.”

I launched to my feet. “I couldkillyou—”

“Shh.” He clutched my wrist and pulled me toward him as he retreated smoothly behind the thick branches of the overgrown oak. A creature flew past us overhead, and I huddled closer to him. “I saw you fall to your knees. You looked like you were hurt, and then your mind barriers slammed shut. With the ravens circling you, I took matters into my own hands and brought you up. You had a vision, didn’t you?”

I pictured the wrath I’d seen in Ahrimad’s gaze, the way he’d looked like a parasite was eating him from the inside out . . . A shiver raked through me at the image. “Ahrimad is weakened. He looked sick, thin. He almost resembled a—”

“Skeleton?” Death offered. He didn’t seem surprised by this information. “Yes, I suspect even with my scythe, Ahrimad can’t properly feed. My scythe serves as an anchor for his soul to remain, for a short amount of time, in this world. His soul might be immortal, but it needs mortals to survive, and he has no power here without my scythe. Not as a soul. He’ll need to become permanently corporeal to survive.”

I touched my belt, where unbeknownst to any of the creatures I’d encountered that night, the book was tucked away, safe and sound.

“He’ll need a dark spell for that,” Death added gravely. “He’ll also need a new body to possess. Someone who can handle his eternal soul.”

An awful feeling settled in my gut that he would take Death. And I had no intention of watching Ahrimad overtake Death’s corpse. I couldn’t bear it. Lifting my chin, I met his gaze fiercely. “I won’t let him get to you.”

Death stepped into my personal space. “Faith,” he growled in a deep, commanding voice that I imagined petrified his subordinates to the point of soiling themselves. “Donotstart. You made a promise to me—”

“Don’t get myself killed. I know. But guess what? No matter how much power you have, there are some things in this life that you will never fully control. One of those things is me.”

We stared at each other, waging a silent war.

For once, he backed down. “You have so much trouble with authority that you can’t even listen to me to save your own life.”

“Youaremy life,” I said, unable to hold back, “and we can’t seem to stop fighting long enough to figure out what that means for both of us. I mean, seriously, Death. I can never tell if you like me or if you’re prepping for your future favorite meal of the century!”

“You’re the loudest, most stubborn, most annoying little vermin I have ever met,” he growled. “Annoyingis too soft a word, really. Nothing I say or threaten you with stops you from doing what you want to do. It drives me fucking nuts. Of course, I don’tlikeyou—”

“Let me stop you there,” I interjected, raising my hand. “This stressful battle from hell is enough torment for the day. I don’t need you to roast me in the midst of it on top of—”

Death grabbed my hand and brought our faces close. “I wasn’t finished, cupcake. Of course, I don’t like you. Hell only knows, that would be much less agonizing. You are the genesis of a madness I can’t escape.”

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