Page 18 of Death Deals

He rose and nodded toward the back of the plane, a silent way to tell me to follow. I shook my head frantically. I wasn’t going to move from this chair until this plane was safely on the ground.

Hector eyed us suspiciously.

Andre’s gaze hardened on me. “My dear, will you join me for a moment?”

My dear?

“Is it important?” I asked, my grip tightening on the armrests. Soon, my nails were going to puncture the leather. How was I going to keep this charade up?

“She looks a bit ill,” Hector said.

Andre clenched his jaw. “There’s a small bedroom in the back of the plane. Come, my beloved. Lay down.” He didn’t wait for me to refuse again. Instead, he grabbed my wrist and tugged me to my feet, his jacket I’d been wearing left behind. I tried to plant my boots, but he still managed to drag me through the door and into the back room, which—like Andre had said—was a bedroom. Not small, by any means. It was the size of my entire apartment in the afterlife plus some, and the bed could fit a party of ten. If you were into that sort of thing.

The moment Andre closed the door, he side-stepped to stand in front of me. When I tried to shimmy away, his hand slapped the wall beside my head, making me jump.

“You’re not making this easy, you know,” he said.

“Complicated is kinda my staple,” I replied and met his gaze head-on.

“I’m starting to see that.”

“So, what’s that crap about anyway? Beloved? Really? And why did you insist on bringing me back here?” I peered around his arm and examined the large bed. My mouth went dry as my desire for him and my fear of heights clashed inside.

“You’re supposed to be my claim, remember?” he shot back. I tried tugging his arm down so I could get by him, but he refused to move it. To make matters worse, he leaned in closer.

“I got that,” I half-choked out. “Stay by your side, yadda yadda.”

“It’s not just that. You need to play the part,” he said. “If it’s discovered that I really have no claim to you, there is no protection. You’ll be fair game to all, and that means there’s nothing I can do to stop them.”

“And since I’m surrounded by tons of blood-thirsty vampires on the daily now, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Got it,” I said. “But what does a claimed person do, exactly? Is there a script?”

He chuckled. “Script? No, but you can imagine it’s similar to a human marriage—of sorts. We’re supposed to be bonded to each other.”

Like… in love.

Ack.

I wasn’t sure I liked where this was heading. Resisting the magnetism of his blood was hard enough, but to ignore it while we were supposed to be playing house? This couldn’t end well.

“Hector was right,” Andre said suddenly. “You don’t look too well. Maybe you should lay down.”

“Yeah okay. Get me on the bed. That’s just what you’d want,” I replied.

He rubbed his lips together, and the simple gesture had me squirming. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it…”

Why was I still pushing him away? Three reasons. One, I was afraid to give in to the power of his blood. I didn’t like the idea of not being in control of myself or influenced in any way. My entire afterlife was being planned for me. I wanted control somewhere. Even if it was just my ability to say no to sex.

Two was the obvious answer. Eli. I wasn’t sure what was going on with our relationship. I was pretty sure I’d ripped out his heart and stomped on it with my final Trial. And honestly, I wasn’t sure if we could recover from it. But no matter what, I didn’t want to hurt Eli more than I already had. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I still cared about him, after all.

And three… At this point, I was fighting the urges on the simple principle of the matter. Maybe to prove to myself that I could. Maybe to spite him. Maybe both.

Most likely both.

Either way, it was a lot of reasons tonothave sex with him, so I was going to keep doing what I was doing. Torturing myself.

Lifting my eyes to the plane’s curved ceiling, I drew in a shaky breath. My stomach twisted. God, I hated flying.

“Are you… afraid?” he asked, gaze scanning me over.

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