Page 29 of A Waltz with Lord Death
Betha likely had just enough power in her to control this small sphere of time.
“How much does she know?” he murmured as he looked her over once more.
“Alys knows everything. She has accepted to meet with you.” Betha turned to him with nervousness running rampant in her eyes in the form of a glassy shimmer. “Please, Death. Please make this work. My heart aches so much for Barret.”
“I know.” He gently kissed her on the top of her head and briefly wondered if Alys would be able to withstand his kiss as well. A part of him wondered if Meira would be affected negatively like the others before her.
When he took a step toward the young woman, Betha lowered the prism of time, allowing Alys to take that step she had planned. She jumped in surprise, her eyebrows shooting upward. “Oh! That was quick. Only a second, no more.” She bit her lip and stared at him. “You must be Death. I thought you would be…” Her throat constricted as she swallowed. “Bigger. More frightening.”
He couldn’t help but grin as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You would be petrified if you saw me using my raw power. I have made grown men soil themselves.”
“You act like that is something you should be proud of.” Betha rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you were Death and Barret Life, because you were born for the role.”
“I was, wasn’t I?”
He turned his attention back to Alys, noting the way she averted her gaze as if to hide the evident blush in her cheeks. She wrung her fingers together as if to squeeze the perspiration from her skin.
“Betha said she explained everything to you,” he started. A frown puckered his mouth when she still averted her gaze. A timid little mouse. Nothing like the way Meira had plopped down onto his lap before she’d almost kissed him. If only that bastard of a man hadn’t ruined it. Things would be much different now. “My kiss could kill you if my touch does not. Are you still willing to take the risk?”
Betha lightly touched his elbow at his side. “Death, I am prepared this time. If she begins to show adverse effects from your power, I can reverse time, but only within this small bubble. She will not die.”
“Are you certain?”
“I am.”
Taking a deep breath, he held out his hand to the young woman. “Are you ready?” He wasn’t certain he was himself. His exploit to find someone to take Barret’s place had already killed several innocent people.
“I am ready,” she said, finally lifting her head to meet his gaze.
Their hands slid together, and Death tensed as he waited for her to drop dead. To convulse. To turn pale. Nothing happened. Yet, at least.
His gaze dropped to her lips, and a wave of disappointment crashed over him. He did not wish to kiss another woman who was not Meira. But for Barret, he would do it. He would do whatever it took to save his friend.
Raw, dark power pooled in his core. His gray eyes melted into a deep charcoal. Shadows slithered out of the trees, his hounds pacing around his legs. Alys cried out in fright and flinched away, but he held on tighter in an attempt to comfort her fear. She had to be willing, and therefore he slackened his grip on her hand to give her such an opportunity to flee, but she remained still.
A sliver of light power belonging to Life came out of hiding within him, churning on his very breath. Eager. Waiting.
Even as panic raced across the woman’s eyes, she didn’t try to flinch away again. He lowered his head and kissed her, exchanging a breath. But while his power surged through her, Life’s power refused to leave his body, cowering back to the very center of his soul.
Alys’s skin turned several shades paler, and when she began to convulse, he broke the kiss and called his power back to him. It snapped back with a sudden sweep of wind.
“Betha!” he cried. He reached out to catch the woman as she collapsed, but before he touched her, he allowed her to drop, not wanting to touch her again.
“What happened?” Betha shouted, nearing hysterics. “Why didn’t it work?”
He ran a hand down his face and took several steps away from the woman too close to death. “Life’s power didn’t want her. It refused to come out.”
A shiver ran through heavy, rippling air. In slow motion, Alys rose back to her feet, she stopped convulsing, and she held her hand out again as if the entire episode had not happened.
“I am ready,” she said a second time, though she seemed to be unaware of it.
With a shake of his head, he took yet another step away from her. “It is already done. You started to fall violently ill. You are not the right candidate for Lady Life.”
“Oh.” Tears swam in the woman’s eyes. “I am sorry.”
“Me, too.”
Without another word, a blanket of shadow swept over him as he transported from the snowy hill to a cliff overlooking a deep blue ocean. Wind buffeted his hair. Waves crashed against sharp rocks below. Roars of violent waters filled his ears. His heart ran cold. Empty. Numb.
