Page 47 of A Waltz with Lord Death
“Meira,” a voice said, and she jumped, surprised at the way Barret appeared so suddenly in front of her. He winced as if surprised himself. “Can I speak to you? Without…” He jerked his head toward Dorian.
Yet, her fiancé tightened his grip around her waist and answered before she could. “The only talking you are going to be doing is explaining yourself, apologizing, and thanking her for saving your sorry a—” He cut his sentence off abruptly and amended with, “rear end. You would have ceased to exist without her.”
Barret nodded sorrowfully at her. “Perhaps we can speak in the mortal realm.”
“Also,” Dorian added. “She is my betrothed. If I hear you trying to convince her otherwise, I will kick your sorry behind straight back to oblivion.”
Barret nodded again.
“Oh, and one more thing.” Dorian smiled, and it was as if the entire world stopped moving for a moment. He had such a beautiful smile. One she didn’t get to see often. “I am glad you are back, Barret. You won’t believe the trouble Betha and I got in without you to clean up our messes.”
“It was mostly your mess,” Betha chimed in. “You were like a toddler drinking milk from a cup. Kept spilling it everywhere.”
Her father burst into loud, resonating laughter, and Dorian chuckled sheepishly along with him, his neck turning a shade of red. She tried not to think about what his messes meant, but they entered her mind anyway. Lots of death. Lots of sickness. Lots of pain. She needed to speak with her father quickly so she could get to work setting the balance of the world right. Or perhaps she could speak to himwhileshe set it right.
“Come,” she said without looking him in the eye. “I have a lot of work to do, so if you would like to speak, you will just have to follow me.”
When she moved away from Dorian, he grabbed onto her hand. “Do you need help? You don’t know how to use your power yet.”
“Instinct.” She smiled. “I think I can do this, and if I can’t, I have the former Lord Life to help me.”
“All right. I trust you.” He gently cupped her chin with his palm. Her heart picked up an irregular rhythm as she gazed into the beautiful gray eyes she had come to adore. He lowered his voice. “I love you, Meira. You are wonderful for taking this responsibility, and even more wonderful for agreeing to be mine.”
She touched his arm, willing herself not to cry at how kind he had been to her despite all her blunders. “I love you, Dorian. I will gladly take on this role.”
Neither caring about the other two in the room, they met in the middle with a soft, tender kiss. When they broke apart, she did her best to ignore Barret’s stare as she allowed instinct to pull her where she needed to go. She transported into the middle of a town infected by the plague.
Her power flowed out from her like a cool, rushing stream. It entered homes. It met people on the street. It healed and softened Death’s power. Many people would die of the plague, but she could still protect those not infected yet.
Barret was suddenly walking by her side, a look of uncertainty on his face. Awkward silence created a barrier between them, and she was grateful when he spoke first, as she had no idea what to say.
“I suppose I will just plunge right in and try to explain myself.” He ran a hand over his ethereal chin. “Having a mortal family is difficult. I loved your mother. But I never intended to have a family with her. When I learned she was with child…I did the best I could to be there. It wasn’t easy when I also had to be everywhere else as Lord Life. And then a mortal assassin was after me.
“The mortal wanted my power for himself. He thought he would be able to bring back his love from the dead. I don’t know how he did it, but he kept finding me over and over again. All over the world. I left you and your mother to protect both of you from this man. I didn’t want him using the two of you against me.”
He took a deep breath and attempted to kick a rock with the toe of his shoe, but his foot passed right through. “And then your mother died eight years later… I visited her in the otherworld to try to patch things with her. She refused to speak to me. And then I met Betha.” He blew out a long breath before glancing in her direction. “When you meet your soulmate, sometimes you just know. As for you, Meira… I watched you from afar. I tried to help where I could. I know it wasn’t enough. It will never be enough. I’m sorry.”
Making do without a father around had put unnecessary hardships on hers and her mother’s shoulders. His reasoning made sense, but couldn’t there have been another way? She would rather have had her father around than to be “safe.” But it was over and done. Even she couldn’t change the past. But could she move forward?
She reached down and touched a man huddled beneath a blanket in the snow. He stopped shivering immediately, and his cough began to subside. She still couldn’t believe she was capable of such feats. It was absolutely amazing.
“You kept my existence a secret from Dorian,” she accused before stepping into a building filled with the sick and afflicted. Barret trailed behind.
“Yes. This was one secret I could not burden him with. He has always yearned for a family of his own for as long as I have known him. He envied the fact that I could kiss a woman without killing her. He hated how the good fortune always fell on my shoulders and never on his. I just didn’t want to hurt him further to tell him about my family. I still don’t know if my decision was the right one. Perhaps I should have mentioned it.”
Her power crawled across the wooden floors and bathed the sick in its healing light. She marveled in the fact that although she had already used up a lot of power, she still had plenty more to spare.
Biting her lip, she finally turned to face her father. His absence had hurt her and her mother in ways she could not express. But he had done it for the right reasons. She could not fault the man for that.
“Thank you for explaining.” She bit her lip even harder when she contemplated her next question. But if she did not ask Barret, she would have to ask Dorian. She didn’t know which was more embarrassing. “Will Dorian and I be able to have a family? As we are both immortals.”
“Ah.” He folded his arms behind his back and grinned, turning his attention to survey the sick and the healing. “Should you have children, I believe they will be born mortal. And they will have a couple of very special parents. The previous Lady Death had a child with the previous Lord Time. The child lived a mortal life and suffered a mortal death.”
Wanting to mull over the information at another time, she asked, “Can you teach me more about my power?”
He smiled. “Now that, I can do.”
Chapter 20
