Page 67 of Kiss of Death
“No…”
Despair and agony formed a typhoon that spun wildly in my body. I trembled and then tried to move my body closer toward her, but locked into position in a weightless vacuum, I couldn’t do anything.
But I screamed, screamed like someone was hacking me to pieces.
“Lily!” I watched her come even closer, the details of her appearance emerging further into view. The tight braid at the back of her head, the slenderness of her hands, and then the crest of the dragon on her chest. “Lily!” I tried to throw my body forward to reach her, to somehow shove her back to the light while I descended back into the darkness, but she was too far to reach.
I watched her appear beneath me, her eyes closed as her arms and legs floated at her sides, looking peaceful, like she could be asleep. But I knew once she was down there, they would all want a piece of her. She would become a servant or a concubine or be forced to eat souls until hers was devoured in the process.
Tears bled down my face. “No! No!Nooooooooo!” I continued the hopeless fight, fighting the magic pathway that brought people above and below, utterly unable to do anything except watch my greatest nightmare unfold. “Lily!”
19
CALLUM
I hit the ground, my body on its side, dirt on my cheek. Sunlight so bright made my eyes squint in protest. I could already smell the salt from the sea just a few hundred feet away. The horror flashed across my mind, and I jerked upright and gasped for the air I’d forgotten to breathe. “Lily.”
I climbed to my feet but stumbled forward into the dirt again when I found her.
Dead on the ground.
Tears poured down my cheeks like rivers, and I choked on my own sob. “No, no, no…” I quickly crawled to her and grabbed her, gently shook her as I continued to sob, put my fingers to her neck to check for a pulse, even though I knew beyond doubt that she was dead.
Because I’d seen her descent into the underworld.
“Lily, no.” I gathered her in my arms and held her to me, sobbing in her hair, being punished by a wave of despair worse than anything I’d ever felt. “How could you do this to me? How could you fucking do this to me?”
Thud.
I continued to hold Lily and ignore what it was that joined us, probably one of her dragons. I trembled as I held her, the shaking uncontrollable, the tears so thick they blurred my vision.
Then I heard it, the strange coughing, shaking noise from the creature.
I looked up to see the black dragon trembling, making inexplicable noises with its jaw.
He moved his closed mouth to her, grazing her cheek as he continued to shake.
It took me a while to understand it was crying. It just didn’t shed tears like I did.
I gently laid her down and backed away.
The dragon moved over her, resting his face to her forehead like he was kissing her.
I hadn’t slept in four hundred years, but I prayed this was a nightmare. This was worse than Anya believing I would abandon her. This was worse than saying goodbye to my sons. This was worse than watching them grow old and die while I could only stand by. This was the single worst thing that had ever happened to me. “Why did you do this?”
The dragon pulled his mouth away from Lily then lowered himself to look me in the eye. His eyes were dark, and he continued to make his coughing sounds, but he didn’t seem hostile toward me.
He didn’t seem to blame me for this…when he should.
“I don’t want this.” It was all I could think of to say in my state of shock. It was the most traumatic moment of my life, watching her descend below to an unbearable existence just so I could live a mortal life without her. “I would never want this.” To make it worse, time passed slower her in the mortal world than down below, so she’d already been there for a day even though it had been just moments for me.
I couldn’t think about what had happened to her.
Zehemoth motioned to his back, like he wanted me to climb into his saddle.
I was still shocked to my core, paralyzed by utter devastation, so I couldn’t move.
This time, he gave me a push with his snout, stopping himself from crying to issue his orders. Then he shoved me again, harder, and let out a plume of smoke from his nostrils, like there was some urgency.
