Page 60 of Mortal Desires

We all knew what husbands did.

Yet, I married Vicious. Maybe because I knew what he was capable of, and at the time our marriage was based on hatred. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

The way he reacted yesterday made me feel something in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want him to be upset with me, which was crazy because he hated my guts.

I rolled my eyes at the thought, the ridiculous idea that I could soften death’s heart.

The door appeared right in front of my eyes and clicked it open torturously slow. I held my breath until his eyes reached me from the other side of the room. His anger closed on my throat, weighing differently than before.

Or maybe it was me. When he hated me, I didn’t care. I wouldn’t change helping lost souls for anything in this world. I had that gift for a reason, and I didn’t care if I messed with Vicious’ territory or not.

Now, I felt different. This time guilt colored my cheeks, made my hands shake, and my steps uncertain. I thought being his soulmate was something random I didn’t care about, but to Vicious I hid something primal about himself. I knew all along he had a soul, and I withheld that information.

My toes curled inside my shoes when I stopped by the door, wondering if I made a huge mistake. But he never came to my room last night, and I didn’t visit his. I slept in my own bed with my head on my pillow and a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn’t do it again tonight.

I was probably insane. There were worse fates than spending a night alone in a nice bedroom, but I couldn’t think of one right now.

“Little witch,” he said from the throne.

The room was misty, covered with Brumas so close together I couldn’t distinguish one from the next. Even after all this time, they still brought goosebumps to my skin, like the feeling of a ghost that jumped through my body.

A second later the Brumas disappeared, nothing but cold left in their wake. Vicious watched me like I was the enemy, his lips closed in a sneer—not a reassuring word escaping them. So he was even angrier than yesterday.

I chanced a step forward, feeling it was too late now to back off and leave for my room. Flashbacks from before danced over my eyelids, the memory of Vicious exactly the way he sat right now, touching himself and smirking while I watched.

The lump in my throat rendered me speechless and the door behind me banged closed, startling me. While my hand flew to my chest, I blinked, and suddenly the room filled with snakes. I panted as they slithered over the marble floor. Thick, black snakes with their triangular heads angling their yellow eyes at me.

“Closer,” he ordered.

I stepped closer at the same time the snakes closed in on me, two taking my feet and slithering under my dress and over my leg.

“What is this, Vicious?” I tried to keep my voice level but I knew he wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

I felt the snakes circling my waist, I gulped trying to keep eye contact and act like nothing was wrong.

“Christians ended Heaven with a snake. With temptation,” he told me, tilting his head to the side while he watched me.

A loud gasp flew out of my mouth when my feet suddenly left the floor and I began floating right in the middle of the throne room. The snakes slithered over my dress and under. Some squeezed my limbs while another took my breath away squeezing my waist. A force pulled my arms and legs apart. I looked down to see that Vicious was barely watching, the snakes left on the floor were now gone just like the Brumas.

“If everything they can think of becomes truth, aren’t mortals the architects of their own fate? Aren’t they the only ones responsible for their misery? Heaven doesn’t exist because they killed it with a snake,” he said quietly.

“They still believe in Heaven,” I said, watching the snake around my waist slowly move onto my neck. “The belief in an afterlife is the strongest thing on earth.”

Vicious chuckled, nodding his head. “And how happy do you think they are in my kingdom?”

The snake made a home around my neck. I worked a lump down my throat as I felt the cold scales start suffocating me. “Why are you doing this?”

“Here is where the end sets off the beginning. Where life comes to rest just to start over.”

“So you’re killing me?” I scoffed, tilting my head back while the fat snake kept me in place.

“Everything happens at once,” he repeated yet again, making me even more confused. The magic changed, it lowered my body until my toes touched the marble and the snakes relaxed their hold.

“Death is not supposed to have a soul. I’m a thing created by beliefs. I shouldn’t have a mate,” he said as one by one the snakes disappeared.

My hand reached my neck when it was finally free, the relief making me sigh when I couldn’t feel the animal anymore.

“You’re not a thing,” I said in a small voice.

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