Oh no he fucking didn’t. What didn’t hurt before, suddenly roared to life with pain.
I smacked one of the bars by his head with an open palm. The strike of the cold, hard steel felt good in contrast to the heat of my anger. “You sonofabitch. How dare you say that to a widow.”
The god seemed unphased. “I wasn’t implying he should be deprived of your wonderful company. I simply meant I am envious of his situation.”
Before I could further comment on the inappropriateness of his demeanor, he asked. “How did he pass to the Afterlife?”
The way he phrased it struck me. Since learning Grim was god of the dead, I knew invisible reaper dogs fetched the souls of the dead and transported them to the afterlife. Which meant that’s where Rashon went. It was both comforting and unnerving to know that now.
I stuck my chin up. “He died on foreign soil, serving his country.”
“A hero’s death then,” Xander said bitterly.
“What is your goddamn problem?” How dare he make light of the sacrifice my husband made, of the sacrifice his family had to endure?
Xander’s body seemed to fill the space around him, and I wasn’t quite sure if it was his physical body or his power doing it. “My problem is I have no such luxury as your late husband. My problem is I am stuck in this prison.”
My gaze naturally went to the bars.
“Not that prison, sweetheart.” He gave me a humorless grin. Trailing his hand over the open wounds of his chest, they traveled down the pronounced muscles of his abdomen before his thumb hooked into the edge of his pants. “This prison.”
While he was making a rather gruesome point, I couldn’t help but follow the track of his hand too closely. The front of his slacks dipped under his thumb, exposing a vee of muscle that led to his groin.
His ‘prison’ stirred things in me. Things that threatened my good sense. His lewd suggestions sent them rioting in a way I hadn’t felt for years, and I resented it. I prided myself on good sense. But still, my nerve endings strained, wanting to touch his solid muscle, and take his idea of ‘fun’ for a test ride.
He was oblivious of my sudden shift in mood as his expression darkened with loathing.
“Live a thousand years of power and pain in a cage and let me know what you do then, sweetheart,” he growled.
Instead of acknowledging his point or my sudden arousal, I shot back, “Don’t call me sweetheart.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Again, are you worried about falling in love with me if I call you sweetheart? Afraid you’ll believe youaremy sweetheart.”
I shot back a vicious grin as I pulled Bob out from my duster. “This just makes it all the easier to kill you, beast boy.”
He neared the bars but didn’t press his chest against them like usual. “Beast boy, is it?”
How had our conversation escalated so quickly? Part of me was excited by the way he needled me. Was I always secretly looking for a fight?
Xander puckered his lips and sent me an air kiss. “Then why don’t you just do it, my little badass.”
I couldn’t decide which I hated more: his nickname or the way it made the liquid heat intensify at my center. Bob plunged into the already broken flesh on his chest.
“Wish granted,” I said through bared teeth.
I yanked the blade out, and Xander smiled at me. I couldn’t help but smile back just before he fell and died…again.
As I gathered up my sack lunch, something light and almost whimsical fluttered in my chest. Like a hoard of butterflies taking flight. The heaviness of the day no longer clung to my body or mind. There was satisfaction from a day of hard work that wasn’t there before. From the security work, or killing Xander? That question could fuck a girl up.
But not as much as the excited anticipation I felt at the prospect of killing him tomorrow.
ChapterEight
THE BEAST
When I woke from my temporary death, the smell of bergamot clung to the inside of my nose. For all these years I’d been obsessed with one thing. Death.
But now I had two obsessions.
