For a moment, I anticipated him taking a step closer, to close the gap that was erect between us, the wall I’d built and that he had enforced. Instead, he stepped away, his dark eyes momentarily flitting toward the bed, then to the corner of the room. It was as if he was deciding, weighing something, before he moved toward the wardrobe.
"I—um... I’ll grab another quilt.” He scratched the back of his neck, his voice suddenly tight. His usual certainty was gone, replaced with a strange hesitation that didn’t belong to him.
I blinked, the sound of his footsteps on the floor pulling me back into the present. For a split second, I thought it was absurd.Death, this force of nature, this man who never seemed rattled, who controlled every moment of our interactions, was... nervous?
“Grim,” I said softly, and the sound of my voice seemed to break the tension hanging in the air. “It’s alright.” I didn’t know what possessed me, but before I could second-guess myself, I took his hand in mine, the coolness of his skin, as familiar as it was unsettling, grounding me.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, as if he hadn’t expected me to move.
I didn’t stop there. I tugged him gently, urging him to sit beside me. The bed felt large, too large with the space between us.
“Let’s just… stay here.” My heart raced at his nearness, but I was unwilling to pull away now.
I could feel him tense, he was ready to withdraw, but instead, I climbed into the bed, curling up on the side where the sheets were still untouched, and waited.
There was a slight relaxation in his posture. His hand, still gently in mine, wasn’t pulling back. He paused, allowing the moment to unfold, unsure whether to follow me into the small, intimate space I had made.
The storm’s thunder shook the windows, but it felt quieter now, less menacing. And despite the tension, despite the storm still raging outside, I could almost hear him breathe a sigh.
“I’m not sure what to make of this,” he finally muttered.
And in that quiet moment, he laid down beside me, his body still radiating warmth, but the room felt different. Not cold. Not distant.
Just new.
It was a start.
twenty-four
Grim
Icould feel the soft rise and fall of her breath beside me, the echo of it somehow deeper than the storm outside.
It was odd, our proximity. Strange in a way that unsettled something deep inside me, something I had buried long ago,far too long ago, until it resurfaced and began to gnaw at me once more.
Her face softened under the moonlight that filtered through the window and her breath was steady, but beneath it all I could feel the faintest tremor in her, a hint of the nightmare that had pulled her from the depths of sleep not long ago. I’d felt her fear. Her pulse had quickened when the storm rattled the walls of the cottage, and she pulled away from me as though instinctively knowing the dangers of the night. But now? Now she was calm, her body relaxed under the heavy blanket.
For a moment, I almost wished I could sleep like that too. Without the endless ticking of time in my head, without the knowledge that I would never truly rest.
I had no use for sleep or for dreams. I had no use for any of this. For the food, drink, clothes, the house and its things, the bounds of human consciousness. I could shake it off, just as easy as the rain that would be swept away by the soft autumn sun.
This form was conjured, by my hand, if only to appease her, and to comfort those I had to ferry.
I picked it for myself the moment I saw her in the middle of the road, and she’d caused my brow to furrow in wonder. My judgment was clouded the day that I met her. She was nothing like I had ever encountered before, or envisioned. What is Death supposed to do with a mortal who defies the natural law of things? She was…is, an anomaly.
And yet…
I swallowed hard, adjusting my position slightly as if the shift would lessen the pull in my chest.
I shouldn’t be this close. This was too much.
But there she was, near enough that I could almost feel the warmth of her skin bleeding into mine. It made everything inside me tighten, that strange knot forming in my gut.
I had no right to feel this. No right to want her. To wantanythingabout her, or to covet what she had. What she was…
Mortality. Love.Finality.
It was such an absurd thought, one I never allowed myself to indulge in. And yet, there it was, impossible to ignore—she might be my one chance.
