I smiled, clutching his neck, pressing my face into the space between his collar and jaw. “Yours.”
Continuing down the hall, Grim kicked his door open. "You will explain," he growled. "Later."
I inhaled the scent of him, letting it flood my senses. It was sharp and biting, the oleander clung to the back of my throat like memory—burnt salt stinging my nose.
When I was a girl, my mother used to sprinkle salt across the threshold of our front door, convinced it would ward off evil spirits. I thought she was foolish then. My grandmother would smile softly and say,"It costs nothing to let someone find their peace."
But that keen-edged, almost acrid scent stuck with me. When I met Death, it annoyed me how much he smelled exactly as I'd imagined, as if every nightmare and every haunted story had been about him. But now it wasn’t rage that clawed at me.
It washim.
All the softness he'd hidden for a century.
All the pieces of him I never thought I'd be allowed to touch.
For the first time in my endless life, I wasgratefulfor it.
I didn't want it to end.
With a snap of his fingers, the blood and sweat vanished from our clothes. His skin smelled clean, fresh, like rain on a blade of grass. He set his forehead against mine as he carried me to the bed, setting me down gently, as if the moment between us was pulled taut—threatening to unravel.
"I've always known you were otherworldly," he said, voice roughened by something too big for words.
"Like you.”
"Like me." He kissed the curve of my neck, lingering there, breathing me in. "Stay here," he murmured, as if I could ever leave.
Grim crossed the room to his desk, opened a low drawer, and pulled out a small box wrapped in worn red velvet. Kneeling before me, he opened it. Inside, nestled against the velvet, was a single charm: small, intricate, shining.
"Happy birthday, Astoria. I know I once wished you'd never celebrate another... but that was my own selfishness speaking."
His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for the necklace tucked safely between my breasts.
"I don't want your firsts," he said, the words agonized. "I want your lasts. Your last kiss, your last laugh, your last life… your last breath.”
My breath hitched as his skin brushed mine, he took the charm, holding it to the gentle stream of light from the lamp in the corner. A star was engraved on the front, the top and bottom points reaching toward the edge. A small diamond rested at the center.
His eyes found mine as he added the charm to my necklace, resting beside the hour glass—beside his sigil.
“You’ve tortured me for over a century. Stealing my attention. Harboring my time and duty. My thoughts, my existence… my love.”
Tears once again pricked at my eyes. “You love me?”
“Have I not made that completely obvious?”
My hands wrung nervously in my lap, my focus falling to them.
Grim’s fingers slid under my chin, coaxing my gaze back to his. "I love you, Astoria Devlin Tempest," he said, his voice roughened by something vast and uncontainable. "With everything I am, and for all I wish I was. I am not good, nor will I ever be, but I cannot resist you any longer."
Tears burned the corners of my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me. “I love you, Grim," I spoke fiercely. "My soul’s tainted just the same. You do not—this does not scare me."
"It should," he admitted, the words barely audible over the wild beating of my heart. His nose brushed mine, and then I caught his lips with my own. Sealing our pledge, with a heart-searing kiss.
It wasn’t enough. It wouldneverbe enough. Our kisses grew frantic, drowning in the rush of something vast and inevitable. We were a cocoon of fevered touches and ragged breath, all the longing and tension of a century tearing loose at once. Grim’s hand hovered at the hem of my shirt—tentative, reverent. He pressed a kiss into the crook of my neck, murmuring praise against my skin. I bent into him, desperate to be closer, to carve this feeling into bone.
Slowly, carefully, he lifted my shirt over my arms and head. His torn shirt followed, then our pants, left forgotten in a trail across the floor.
I set my trembling hand against my racing heart. Grim's hand covered mine, steadying it, steadyingme, his fingers grazing the curve of my bare breast in a touch so reverent it made me shudder.
