I let my scythe hang in the water while, with care, I secured the soul—a red one—in my hourglass. Then I descended to collect the next soul—pink in hue.
That soul would go into the White Basin—same as Helena’s.
Helena’s had been a rare yellow—the same bold shade as daffodils, those little flowers that so defiantly confronted the lingering breath of winter in those first days of spring.
I collected yellow souls perhaps once in a century—they were always Fated, and always, they went to White.
I’d notseenHelena’s color so much as I’d felt it—perceived it—sensing it similarly to how one might taste brightness in food. Yellow might not have a taste, but pineapple did, and Helena’s soul had felt like that, too—sweet in essence but also sharp enough at its core to sting.
I’d enjoyed that faint burn too much, and the resulting steam had not been expected, either.
While Helena’s beauty had been something I’d noted nearly the moment I’d set eyes on her, I hadn’t dwelled on it or even paid her appearance a second thought.
I encountered beautiful women every day, on the hour even, and I’d secured the souls of too many to count.
Helena hadn’t been any different. Not until she’d spoken to me…
That fucking smile was why I was where I was now—why she was where she was.
In my house. On my couch. Safe but still doomed.
That night on the balcony, she hadn’t seen my face. Didn’t know that I looked like every man does when he’s been dead for long enough. Yet she’d still expressed interest in me.
True, she hadn’t realized I was an entity of literal death, but then, for all she’d known, I could have been anyone.
She’d still smiled at me.
Asked me out…
It hadn’t helped, either, that everything she’d said had resonated—that, even if in her mind she’d been joking, so many of her words about who and what I was still rang true.
She had not seen me. But, at the same time, she also had…
I secured the final soul, but I lingered in the depths, my normally empty skull full of brine—and thoughts.
Of her.
And that was why I couldn’t yet bring myself to return to her.
After laying her on the couch, I’d watched her sleep for far too long, my gaze tracing the curve of her cheek, dwelling on the shape of her lips before following the swell of her hip.
I was quite literally a monster, and my thoughts had no business trespassing on the reprehensible territory they now dared to venture into.
I’d taken an oath not to interfere—in any way—with the lives of the living.
Aside from that, my soul, which belonged entirely to my stationand to the Hallowed Halls, certainly had no right to yearn for another taste of hers.
Hadn’t I horrified the poor woman enough already?
Our relationship was strictly one of business—because it had to be.
I was not human and had not been for a very long time.
Therefore, I could no longer permit myself to take my human form in her presence—or even at all. Doing so only enticed me to behave like a human—to think like one.
Desirelike one.
And neither Helena nor I needed the torment that would bring.
