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“Or more foolish.”
“Maybe. They do say love makes fools of mortals, don’t they?”
Something foreign rippled through him, agitating the darkness within. He’d been plagued over time with ridiculous people claiming to love him. People who had fawned over him, idolized him, tried to shape his image into something it was not, and never would be. They’d cast their lives at his feet, promising things they had no right to, willing to sacrifice themselves to a being they had no comprehension of, all because they were obsessed with romanticizing him.
But he didn’t get those vibes from Lara. Her actions, her words, weren’t fanatic. She seemed rational, in control of her thoughts and feelings, but evidently her heart was confused about who its mate was.
“Oh, grumpy face is back,” she muttered, stretching seductively. “Don’t get your impressive cock in a knot. My feelings are my own, and I’m perfectly capable of dealing with them. I’ve spent the last twenty years doing just that.”
Frowning, Seth tilted his head. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“It’s not illegal to fall in love with Death,” she replied with an eye roll. “Although I guess, technically, if you’re not a human being as defined within the law, then what we’re doing here is probably some sort of felony.”
“I’m not human.”
“Didn’t think so, not with the crowbar you’re packing under that suit. What classification do you fall under? Angel, seraphim? Oooh, do you have wings?”
“I believe you’re thinking of the angel of death.”
“Jesus, they’ve got Grim Reapers and angels of death running around?”
“The Grim Reaper,” he corrected yet again, a little absent-mindedly as he processed exactly what this turn of events meant. “The angel of death is just another reflection of how humanity sees me. Apparently, immortal beings with wings swooping down from the sky at the moment of a person’s death are more comforting than little old me, holding their hand as they—”
Shit, he’d nearly said too much.
“Little old you is pretty intimidating.” Lara’s hand lifted, brushing over his shoulder, then stroking down his arm to curl her fingers around his wrist. “When I saw you in the crowd and I realized who you were waiting for, there was a moment when I thought I’d need a new pair of panties.”
“That scary, am I?” Seth grunted in displeasure.
“Death tends to be a scary experience from what I can gather, but it was more of a two-prong reaction. I’m not ready to die, so there was that instant of Oh fuck, my time has come, and then there was the Oh my God, how can he be more gorgeous than the last time I saw him line of thought.”
He sighed. “Attraction doesn’t equal love, Ms. Townsend.”
“No, that’s true, but it does make a solid stepping stone toward it, and I took that step several years ago. I mean, yeah, it’s not traditional love, but why should that change my feelings? I don’t know what your favorite food is, or if you even eat. Your taste in music might be stuck in the baroque era, you might not have seen a movie since they were first invented. I don’t care. I was taught to listen what goes on in here,” she said fiercely, tapping her knuckles against her chest, then her temple, “and here. Heart has to trump head, because it is pure and untainted by the constricts of society.”
Unsettled, Seth rolled off the bed and began to pace, leaving her naked on his duvet. What would it be like to come back here to her whenever he liked? He could refuse to take her back to the mortal plane, he could deny any and all demands to end her life, and just…hold her prisoner.
A willing prisoner, but this would be her prison in its entirety.
Four walls, eternal loneliness.
“I can’t keep you. It would be cruel and unfair.”
“Life is cruel and unfair, you just have to get on with it. Do you feel anything for me, aside from the curiosity that comes with fucking a human, or is sex the only appealing quality we have?”
It was more than sex, and they both knew it. What she inspired him to feel was…he didn’t have words. He’d never experienced a connection with another lifeform that came close to what vibrated between them, and he didn’t know how to proceed. There was an ache in his chest when he thought about watching her leave, a gaping hole that hadn’t existed until she crashed into his solitary existence.
Once a soul passed from his care into the next level of existence, there was no calling it back. Some made the choice to remain trapped in the ether between planes, haunting places and people, staying behind until their unfinished business concluded. Others were special, granted permission to return for incredibly brief visits for reasons he didn’t know.
All he knew for certain was that as soon as Lara’s soul ascended, she would forever be out of his reach, and he wasn’t ready for that gaping hole to widen, for the emptiness in his life to return.
How could he return to the dark when she’d shown him—in a matter of hours—what it meant to live in the light of her soul?
Bypassing the question, he ran his fingers through his hair and sank himself deeper into the complexity of his situation. “What’s your favorite food?”
Surprise flashed over her pretty face. “Ah…well, there’s a recipe for beef and barley soup which has been passed down the maternal line of my family for a few generations. I guess that tops my list.”
“Soup?”
