AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Stay down!” he bellows, bruising the back of my neck as if trying to erase that sickle mark beneath my curls.
“No!” I thunder right back. Lightning Halo currents bite his hand, causing it a swift retreat.
I’ll rise up every time. I’ll never break. I’ll never stay down.And just as Neo destroys my lightning, I unleash the scream in my head,Noralice!
I welcome that haze and practically dance right into that fabric of reality folding me into its shivery vapors. In a gold flush, I arrive curls gilded, my veins like halcyon, and a gown of a frosted waterfall adorning my person.
How I long for Elysium!…while I fall into Thanatos’ arms.
Chapter11
“If you were mine, I would never allow you to leave my bed…”
“Elysia…” Thanatos whispers.
Peering up, I discover his head furrowed, the upper corners of his brows curving toward one another, not in anger…but fear. It brings a smile to my lips.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I gasp, recognizing how much I’m panting…and gasping.
Rather than merely transferring his frost, this time, Thanatos reaches around me to stroke his icy finger up my spine to chill my nerves. “What happened in that room, Elysia? You let your guard down.”
“I thought I saw…” I lower my head. Because I don’t know what I saw.
Sighing, Thanatos trails his wintertime up to my brain stem, tangling with a few curls. “He was playing you.”
“Like you’re playing me?” I wonder, testing him, feeling my stomach harden as he thumbs his mark.
Thanatos circles the finest hairs of frost patterns along my back. His silver calligraphy has me shivering, but it also slows my breath, calming it until it’s steady and even. I shudder when he shakes his head. “You never require a guard with me. I am Death. You cannot hide from me.”
“Should I run from you?” I press, seeking those golden galaxies, but all that greets me is that nebulous haze mirroring the edges of the Soul Plane. My heart teeters on the edge of a cliff.
Thanatos blinks. Just once. That finger descends from my neck, lowering to travel along my chest until it arrives above my heart, where the Halo is a visible circle of dawn beneath my flesh. I suck one deep breath when Thanatos beds his hand down upon my heart, overlapping the high slope of my breast. And when his other hand cups my chin, featherlight, so I may finally behold those gold constellations, I wonder if I will ever breathe again.
“You may run from me if you desire,” Thanatos sighs, casting his dark rose scent across my face. “But I would follow you to the ends of the Soul Plane, into Limbo itself ten thousand times over to find you and bring you back to me.”
“To Neo…” I correct, treading even as stardust forms on the curves of my body, tempting, tempting, tempting. My pulse thrums quicker, latching onto hope as if…no. Shame lodges in my throat, then plunges into my chest to nullify the flames burning inside me for the wrong brother, the wrong twin. I am not here for Death.
All Thanatos offers is a nod, hand retreating from my heart. As my heart sinks, a deeper shame almost has me choking.
Distracting myself with something, anything, I move toward any subject I can. “Why did the beekeeper…Pan, you called him, he said something—”
Dark mist swallows his gold irises. “What did he say?”
“He said you lost your flames. And that’s why you have breath of frost. What does that mean? This place is not what I expected either.”
Thanatos groans and turns his back to me. “What did you expect? A volcano and geysers spewing lava?”
I shrug and curl my fingers to my lower back, remembering that icy touch. “Does it have something to do with me?” When Thanatos flicks his head toward me, a flicker of gold sparking in his eyes, I know I’ve touched a nerve. Breath catching in my chest, I swing my hands to my sides, open palms beseeching. “Please give me something, Natos. The one standing before me now isnotthe one I spoke to in that Tower. Is this just some mask?”
Something like a low snarl buds in Thanatos’ throat. I flinch because I do fear him. I respect him. I’m in damn awe of him. Our dynamic is completely different than mine and Neo’s. I always wanted to conquer Neo in some way, bring him to his knees. But every time I face Thanatos, I want to sink to my knees before him. I don’t need to show him everything. He’s already reaped my greatest, darkest secrets. Now, I simply want his.
Thanatos sends frost to bristle along the floor around me, creating patterns of tiny crystal spikes like…thorns. “No, Elysia,” he responds while I kneel and touch my finger to one of the thorns, pricking the tip so a trickle of gold light spills. “My twin of Destruction wears masks. I am Death. I have no mask. I wear the souls of time, and my soul must be strong enough to house them all.”
“Even mine?” I flip my curls over my shoulders.
“No. I could never hold yours.” He sets his teeth and winces, growing the crystals so they form a frost wall around me. I cast my Halo light into them, and they react like a prism to scatter rainbow ribbons all over the room. “These brief momentary encounters arepuretorture.”
“Why?”
