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The full force of his body charges into the air. There’s no way my muscles and chains will be enough. Paranoid about falling, I grow Halo spikes right from my nails, my golden claws, to burrow into his back. His roaring growl rumbles deep into my core, lacing a nightmare around my spine. Thanatos’ veins turn to hoarfrost, muscles like icebergs, body as hard and cold as a diamond.
Thanatos swings his arm, overlapping the screams of those wraiths. His magisterial force rockets into me, paralyzing me. I hear the swinging of chains, of blades, of bones splitting. His shrill Reaper howls dim my Halo light and chill my soul blood, even rouse the symbolic serpents around my heart.
Then, a sharp exhale of wraith breath drifts upon my form as Thanatos’ outer robe is flung from him. No, I choke, I whimper from the wraith discovering me.
“Death, Death! Oh, he will long to meet her!” screeches the wraith. It billows around me, hovering but not encroaching. I clench my eyes to the breath of the wraith creeping up my spine like a nightmare. “No, no, you will not cheat him, our Soul-Eater!”
All of Thanatos hardens like a fortress. With a mighty swing, he carves the wraith in two, shattering its carrion bones to matter crumbs. My eyes make the fatal mistake of lifting, of rising. Now, I willneverforget the sight of his Reaper! An intoxicating fear, one of awe and respect and wonder, rips through me at the sight of that impregnable Death skull of fathomless black orbs—as if he houses a million Chasms. Strips of tattered skin seal his mouth shut. Black crystals grow from his neck like macabre tree branches.
My limbs weaken. It’s the first time I’ve ever desired to fall to my knees. It’s the first time I’ve held my breath longer than ever. It’s the first time I’ve prayed more than ever. And yet, even when those black Chasms devour me, threatening to destroy me for my curiosity, somehow, I still cannot look away!
Chapter15
“Return to my brother and fulfill your true purpose!”
“Itold you not to look,” admonishes Thanatos as he lowers me into his bed. My soul feels weaker than ever.
“I saw you,” I confess, rubbing my lips together and nestling into his bed of dark roses.
“A part of me,” Thanatos utters but does not depart from my bedside.
“I sawthem!” I raise my hand to his face, fingers imparting a light caress. Thanatos recoils as if I’ve stung him with the reminder of the scars etched all over that Reaper skull: undeniable and incontrovertible, those scars, thosebrandswere the most predominant parts of his skull. “You had flames once, Thanatos.” My skin tingles from the knowledge to raise all the fine hairs on my body.
When he stands to turn his back to me, I sit up straight and curl my knees to my chest, spreading my cheek onto them. If he senses the pangs in my chest, he doesn’t raise the subject. Without turning, Thanatos hangs his Reaper robe on the hook jutting out from the wall while his frost spreads like the roots of some great tragedy…or is it such a tragedy after all?
Back tightening, Thanatos professes, “You must return, Elysia. And you cannot come back to the Soul Plane for quite some time.”
I stiffen.What?“Why?”
“More wraiths will come. As my brother would state, I must thin out the population.” Thanatos sighs, clenching his hands into fists so hard, they turn ghost-white. Ice blades stab the air right between his fingers. Then, he inclines one side of his face toward me, exhibiting those strong clifftop cheekbones. “They won’t stop hunting you.”
“Why?”
Thanatos heaves a sigh and rubs his forehead. “Because I owe a debt to the Soul Eater. And he would use you to force me to pay his price. I will never allow that to happen.”
“So, I’m just supposed to go back and deal with Destructionallthe time?” I snap, not understanding because I should desire more time with Neo, more opportunities to reclaim his heart. Instead, I lower my hands to my stomach, which churns, nauseous at the idea of forsaking the Prince with his ice roses and Reaper skull.
“You have everything you need to win him back,” Thanatos states before turning, but his shoulders curl inward, dropping in defeat.
I clutch the halo ring at my neck where I house Neo’s soul, but I doubt Thanatos’ words. If it’s true…why can’t I sense Neo here with me? Why can’t I feel him when I touch that ring? Why doesn’t it smolder or kindle upon my soul skin as it used to? Emotion rises in my throat, but I swallow it back down, shove it deeper because I’m not ready to return to Neo, to deal with Destruction. Why does his ring feel sofrozen?
Slowly, stepping over the frost quills gathering around the bed, I approach Thanatos from behind. More than ever, I am drawn to him, tempted to this specter of my soul. As if Neo is slipping away like that ‘Hope’ is flying away like the Poe poem Death and I share. As if Neo’s lovely, dark, and deep evanesces before the throne of Thanatos. I thread my brows low, narrowing my eyes in suspicion. What has this Prince done to me?
When I touch the robes at his back, sliding them down his spine, Thanatos tears around and seizes my wrist just like…likeNeo! My chest hitches. All the butterflies in my belly somersault. He blinks, betraying himself before that hand retreats.
Instead, he lifts his fingers to my jawline to trace frost patterns along the skin and warns me, “Donottouch me.”
I arch my neck. While glaring at him, my Halo light responds to the rising heat of my anger. It careens from my chest to shoot darts right at his hand, nipping at his skin and pointing out his hypocrisy. With a shake of his head, Thanatos removes his hand, flexing his fingers. “That’s different.”
“Why? You touch meallthe time!” I protest, curling my hand around my lower back, hiding the clenched fist.
“But never feel.”
Oh, Saints!
I gasp. Knees weakening, I close the distance between us. Golden streams fly from my heart, forming three-stranded ropes to weave around him and draw him closer to me. Gazing up at his face, at his snow-flower skin, at his hair dark as Nevermore ravens, at his gold galaxy dream within nebulous haze dream eyes, I ever so carefully raise my hand. It trembles when I feather my fingers across his cheek, when I settle my palm there like a caress to his soul, igniting all his silver veins to the surface. Like threads of moonlight. He’s consuming me with wonder. Tears glisten in my eyes.
“Death cannotfeel?”
