Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
I open my eyes, surprised to see the sphere glowing brighter and brighter, the light still soft and glowing, but with growing intensity. Soon the brightness eclipses the sphere, so that it’s no longer visible, and the dirt floor turns from black to white. Rays of golden light start spreading across the cell, eradicating everything until the only things visible are me and Death.
I keep his hand pressed to my face and look around us. It’s like we’re no longer in a room at all, just a place of light that stretches on forever. And yet there’s nothing scary about this place. It’s comforting. It feels…like home.
I’m dead. I must be dead. But this can’t be Oblivion…
Death’s fingertips suddenly press into my skin.
I gasp and gape down at him.
His eyelids are fluttering.
Oh my god!
“This can’t be real,” I whisper.
“You’re telling me,” he says, his eyes focused on his bare hand, the way he’s touching my skin. “How am I able to do this?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Are we dead?”
He gives me a soft smile. “Does it matter?”
I smile back. It honestly doesn’t. If this is death, if it’s us together in a peaceful light, then I don’t know what there’s ever been to fear. Maybe this is the true death, one that lies beyond the city and the stars. Maybe this is the death for Gods.
“You’re alive,” I say, a tear spilling down my cheek. A tear of happiness, of relief.
“Maybe,” he says. “I don’t remember much, I was just not here and….now here I am.” He frowns, trying to recall. “But I know what happened to me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. “I failed. I wasn’t able to stop—”
“Shhh,” he says, placing a gloved finger against my lips. Then he frowns and rips the glove off, tossing it away until it disappears into the light. He runs his bare thumb over my lips, his eyes glittering with satisfaction. “Always wanted to do that.”
“You can do more than that,” I tell him. I climb on top of him, straddling him, pulling the burnt dress off until I’m naked. He doesn’t ask questions about why it’s burnt; in fact, he doesn’t say much at all. I think now, in this existence, there isn’t much to say anymore.
We only have to be.
And we want to be with each other.
Like someone kept in the dark who sees the light for the first time, Tuoni runs his bare hands all over my body. Slowly, tenderly, soaking in every inch of me. He does this like he’s memorizing each section of skin so he can recall it later.
“This is more than Amaranthus,” he whispers to me, voice low and full of awe. “This is something I never thought was possible. The greatest gift.”
“But are we really dead?” I ask again as he runs his hands over my breasts, focusing now on giving me pleasure.
“Does it really matter?” he repeats, giving me a wicked grin before sliding his fingers between my thighs. “Fuck me, Hanna,” he says gently. “My wife.”
He doesn’t have to ask me twice. Even though we’re lying in this white glowing space of nothing, I undo his pants, finding him hard, and glide him inside me.
I moan, gasp, move my hips on top of him, finding a slow and gentle rhythm.
“I love you,” I say quietly, the words feeling like raindrops in the desert. “I know we might be dead, but I had to tell you that I love you.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I don’t care. He doesn’t love easily. I have to earn it. I didn’t get a chance to while I was alive, but he earned my love. And love is love. As long as it’s there, that’s all that matters. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that we’re even given a chance to love at all.
“I heard you, before,” he says eventually.
I laugh as he thrusts up into me, his beautiful bare hands holding onto my hips. “You could have woken up sooner.”
“I was waiting,” he says. “To see what you would become.”
“What do you mean?” I glance down at him through my hair that’s fallen over on my face. “Were you not dead?”
“I was dead. You brought me back to life.”
His grip on my hip tightens, moving me back and forth.
“Fuck me,” he says again. “Let yourself feel, little bird. Spread your wings.”
I close my eyes to the encompassing light and throw my head back, letting myself feel everything as I grind down onto him, moving together in synchrony. It feels like we are one, that we are melding into each other, fusing into each other’s skin, and I honestly can’t say where we are separate.
And in all the shallow breaths, in our hearts which I know are beating in sync, in this melding of the bodies, of the souls, there’s a heat inside me that’s building. It’s not the sexual heat—that’s been simmering for a while—but it’s something else. Something pure and bright and powerful. I felt it before, though I can’t place when, and when I try to pinpoint it, it shifts.