Between the Moon and Her Night (Between Life and Death #3)

Chapter 12

Aurelia

S omething wrapped around my ankles, crushing them together, and then the world was yanked out from underneath me. I landed with a wet smack on the drenched soil, the air shooting out from my lungs as my mouth filled with bits of mud. The side of my face and body were plastered in it. I spat out the gritty, soggy texture, strings of spittle slinging over my bottom lip and dripping down over my chin. Wheezing, I jerked my head to the side, looking to see what was locked around my ankles—

A chain, stronger than iron, forged from shadow.

Awkwardly, I kicked my legs, as best as one could when they were hogtied like a damn animal. It didn’t budge.

I traced the chain back to Death, his hand held out in front of him, holding on to the bonds. Black, impenetrable eyes were fixed on me, shadowed by his wet, dark hair. Lightning struck behind him, etching out his masculine silhouette. Every bit of his towering, warrior-derived frame looked menacing. Terrifying .

A nightmare brought to life, come to possess me.

To own me.

“Do you know what your first mistake was?” he grunted as he started to pull on the chain, tugging me towards him, through the mud. “You should have slit my throat when I gave you the chance.”

Scrambling, I clawed at the doughy, slippery ground, trying to grab hold of anything that would give me a bit of leverage. A rock. A root. Anything.

Panic rode me hard as I realized my time was running out. Once Death got a hold of me, he would take me back to the Spirit Realm against my will, forcing me to make good on our deal, forcing me to become his bride.

Water gathered at my fingertips, and I forged it into a dagger. With both hands, I drove the blade into the ground, all the way to the hilt, and for a second, it was enough.

The pulling stopped. The chain slackened.

“And do you know what your second mistake was?” Death purred in his rich timbre, his voice so deep I felt it in places it had no business being right now. Damn him . “Thinking you could outrun me.”

The chain tightened, my blade snapped, and he dragged me backwards as I thrashed like a fish out of water. When I was within his grasp, he flipped me onto my back. Muscular thighs, forged from steel, locked my legs in place, while his massive hands grabbed my wrists and shackled them above my head.

Death straddled me in the mud as the sky fought above us.

“You are such an asshole,” I seethed, fighting against his unbreakable hold, my chest heaving from exertion.

He smirked at that, as if he took pleasure in it. His wickedly sharp fangs poked out from his top lip, and I was reminded that I was trapped underneath an ancient predator—chiseled with muscle, adorned in ink—temptation and danger all wrapped into one.

Every inch of him was lethal.

Seductive .

His black lashes lowered as he raked his gaze over me, his lips parting and his tongue rolling and pressing against his bottom row of perfect teeth. Slowly, his eyes lifted to mine, pinning me there. “Do you want to know what your third mistake was?”

“Not really,” I said, adrenaline coursing through my veins. The kind that made my skin feel flush. The kind that made my heart stampede with anticipation.

“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m going to tell you anyway.” He licked his lips as if he were savoring the last remnants of a meal he had just finished. He sucked the bottom one, tugging his teeth across it for good measure, as if he couldn’t get enough, and then said with a low, sexy groan, “You kissed me back, Kitten.”

“It was a mistake.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

He brought his mouth to mine, close enough I could taste the word. “Liar.”

A shiver skittered across my bones, all the way down to my desperate, traitorous core.

I breathed deeply, inhaling his amber and sandalwood scent, made sweet with the addition of his ichor, all of it somehow still present even though he was drenched from the rain. We both were.

A crack of thunder sounded, charging the air with electricity.

Or maybe that was just us.

“Do you want to know what I think?” he said, pulling back, just a little.

“What?” I asked, my lungs suddenly short on air as I peered up into his eyes, spellbound by those starless pools of divine obsidian. I should have been out of my mind with fear. The God of Death, the ruthless Blood King who was feared by all, had me in a state of submission with my wrists locked above my head and my ankles bound in his chain.

But right now? I wasn’t afraid—

I was aching . For his touch. For him.

All of him.

“I think that you like running from me, that you want me to chase you, to capture you, and force you to submit—to show you that you are the epitome of my desire, because that was something he never did. I think that you want to be conquered by me, but you are terrified of what that will mean . . . of what will be left of you.” His thumb tugged my bottom lip to the side. “Tell me I’m wrong.” He released it.

“You are.” My voice cracked, snapping the lie in half.

He leaned in, hovering his mouth over mine, his proximity taunting, driving me wild. “Then tell me to stop.”

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t tell him to stop because I didn’t want him to.

So I did the very thing I had been dying to do for decades now—

I kissed the insufferable, sexy bastard.