Page 42 of The Deathless One (The Gravesinger #1)

The first time she died, Jessamine remembered waking up to no more pain. That had been part of why she had so readily agreed to do whatever he wanted her to do.

She remembered the fall so clearly. The pain in her throat and the blood that streamed into the air like her favorite red scarf for winter.

And more than that, she remembered the pain in her heart at the loss of everyone she loved.

Physical and emotional pain had wrapped up into one demon that clawed in her chest and tried to force its way out through the wound in her neck.

But in her faint memory of this dark, dreamless place, she hadn’t felt so awful. For a brief moment, she had been calm. Quiet. Serene. All she could remember was relief, and then his voice. A melody cajoling her to make a deal.

All the awful bits of life fell away in the Deathless One’s realm. All of it. She could let herself go. Let the pain of her life disappear in the moments that followed.

This time, she took the pain that came after death.

Waking with a gasp, she felt her heart thundering in her chest and an ache in her body so sharp she could barely breathe through it.

There was a wound in her side that hadn’t healed in the slightest. It still hurt, so much so that she was blinded with pain.

Her jaw ached. Loose teeth from the punch still wiggled when she rolled her tongue over the bleeding wound in her mouth.

They’d only had to stab her once. An embarrassingly small number of times, and even the men seemed to know it. They’d punched her once. Stabbed her once. And then left her there to fend for herself.

The darkness around her undulated with anger.

She could feel the rage in it. And this anger didn’t come from Elric.

From the Deathless One. This anger was from a completely different being or creature, although it felt surprisingly familiar.

She thought, perhaps, this anger stemmed from the source of his power.

Because it had the same flavor of danger that he did when he was angry. But so, so much worse.

“Jessamine!” The call rang out through the darkness, and suddenly he was on his knees beside her again, falling into the liquid of this place and soaking the legs of his pants, which were far too fine to be kneeling in inky fluid. And yet, he didn’t seem to notice.

His arms scooped her up, drawing her into his lap as he ran his hands down her sides as though he was trying to find all the wounds on her.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, wincing as the wound on her side throbbed with her heartbeat. “Or mostly fine.”

“This is much more difficult the second time. I hope you realize that,” he growled as he ran his hands down her sides again. “It shouldn’t have been so difficult to find you. I lost you, nightmare.”

“Apparently I just show up wherever I want.” Her joke fell on deaf ears.

Elric frowned down at the blood still coating her torso. More of it poured out of her, no matter how hard she pressed on it. “You shouldn’t be able to bleed in the shadow realm.”

“Well, I definitely am.”

“It’s impossible.”

“It’s not like I’m trying to—”

He interrupted her with another grumbling growl before reaching into the shadows of his chest, pulling until a thread of darkness ripped off him, a bit of his magic for her to use, just like all the other creatures in his life.

She’d thought perhaps it would look like a leech. But no, instead, it was just a thread.

He had pulled on the loom of fate and held out a way to tie them together even more than they already were.

Jessamine was the fool who grabbed on.

She let the magic coil around her finger as she pulled it toward her wound.

Together, they watched as she gently laid the black thread over the angry gash on her side.

The magic wriggled underneath her skin, eerily seeming like an invisible hand stitching her back together, and immediately she felt the pain ease.

“Oh,” she moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head at the sudden relief. “That is so much better.”

Silence rang louder than thunder. When she focused on him again, she watched a hungry gaze that roved over her entire form.

“Again,” Elric growled.

This time, she didn’t hesitate when he reached out a thread for her to take.

She placed it on her jaw, feeling the ache disappear and seeing the healing in the reflection of his eyes.

She had no more hurts to heal, but he still held out another.

Then another. Threads that should have felt like chains wrapping around her wrists, but she couldn’t view them as that.

They were a woven armor that she fastened on, strand by strand. An armor he created to protect her.

Even if he couldn’t keep her safe in the realm of the living, at least until she broke down and summoned him, she knew he would do so here.

In his arms. Newly alive and burning under his heated gaze as he stared at her like she was his reason for being.

“Elric?” she whispered. “It was worse the second time.”

“What was?”

“Dying.”

Those dark eyes met hers, a little too serious and a little too heartbreaking. He had known. At the very last moment she’d seen the absolute anguish in his expression.

And yet, he had still disappeared. Leaving her to die alone in an alleyway for the second time.

“Why?” she asked, her voice cracking around the word.

She didn’t know what she was asking. Why had he left? She knew the answer to that. He’d already explained it. If he hadn’t come back here, then she would have died for real. Why had it hurt? Well, it was death. Of course it hurt.

But he blew out a long breath, and his fingers spasmed against her back.

“Everyone has to die alone, nightmare. No god can stand with you at the end, no matter how devout a worshipper you are. It’s just you, and the end.

None of us, no god or goddess, can ever understand what that feels like.

We will never die and go wherever it is you go. And you always will.”

The words punched her in the gut.

Don’t get too close, because he was always going to live, and she was always going to die.

“But I didn’t die,” she whispered. “Twice now.”

He blew out a long sigh, then touched their foreheads together. “A dead woman walking is not the same as a living one, Jessamine.”

With that, Elric helped her up, making certain she was comfortable, reaching for her waist when she was a little wobbly. Every bit of him a gentleman, but she felt the way his hand spasmed at her hip, like the shape of her body made him want to cling and linger.

Her mind screamed that she’d almost died.

Her body wanted, no, needed, to remember what it felt like to breathe, to live, to feel.

Her body remembered that the world existed, and he was right here in front of her.

His broad chest moved with each breath, those lips full and slightly scowling, the sharp edge of his jaw so tempting to bite.

It wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t the appropriate reaction either.

Jessamine knew she should say thank you to this deathless god who had given her life for a second time.

She also knew her restoration was entirely self-serving on his part.

He didn’t love her. That wasn’t why he’d saved her life. Elric needed her to stay alive.

But she still stepped closer and pressed her lips to his. She still kissed him, clinging to his shirt with both hands and leaning into him a little too hard. Because he was her savior. A hero in her story, even if he was the villain in everyone else’s.

He froze beneath her touch for a moment, like he’d been struck by lightning.

A deep groan echoed in his throat and his hands tightened at her waist. Then suddenly he was everywhere.

His hands brushing up and down her back, digging into her muscles and dragging her flush against him, the hard bar of his cock pressed against her belly, proving that indeed a god was far more well-endowed than a mere man.

And as he pulled her closer, rocking himself against her, every inch of her body turned to liquid fire.

She ached between her legs. She needed to feel, to touch, to taste. Something stirred inside of her. A wanton, wild, wicked creature who knew what she wanted and desired to take it.

A witch , she realized.

His kiss had finally awakened the witch within.

“You orphic creature,” he whispered against her lips, his tongue swiping before he sucked her lower lip hard enough to hurt. “You are bitter and intoxicating, like the most divine absinthe. I stain your skin with every touch, and gods forgive me, I’ll do it again.”

She fell into his embrace, drowning in the sensation of his touch. He wasn’t a hesitant man, and it was a pleasure to let him lead, to take—so different from the fumbling, tentative attempts at seduction she’d endured from the guards at court.

Jessamine had never wanted to have a man ask if he pleased her.

She just wanted him to be confident that he did.

She wanted him to sense the little breaths that came out of her mouth or the way she squeezed her thighs together.

Or—by the gods!—how she writhed against his thigh as Elric slotted one muscular leg between hers and made her ride him.

He’d lit a fire in her veins even as he leaned back and watched her move with lowered lids.

She watched his expression with rapt attention as he licked his lips, his eyes following every movement of her hips as she ground herself against him.

“Perfection,” he muttered. “Utter perfection.”

With a low groan, she tilted her head back and clutched his shirt for purchase. Except… a flashing spike of magic slipped over her eyes. She felt the ache in her skull, like someone had grabbed onto her head and squeezed too tightly.

She didn’t even have a moment to complain about the pain before she tumbled into what she could only imagine was his mind.

The darkness surrounding them showed her everything she had wondered about his past.