Page 162 of Till Death

“I mean it, Deyanira,” Hollis snapped, his words more forceful than they’d ever been. “This is your eternity. Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking you can hide from Death in his own court. He loves the cat-and-mouse game, but you’re always going to be the mouse.”

“What is this place?” Paesha asked, kneeling to stare at her reflection in the water.

Ezra grabbed her and yanked her back, just as a translucent hand broke the surface, reaching for her. She looked at me then, fear coating her stunning eyes, though her golden skin had been leached of color by the greedy light of the silver moons.

Ezra pointed. “This is the Lake of Lost Souls. The final punishment Death deals to those who don’t bend to his will. See the souls? They’re condemned to circle the bottom of the lake, forever seeking a final breath they will never be granted. Once you breach the water’s surface, not even Death can save you.”

“A graveyard,” Hollis added. “He doesn’t come here often. It’s not exactly safe, but there isn’t an inch of this realm that is.”

“Deyanira?”

I spun at Paesha’s gasp, not recognizing the voice until I saw the face standing in the tree line. “Mother?”

Instead of walking away, the Huntress moved in, taking my shoulder as my father stepped from the shadows behind her, his hand not lovingly in hers, but gripping her shoulder as he pushed her forward. I saw it then. That look in her eyes I’d seen so many times before, though I hadn’t known it for what it was with Ro. The fear. The control from a man that was once a lover. My father was a reaper.

His fingers tightened on her, knuckles turning white as she hissed, shrinking until he stopped.

“I needed to see you,” she said softly. “One more time, if only for selfish reasons. You really are so beautiful and so grown. I can hardly believe it.”

She reached until her fingers were a hairsbreadth from my face, but my father yanked her back. Paesha grabbed my hand, holding me in place, vigilant at my side. Ezra grunted, taking the opposite so I was sandwiched between them.

“How long do you think I’m going to let you jerk her around before I kick your ass, Father?”

“Do not speak to me that way, Deyanira. You were raised better.”

“No. I really wasn’t. The last time you and I had a private conversation, you hit me in the face and threatened me. Do you think I give a shit what you have to say? Get your hands off my mother.”

“Stop this,” the woman who looked so much like me snapped, interrupting what I’m sure would have been a fun battle of wits between us. “I’ve come with the only advice I can offer. You must seek out Death, child. Find him and take whatever consequences he deems fit for your intrusion. To take him as an enemy is not the eternity you want.”

“Are you telling me this because you want to or because you have to?” I asked, tilting my head.

I didn’t miss the way she turned to him, cowering as he glared. “It’s true.”

I pulled away from the others until I was within striking distance of my father. “I would like to take a walk with my mother. And you’re going to stay here with my friends. Got it?”

He scoffed. “You have no power here.”

In one motion, I snatched my mother free of his grip and punched him in the face. “I’m a pretty quick learner. I can’t kill you, but I can torture the hell out of you, and pain is pain in any realm.”

Ezra stepped forward, gripping my father’s shoulder exactly like he’d held my mother. “Perhaps a lesson in kindness as we wait.”

I threw him a grateful glance, and he bowed slightly, his hazel eyes catching in the moonlight, though even when he’d bent, he was still so much taller than I was.

Once out of earshot, my mother cracked. “Listen to me. You have to stay away from Orin. Do you understand? I saw the way you looked at him, but whatever you remember him to be, he’s gone. He belongs to Death now. His will is not his own.”

“I don’t?—”

She threw a hand up. “There are things you don’t know. Things I don’t know if I have time to explain.”

We stayed well away from the edge of the lake, but she hardly peeled her eyes away, even as she scrambled for words.

“You don’t have to save me, Mother. I’m grown, and I can make my own choices.”

“Orin only exists because of you,” she rushed out.

“Orin is older than I am, so that’s not true at all. Please, Mother.”

“Deyanira Sariah Hark, you listen to me and listen well. You’ll have one single chance to hear this story, I’m sure of it.”