How long had it been since he’d held her like this? Days? Weeks? For them to see each other, someone nearby had to be dead or dying, and ever since Blythe had recovered from belladonna poisoning, such circumstances were rare. Signa was glad for that, of course, for she could use some stability and a bit less death in her life. Still, she’d spent too many nights remembering the burn of Death’s lips against hers and how it felt when his shadows glided across her skin. For too long she’d been able to communicate with him only through her thoughts, but with him physically present, her control wavered. Her mind may have wanted answers, but her body wanted him.
“Are you trying to distract me?” she asked as she peeled off her gloves and discarded them onto the floor.
The deep rumble of Death’s laughter had heat stirring in her lower belly. Signa’s blood burned with desire as he asked, “Is it working?”
“Too well.” Signa trailed a hand down his arm, watching as the shadows melted beneath her fingertips and gave way to skin. To hair that was white as bone, and a frame as tall as a willow and broad as an oak. To eyes as dark as galaxies, which shone as they looked upon her with the very same hunger that pulsed deep within her core. “But not enough to keep me from asking what your life was like before I met you. I want to know everything, Death. The good and the bad.”
Endless was the silence that stretched between them, the only response that of a branch scraping against the window, the sound sharp and staggered in the spring breeze. Then Death whispered, “What might you think when you discover that the bad outweighs the good?”
Signa tried to commit this feeling of his skin beneath hers to memory, savoring it while she still could. “I will think that everything you’ve gone through has made you the man who stands before me today. And I quite like that man.”
Death’s arm snaked around her waist, his fingers curling into the folds of her dress. “How is it that you always know the right thing to say?”
Melting into the contours of his body, she laughed. “I seem to recall you accusing me of the opposite a few months back. Or have you already forgotten?”
“I couldn’t forget that clever tongue of yours even if I wanted to, Little Bird. And I will tell you whatever you want to know about me. But first, I believe we have some catching up to do.”
Death settled a hand on each of Signa’s hips as his shadows swept behind her, scattering checker pieces to the floor as he laid her upon the table where she and Elijah had played several months prior. Signa had a fleeting, humorous thought of how she’d hated Death so passionately then. Yet here she was months later with her legs locked around him and her skirts lifted as she kissed him fully. She tasted his lips and thought of nothing but how much she wanted them to consume her. Signa kept herself gripped around him, and when they’d had enough of the table, they moved to the chaise, where he came down over her, one knee settled between her legs.
Death’s lips savored her neck, her collarbones, the tender flesh just above her corset. “I have thought of you every day.” His voice was a rushing stream, pulling her into the depths of its current and devouring her whole. “I have thought of this, and all the ways I would make my absence up to you.”
There were not enough words in this world to describe the ways Death’s touch made her feel. One day, when she was old and her human life had run its course, there would come a time when the cold would call to her and not let go. Signa wasn’t eager for that day, but she wasn’t afraid of it, either. She had learned to appreciate the cold that seized her veins; to revel in its power, for it was part of who she was meant to be. And so she guided Death closer, placing his hands on the laces of her corset.
Except, rather than release his hands, Signa stilled as she recognized the chaise they were settled upon as the one that Blythe and Percy had used to watch Signa’s early etiquette lessons. Her eyes darted to the thick Persian rug that she’d tripped on when Percy had been helping teach her to dance. Signa pushed away from Death, clutching her chest as she thought of the last time she’d seen her cousin—in a burning garden, made the meal of a hungry hellhound.
“Signa?” Lost in her haze of memories, Signa barely heard the reaper’s call. She didn’t regret her decision; if she’d made any other, Blythe would be dead. Still, she couldn’t stop hearing Percy’s laughter. Couldn’t stop seeing his smile in her mind’s eye and remembering how red his nose had turned whenever they’d ventured into the snow.