TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeahhhhh, I decided this book is definitely done yet and I was just anxious. Hehe :p

Scream "CUPCAKE!!!!" if you're freaking TF out rn.

ALSO PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THIS IS AN UNEDITED ROUGH DRAFT AND THE PUBLISHED VERSON WILL LOOK SOOOO DIFF I SWEAR THESE LAST CHAPTERS ARE SO COMPLICATED IN MY HEAD LMFAOOOOO

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATES AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER <3

And so began an uproarious party from Hell.

A masquerade ball. The Nocturnal Masqurade, as Death had called it. Victorian guests dressed in their fanciful nightwear clothes laughed, shouted, and chatted merrily all around the room, with chalices filled with what was presumably alcohol. The throne room had been redecorated and rearranged for this gathering, tables pushed out to the sides of the room so that the center of the stone floor was free and clear.

Ace and I were sat rather aggressively at the table, facing outward toward the center of the room where the partiers mainly mingled. Surrounding us were Death's shadow guards. They lined the wall behind us like statues, their ominous faces black holes into nothingness.

"Come one, come all!" Romeo, aka Petruchio, shouted across the throne room, standing on the table with his green and black jester clothes. His hands moved along the air; the smooth movements of his body as languid as a snake as he captured court's attention. "Who will cry like a little baby first before the blade strikes their throat? Hurry and place your bets!"

Romeo looked up at me with a discretely apologetic expression. I noticed the subtle glow to the gem around his throat matched the spark of pink in his eyes. He jumped down from the table with a click of his heels and landed before a blushing woman in blue. Pink swirled into the air and as he blew her a kiss as he walked by. That pink smoke slipped through her parted lips and turned her irises briefly pink as she sighed after him.

Clink.

Another patron flipped a coin into the bowl before me, snapping my attention away. Tilting my head up, a different drunken woman stood with her hand posed on her hip, while her other fanned her sweaty face from dancing. "I'd place my bet on the lady any day," she said. "We're tough creatures. She doesn't look she'll shed a single tear."

"Eh, don't be fooled," said the man beside her with an arrogant sniff. "She'll be tough until His Highness feels bored and spins that wheel of torture before her execution."

"Oh, how I love the wheel of torture!" said another woman with an eager clap. "Say, do think His Highness will bring out the rack?"

"The rack?" Ace asked.

"Yes, you know, the rack," the woman implored him to understand, as if talking to an idiot. "Where they tie your ankles and wrists to ropes and well, pull. In all directions. Until your joints dislocate and your limbs go flying off. Like a bird in flight." She gave a fainty laugh. "Peck, peck, little pigeons! Enjoy your last meal!"

She threw the little place hors d'oeuvres in her hand at my face. I flinched as the whole plate hit my face, puff pastries spilling into my lap.

Beneath the table, Ace's foot rested on mine.

"You can't ignore me forever, you know," Ace whispered, leaning forward on the table with his cuffed hands. The cuffs that suppressed his magic just like they suppressed my power.

"How long did you know?" I asked tightly.

Ace released a slow, uneven breath. "Since the first time we met." He glanced away, and I felt like another layer had been added to yet another horrible betrayal. "I wanted to tell you. Of course, I did but it was too dangerous and I––"

Someone blew a trumpet. Romeo leapt onto another table to make some sort of announcement that rallied a group of individuals. Pink swirled in the air again as he appeared to seduce a group of men and women to dance around him.

"I'm not...like them," Ace continued, leaning forward on the table in an attempt to get me to look at him. "Lucifer and Death...their intentions are not my own. I kept this secret for the sake of the balance."

"I understand." Two words. Two forced words that would be faked until made.

"How much do you remember?" Ace asked gently.

My vision fogged with emotion, and I turned my face quickly away from his.

"This ends tonight," I said in a numb, detached voice. "Figure out how to break out of your bonds and cast your portal back home as quickly as possible."

"Our portal back home," Ace murmured.

"If things go south, I want you to leave me."

"Christ. Are you nuts? Like hell I will––"

"You will," I said, something dangerous vibrating beneath my voice. "Or I will never forgive you for the secrets you've kept."

Ace shifted his cuffed hands on the table, subtly shifting back in his seat. And I felt it. His fear. "You're not acting like yourself."

"Because I'm not," I replied with another frigid tone I did not recognize either. "I've been turned inside out."

And nobody could possibly understand. This steely exterior was my last defense against falling completely apart. Just thinking about what I'd seen in that prison cell shook me to my very core. I'd never felt so deceived, so threadbare to my very soul that I hardly could evoke the innocent girl who'd just been an ordinary highschooler.

The truth was, in an instant, what made me, me, had irrevocably changed forever. And there wasn't even time to process that. Not now. Not here, in this never-ending nightmare.

I felt trapped in a shrinking cage, and I would be kept no longer.

"Time is of the essence," I said firmly. "And you're fatigued. I can see it in your eyes. Which means your magic is fatigued."

"Faith––"

'No, listen to me. You'll die here if you stay, and you're right, I can't––I can't go back without him." My vision blurred as power heated down my forearms, daring to unleash. "Even if a part of me..." Vengeance tasted distantly familiar, bitter acid in my mouth. "Even if a part of me wants him to rot."

I could feel Ace's unease again, but my attention drifted elsewhere. To another pair of eyes on the dance floor. His hair, unmissably Ace's, stark white and bone-straight, fell like a silken curtain down his back. He wore a mask of gold and purple, and his head was trained on us.

"The other Kalace," I murmured. "He's walking toward us."

Kalace stumbled into a man, nearly dropping the drink in his hand.

"Well, staggering," Ace corrected. "We're a notorious lightweight ..."

My heartbeat threw itself into overdrive as Kalace neared. The last time I'd messed with the memory, Death had turned to ash between my fingertips. Another woman walked past us with a lavish hairstyle, she sipped from her cup, and her lips stained slightly red as she set it down.

"Demon blood," I said underneath my breath.

The alcohol in their cups was demon blood. The same substance that had made Victorian Death completely inebriated and high as a kite.

"Ah, if it isn't the two miscreants who knocked me unconscious," Victorian Kalace slurred, his tone haughty. "An impostor, hm?" He scoffed at Ace. "I suppose you're like looking in a mirror. A dirty one, but a mirror, nonetheless." He gestured to the crown of his head. "Your hair is rather short and plain though, don't you think?"

My eyebrows rose, and I turned to Ace. "You gonna take that?"

"At least I don't have to tie it back when I take a shit," Ace fired.

Victorian Kalace reddened. "When I what?"

"Chocolate does look pretty glaring against white," I added thoughtfully.

Ace and Victorian Kalace both gave me the same disturbed look, like I'd taken that imagery too far. I almost smiled.

"You two are quite disgusting..." Victorian Kalace flipped a coin into Ace's bowl. "But innocents, nonetheless. Heed my little tip." He sloshed some of his drink onto the tablecloth, staining it red. "A proper execution is the least of your worries tonight. When His Highness summons the last three Chosen, keep your distance and stay away from any mirrors. I feel there will be grave consequences upon the courts people tonight."

An eerie feeling came over me. "Thanks for the tip."

Kalace's gaze shifted to mine and seemed to wander in the space around me, before locking onto my face again. The unease in his expression reminded me of the Roman era Kalace when he'd noticed my aura.

"It glows white, and it does not move or change." Roman Era Kalace had said, tracing the air around me with his fingertip. "The outer edge is black, bleeding toward the center."

I felt sick to my stomach, recalling what he'd said next. "Do you understand what it means?"

Not then. I didn't understand what it meant then, to have a brilliant aura ringed in shadow. Now I understood.

Victorian Kalace staggered away, subtly checking the ends of his hair.

"Well, that wasn't weird or anything," Ace muttered. "Not as bad as that time I tried hallucinogenic mushrooms from the real of the Fae and thought I morphed into a banana..."

I could feel myself dissociating to keep myself sane. Blinking hard, I followed Kalace's retreating frame as he climbed the ridiculous chain of stairs to Death's throne. "What is he doing?"

"Consulting with Death about his plans for this party, I imagine," Ace said.

"Against his will," I said, noting the way that Victorian Death had coerced Victorian Ace to get to his castle in the first place.

"No," Ace said his jaw tight. "Because he's a coward."

"Or maybe he had hope...in a brother," I replied, watching the pensive expression Victorian Kalace's face as he exited that back room. "Hope that Death would somehow change his ways. And how did that work out for you, I wonder? You lost contact with Death for centuries. It was because of what happened in this memory, isn't it?"

Ace gave me a grim smile.

"Kalace noticing you like that might have been a good sign. Seems this world won't crumble as easily as I imagined it would."

"You seem disappointed by that."

"Because it may be inevitable at this point. To let this memory disintegrate to ash. Last time, it at least moved me forward. Things have been too stagnate here. Victorian Death behaves as though he is almost aware of our Death's current knowledge. Maybe it's time I tap into that a little more, or trigger this memory to go off track."

Ace held up his bound hands. "Hasn't it already gone off track?"

"Touché. But not at the level I'm imagining."

"Good evening, Lady Candle," Helvius said, scaring the shit out of me. He'd appeared out of nowhere at the head of the table and nodded to Ace. "Sir Impostor."

"Hello, Helvius," I said amicably. "I like your...scarf thingy."

"I believe you mean, ascot, Lady Torch," Ace offered mockingly.

"No, I believe she means cravat," Helvius corrected, and then held out a white rose to my face.
A smile lifted the corners of my lips. "Is this from you?"

"No, this is from His Highness––"

I pretended to sneeze on it.

Glenn shrieked like a girl.

"Geesundheit!" Ace cried.

"Plague..." Helvius couldn't take his mortified eyes off of the snotty rose in his hand like he was unsure what to do with it now. "PLAGUE!"

"No, actually. Allergies," I said and wiped my finger across the table. "You really should dust better around here. How about, you take that back from whence it came, and send my kindest regards to Lucifer's favorite feral cat?"

Helvius's eyes widened. "By Gods, woman. You can't possibly be referencing my lord."

"Faith," Ace warned quietly.

Ignoring Ace, I leaned forward to Helvius. "The last time I took a flower from that jackass, it nearly killed me. I mean every word and you'll deliver it. While you're at it, you'll him that I said he can shove that thorny white rose right up his starchy ass."

"Aaaand here we go." Ace's leaned back into his seat with an aggravated groan and pretended to buckle up.

"Foolish little toad indeed..." Helvius muttered, disgust pinching his face as he stiffly walked away with the snotty flower.

"If I die here because you sneezed on a rose, I am haunting your ass!" Ace susurrated angrily. "Why must you and Death always go out in a fiery blaze? Can't it just be a small fucking firecracker for once? Or maybe a sparkler?"

"How about one of those mini poppers that you throw into the pavement that snap?" I offered absently as I watched Romeo seduce yet another courts person to join the dancefloor.

"Whipper Snappers, exactly!" Ace wailed. "Let's think rationally here and end this with a mini–Whipper Snapper. Agreed?"

Tuning Ace out, I tilted my head to the side and up, calmly meeting the wicked gaze that had been burning into the side of my skull since the moment I'd entered the room. Victorian Death lounged like a big lazy cat over his throne, one powerful long leg thrown over the side and his elbow leaning on the armrest with his head on his hand. On cue, Helvius manifested beside him in a hunched, nervous posture, clutching the white rose in his hands as he appeared to sputter out my words.

All while Death's eyes were on mine. Lustrous. Mischievous. Darkness curled around him as his mouth slowly curved to one side.
My fists clenched.

A hand cuffed upper arm. My muscles coiled, ready to spring. I followed the hand up a shadowy arm to one of the veiled shadow guards. "Get up," he sneered.

I cast a look at Ace, who suddenly looked wracked with worry again.

"Don't do anything rash," he whispered.

"Remember what I told you."

Ace straightened in his seat. "Gods, Faith, I'm begging you..."

The guard's shoved me forward.

Tomorrow night, Victorian Death had told me, I intend on dividing my sins and merging them into seven tainted hearts. Seven worthy sacrifices.

I looked down at the magical cuffs around my wrists as I climbed stair after stair.

I will use you to draw every scoundrel's attention at that ball. Enough to blind them as the night unravels. And then each and every last soul in this castle, including yours...shall die.

I reached the final step.

My chin trembled as I lifted my head. Everything funneled in as I looked into the mismatched green concealing the soul I sought to face. So familiar and yet so disturbingly different, his gaze reminded me of the glass eyes of a puppet or a doll–– cold, lustrous, dead. He was dressed as his role of the dark prince of Hell, his cloak draping over his broad shoulders and pooling over the throne like black water. 

His regalness ended there, as the crown of bones that rested in his head was angled unevenly on his messy shoulder-length hair. His black shirt was practically useless as it was completely undone, showing off the deeply carved muscles of his abdominals. Black tattoos snaked up his whole torso, slithering up his throat and the one side of his sharp jaw that modern Death concealed with a shadow of stubble.

His mouth––those provocative lips, hooked into a wide, foxlike grin.

"If it isn't my favorite little toad," Death purred.

"Hello, Alex."

The Prince of Darkness went deadly still.

The court, the guards, it all went silent.

Rocking on his heels, Helvius eyes darted anxiously between us with the white rose clasped in his hand. Kalace, off to the side with his clasped behind his back, whistled lowly and took a casual step away from the throne.

And then Death threw back his head and laughed.

"All of you," Death growled, circling the air with a small movement of his finger and jabbing toward the stairs. "Leave us."

The men vacated the area, and Victorian Death didn't look away from me as he plucked up one of the chains around his throat with his pointed gloved fingertip. Pulling the chain revealed one of the three stones he still carried around his neck. He rolled the blue stone between his fingers and brought it briefly to his lips, and then his tongue in a seductive stroke, before letting it fall back to his chest. There was a flicker of something menacing in his eyes as our stares remained locked. Taunting.

"I only get more enticing as the layers of clothing come off," Death said.

It was not fear that raced through my veins like a hot liquid fire. It was rage. Rage that I could hardly reign in as fragments of memory shot in front of my vision like streaks of lightning.

I breathed hard. In. Out. Willing myself to calm.

Victorian Death seemed to relish in my anger, raking over my figure as his tongue prodded briefly at a fang. "Eager for your execution, Lady Candle?"

"It's Faith."

He scoffed. "Never."

"It wasn't a question. That's my name."

"My most insincere condolences––"

"And you'll call me it," I interrupted sharply. "Not toad. Not pest. Faith."

"Such a demanding, delusional prisoner." A sly little smile curved his mouth. "How about you make me?" He'd said it so dismissively as shifted his attention away from mine to reach for his goblet and take a strong swig.

As his throat worked the liquid, I lunged forward and slapped his gloved hand. He choked a little on his sip as his drink spilled over the side of his throne. He didn't even look over the side of the throne to see the mess. No, his other free hand had clasped my wrist. And when he rose to his full height, he did not let me go. Those piercing eyes were just trained on mine, seeking, hungry. He threw his goblet to the side, it clattered down the endless stairs, echoing the rapid beat of my heart.

"I've beheaded men for less," he seethed, so quietly I wondered if I'd read his lips.

"I wanted your full, sober attention."

"Oh, you have it," he grated through sharp fangs.

"I'm bored," I said. "Care to dance before we die?"

His eyes narrowed. Every inch of my skin felt electric as he walked into me, and I turned my body slightly to the side, so that he slinked past me. It was like we'd already begun our deadly waltz. "We?"

Tension sweltered between us, and my mouth parted at a sudden wave of desire that vibrated the air between us.

"Ah, so you're conspiring," Death decided, his voice deliciously low, intimate, so that only I could hear him. "I can see it in your eyes. Rest assured, pet, you will behave for me tonight." Then he was turning my head, making my face down the stairs and past a long table. Two shadowed guards were standing on either side of Ace, who was now being held captive at the bottom of the stairs.

One of the hooded shadow guards had a knife to Ace's throat.

My skin pebbled with fear as Death's lips brushed the shell of my ear again. "For if you don't behave... I'll take great pleasure in taking my scythe and cutting your impostor's neck to the bone while you watch."

I had to be smart about this.

I cast a look down the endless stairs, finding Romeo frolicking amongst an audience of eager women. The charge of desire between Death had a heavier element to it tonight. Because of Romeo. He was enveloping the entire room in desire, and suddenly I knew my weapon of choice.

"Being with you is a constant rush of fear," I said in an alluring voice. "Everyone is afraid of you. But some women find pleasure in that sort of thing, you know. Being in the arms of a dangerous man. I can't help but feel... curious."

Death's grip on my jaw loosened.

A small, victorious smile lifted my lips as I knew I had him.

I turned my face back to Death. "Are you? Curious?"

He was still bent down to my level, and our lips were almost touching. He did not move away, but his expression wavered slightly in response to my words, an unexpected ounce of confliction.

The thought of you kissing another man, Death had told me. It's enough to hurl me right over the edge and tear this whole goddamn realm apart.

Stepping into him, I lavished in the way Victorian Death's eyes raked over me, settling without apology on my cleavage. Despite his cold ambiance, the air seemed warmed around us in a hellish warning, heat emitting off of his skin like his body got its vigor from flame and coal. Sliding my fingers over his shirt, my skin tingled at the silken fabric. The moment I touched his skin, I felt his shadows slip over my hand in warning, like a shield, but they did not stop me from pressing my palm against his sleeping heart. His chest hitched as blood rushed it awake.

"What do you see when you look at me?" I asked softly.

His eyes sought mine in a serious moment, and I could almost see him surfacing through. "A serpent," he decided. "A beautiful one, but a serpent, nonetheless."

"So I'm your real devil, then."

He said nothing, his dark brows pinning inward.

"Don't you want to dance with me then, Death?"

"Stop!" he cried, taking a sudden step back. He blinked and pinched his forehead with a wince, as if to ease a headache. "I mean, no," he repeated in a steadier voice, slipping back into that velvet tone. "Not in the way you're imagining, at least."

"What if it was the way you were imagining?" I asked in a silken voice. "What would that look like?"

His eyes were like a dare against mine.

Darkness Death's dripped down his hand in willowy tendrils as he slid his firm grip to the waist of my dress. I shivered as he bent low to brush my pulse with his lips. Despite myself, the erratic thump of my heart signaled that impossibly stubborn, innate connection between us, and I struggled to keep a brave face.

"Torment," he murmured. "Your life would end in dark pleasure. Lively things like you––"

"Don't last long around you," I finished, hiding the tremble in my voice well. Through his gloves, I could feel the press of his talons right up against my spine, and I pictured how easily he could sever it in half. "I'm well aware of your evanescing nature and your dramatic exits into black mists. But what you need to understand, Death, is that this time you won't return to me. You're hiding in plain sight, and patience is a virtue I no longer have."

Death arched an arrogant brow. "I want to answer your intricate riddle, but your lips have hypnotized me."

His almost kissed me then, and I almost let it like he was the most natural thing in the world to kiss such a lethal creature. At the last second, I turned my cheek away. The brief graze of his lips on my skin and his deep, humorless laugh afterward brought a shiver all the way down to my toes.

"Always a tease," he said roughly.

"How do I know you won't kiss me dead?" I asked. "Free me of these cuffs, and I'll show you just how hypnotizing these lips can be."

A salacious grin curved his mouth as he took my wrists in his and pulled my hands away from him. He lowered to sit into his throne. "You are admittedly very brave to try to escape your demise tonight through seduction, but I will not be moved so easily by sex."

I stilled. The big cat never missed a trick. Except for the fact that the endgame of seducing him was not at all what he was imagining.

"An ancient, womanizing rake with morals," I said sarcastically. "How multilayered and mysterious of you."

"Don't be stingy, my sweet. You tried, you failed." He leaned back against his throne. "Now take your seat and your punishment. You'll find they're intertwined."

My jaw set as I caught on. To either side of him, there was no chair. Black leather breaches stretched at the slow spread of his long, powerful legs. He rested his hand on his broad thigh and revealed that devastatingly beautiful grin.

Simmering internally, I meandered to his throne. I turned around and perched onto his lap, trying to ignore the way his fanned out my gown to give me room.

"Troubling, isn't it?" Death asked, as we both looked down at the drunken court. "How the souls sent to Hell to suffer are having such a damned blast."

"These lucky damned were lucky to have me," Death continued. "The afterlife they would have led with Lucifer would have been far crueler. Lengthier, too."

My body felt tight with unease. "Explain to me what you wish to do to them again."

"With great curses such as mine, there must be great consequences to remove them," Death said, and I could feel his fingertips play with the opening at the back of my dress. "So, I shall move part of my burden elsewhere and lessen the torment. With a trick. Distributing my curse elsewhere, however, will ensue a dark magic that will come at steep, steep price." His sinister laugh made the hairs on my arm rise. "Don't feel too sad, pest. Every wicked soul in this castle Hell besides my chosen Seven will perish tonight."

I turned toward him, my voice tremulous. "And you feel this is fair?"

A small, humorless smile lifted his lips. "Why should I be fair?" he returned rather gently. "Death itself is not fair. It cannot be controlled or compelled to follow morality. It is impulsive, but at times, predictable. It is as volatile and cruel as war but as peaceful and quiet as the arrival of night. If everything that I am is what I must be, what I'm meant to be, then I'm afraid the mortal world owes me more than what it has already offered." He played with the layers of my skirt in my lap absently, the thick fringe of his lashes hiding the pain I could hear in his voice. "I will take what I want for however long it takes, until I am satiated."

"You'll never be satiated," I said at last. "What you want, you will never achieve by divvying out your Seven Deadly Sins."

"This is but one of many steps that I shall take to be free." His eyes flicked to mine, a chillingly evil gleam in his darkening eyes. His lips grimaced in a snarl before he showed me his profile again. "I will not stop until I am free. No matter what it takes. No matter who stands in my way. I must be unmoved."

That cold, faraway sound in his voice made me a wave of sudden emotion breaking through the walls I had built up.

I reached for the side of his face, and I laid my hand on his smooth cheek, his image blurring like a fading memory.

Beneath my touch, his jaw flexed. But he didn't push me away. Instead, he decided to turn his head deeper into touch to face me again, and suddenly I was cradling his face like a lover. And I kept the beautiful villain in the palm of my hand, knowing he still somehow held my heart in his. Little did he know I did not need my heart as much as I once did.

"Tell me what you think of me now, my fiery little star," he whispered.

A tear worked its way down my cheek. "I think you're irredeemably evil, and I think you must be stopped."

He pressed his hot, velvet lips into my palm, creating a ripple effect of tingles throughout my entire being. "Do you, now?"

"I do," I vowed.

A leisure, sensual grin. "An unforeseen marriage."

"Except til' death do us not part."

His smile dipped.

Our eyes bore into each other's. And the primal, dangerous static that lingered like a constant between us kindled to a burning fire. He leaned into me without hesitation, as though to kiss me to assuage the flames, and I felt myself push against gravity as I turned my head sharply away in defiance again.

But then his gloved hand captured my jaw, and he turned my head back to his lips.

I could hardly breathe when our eyes locked again. He was so close that I could count every eyelash framing those wicked eyes, see every splattered variation of green in their depths that were almost deliberately positioned to fascinate. And his breath, how it could feign life so well as he softly exhaled against my lips.

"Your soul is like a maze in your eyes," Death said in a ragged pant, "but you will not show me the way out."

"Did you ever think," I began before I could stop myself, "that maybe you don't deserve to be freed?"

When he pulled back slightly, an inexplicable look had crossed his expression, vulnerable, like a veil lifting in the wind and snapping like a whip at my heart. "I could have loved you, I think," he said suddenly. "In another lifetime, where I am not the monster."

"But love is the greatest curse of all," I said. "It just hides under the guise of affection."

His thumb lifted to trace my bottom lip. "Here I thought I was the cynical one."

Our lips collided in a ferocious mistake.

His mouth parted, the tip of his tongue teasing mine for a chase. Rougher kisses ensued. Angry. Betrayed. My teeth collided with his fangs, the sharp tips of them never cutting into my skin, no matter how much we both fought for control.

His wicked lips kissed their way across my jaw, down my throat to my cleavage, where his tongue suddenly marked its claim in a way that made me fist the back of his hair.

"I want you," he breathed. "Just like this. In front of my whole court."

His hands quickly gathered my skirts, hiking up my dress, and I didn't flinch as I felt his deadly hands sliding up my thighs. Our eyes were both half-open now, his tongue stroking mine in another hot caress. The greens in his eyes consumed by shadow. But when he reached the apex of my thighs, he paused. Our mouths had separated, hovering over each other's, the dark slashes of his brows bent inwards.

The madness between us was once a magnetic force. A madness so unyielding and delicious it made me lose sight of reality too many times...

He could feel it, couldn't he? How he'd slaughtered that magic. I wasn't all here with him now, where I was complacent and numb to sensation.

I clutched his wicked face in my hands, the cold, sharp panels of his cheeks such a stark difference compared to the feeling of my Death's rough, feverous jaw brushing against mine.

But he was in there, wasn't he? He was there, behind those condemning kisses and fatal words. He had never left me, after all.

My hands were unbound now, shadow slipping away from my wrists and seeping into his skin as he arched his throat back beneath my tongue. My palms spread underneath his shirt, shifting over the colorful stones that vibrated against my skin, then caressing the powerful muscles on his chest. Beneath my palms, his skin was burning to life, until I could feel the fast throb of his heart.

"Those stones don't belong to you," I panted, breaking the performance. "They belonged to Neriah."

Blackness spread across his cheek beneath my fingertips. Like that name alone could summon his inner beast. I could feel us both tremble with a foreboding chill of chaos.

"I know what you did to her," I said harshly.

His visibly flinched. Pain tautened his face as I pinned him hard to the back of the throne by his heart.

"My soul will always find yours, Alex." In this fabricated world, I wondered how much of this was real, after all. If it was all a product of what he remembered, or maybe this memory as devastated as my love for him. "To kill you." Light crossed my vision like lightning, and his eyes widened. "Just like you killed me!"

I reared back and stabbed him in the neck with a knife.

And not just any knife. A knife I'd forged from light. From sheer will, the weapon illuminated by my power. His body seized, momentarily paralyzed as the veins in his face pulsed with white electrifying energy.

"Rise and shine, motherf*cker," I seethed. 

***

[Readers freak tf out here.]

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!! 

DEATH IS MY RIDE OR DIE IS OFFICIALLY IN MY HANDS AND RELEASES SEPTEMBER 17th, 2024!!!!

I'M FREAKING OUT CAN YOU TELLLLL??????????????????????????????

HAVE YOU PRE-ORDERED YOUR COPY OF DEATH IS MY RIDE OR DIE YET???? No?????? Well, let me give you ALL the reasons you need to ASAP!

1. Death & Faith are HOTTER than ever

2. Dagger to HEART scene

3. The WING scene its so DIFF I cannotttttt with the published scene.....

4. TONS of new scenes and plot twists. This book is a RIDEEEEEEEEEE. Not the title manifesting itself.

5. Hot banter and chemistry like you've never seen it before

6. Twilight/Vampire Diaries/Buffy meets My Lady Jane book energy

7. DEATH commands you to LOL

"Death is My Ride Die," book two of the new and improved Death Chronicles, is set to release SEPTEMBER 17th! Death & Faith are HOTTER THAN EVER, and you do not want to miss this!! 

WANT ME TO MEET ME AND GET A  SIGNED COPY OF THE DEATH CHRONICLES FROM ME AND DEATH?

 MARK YOUR CALENDARS AGAIN!!!! Because on September 21st, I'll be having my book launch at Books of Wonder in NYC! (42 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011) The event starts at 4pm EST, and I will be signing books and talking about ALL THINGS DEATH IS MY BFF AND DEATH IS MY RIDE OR DIE!!!

COME TO MY BOOK LAUNCH! I WANT TO MEET MY READERS! <3

Follow my Facebook (Katarina E. Tonks) and join the Death is My BFF Facebook group (Link on Wattpad profile) to follow my author events and updates!!

LOVE YOU!!!!!