I smiled softly, feeling like I was slowly coming back to myself.
So much had happened to me. I’d lost so many people near and dear to my life. But I had hope again, where I’d almost lost it once.
“I am Death,” I said softly. “I can bring them back.”
He grimaced. “Sure, it’s within your right. But not all of them wish to return. To become the very best, you must also understand that there are moments when you must place what others want before your own needs.”
“Blue?” I asked softly.
He smiled just as softly. There was a gentleness in him now, something that’d been lacking in him before. It was as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He wasn’t this massive, overpowering creature anymore.
In fact, I knew that if I really wanted to, I could crush him beneath my hand. But his fragility was what I found most intriguing now.
Maybe it was the Scarlett in me, or maybe it was that Tenebris had altered so completely from her time knowing and loving Mercer. But we were different. Saner. Calmer.
And I had hope breathing in me. Hope that I could keep to the right path, that I could be stable, and not go down the path that Bellum had.
I smiled, feeling the chains lifting off me. Breathing easier now.
“Blue has faded into the mists of time. You could bring him back, if you were desperate enough. But—”
I closed my eyes, letting one tear spill out. I knew death intimately, the souls of those who’d abandoned the corporeal for the evanescent. I could feel them all, like a warm blanket wrapped tight around me. Death’s sting no longer a fearful thing, but gentle and lovely.
Blue had earned his eternal rest. It had been a sacrifice he’d truly wanted to make, and without it, I could not have won. It was love of the most acute kind that had driven him to do as he’d done.
I sighed. “Be well, my dark fae. And know that we shall meet again someday.”
The flutter of his brightness moved like a flickering torch through me, before fading away as a soft mist.
Next, I felt for James, but he too wished for his rest. Reunited with his forever love, and never wishing again to be parted from her. Boo also was gone, content and finally at peace beyond the veil. But when I searched for Mercer he was silent to me.
I looked at the man who’d once been Death, and he smiled back at me.
“There is one,” he said, “who does wish to return. If you’ll allow it. His time was cut short by necessity.”
He reached into his vest pocket and extracted a small blue orb, dim as dull stone.
“I am no longer Death,” he said, “only Dean now. So his soul does not burn for me. But if you take him into your palm, you can breathe life back into him.”
I frowned. “But how can Death breathe life?”
He grinned. “Oh my dear, there is much you have to learn yet. And I will teach you all of it, but we’ll do this one together. Then maybe we’ll find a new world, a nascent place just for us where we can bond and learn and become what we always should have been.”
“What is that?”
“Father and daughter. What do you say, Scarnebris? Is it deal?”
I thought about who I’d been, who I’d become, and who I was destined to be. All of my life flashed before my eyes.
I couldn’t have imagined I would be anything other than a wife and mother until I’d been killed and was reborn a vampire. And from there, that was my fate. My destiny. To be with Mercer, and him with me, and Steven too. Our destinies inseparably bound. But then I’d died a second time, baptized in the fires of a dragon and kissed by Death’s own lips.
The time for my final decision was now. Fly as the great dragon into the skies. Or...
I took Mercer’s soul orb into my hand, and with a grateful nod, Dean covered my hands with his.
“Now close your eyes and will him back with a kiss.”
I closed my eyes and lifted the orb to my mouth, feeling a great rushing geyser of pressure bubbling and bubbling upward.
“Kiss it, daughter. With all your heart, bring him back.”
I kissed the orb, and that geyser in my mouth came spewing out. Rolls of thunderous, booming darkness and lightning, the soul of a great and mighty shifter, poured out of me and sank into the orb, turning it from rocky gray to pearlescent blue.
The winds rolled, carrying on it spinning and shifting dirt that gathered tight, forming a giant ball of clay that reformed and refigured itself into the very thing I loved most.
Depositing that now flesh-and-blood but still lifeless body down by my feet.
I swallowed, staring at the thick blond Viking hair and the long patrician nose of my beast. My heart swelled. Tenebris and I both caught our breath, remembering all the pain he’d caused us both, but knowing now he’d done it all to ensure our ultimate victory.
I no longer needed Dean to tell me what to do. I knelt, holding that glowing orb over his still chest, and whispered, “I love you, my beast. Come back to me.”
The orb sank into his body like a greedy parasite looking for food, lighting him up from the inside out. There was a loud gasp, and then his eyes snapped open, and he looked at me as I looked at him.
I didn’t need to ask him why. Or hear him tell me that he was sorry. Because I understood.
I leaned my hand on his chest and he clutched at my wrists, looking at me with frantic desperation.
I saw his eyes, the way they noted all my differences, but Mercer had always only ever loved me. The monster in me had been just as appealing as the human.
So when he smiled and nodded, as if to say “You’ve never been more beautiful,” I felt my face blaze. I was nothing but bone now, bones and glittering runes of deepest gold, just as my father had once been.
He reached up, slowly, to stroke at the bone of my face. And I sucked in a sharp breath, expecting the touch of Death to end him again.
But Dean spoke. “When I fashioned you, daughters, I made certain that your guardian would never know the sting of your touch. He and only he can ever touch you as you now are. You will never walk the endless corridors of life alone, Scarnebris. You have your mate and most loyal guardian. And now, I think we should move on to the second phase of your learning. For War is most assuredly gearing up for a future attack already.”
I nodded but continued to look at Mercer with tears shimmering in my eyes.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I always have.”
“And I always will,” I whispered back.
Trembling, he sat up and pressed his warm, firm lips to my bony cheek. His touch felt like fire in my veins. It lit me up, made me delirious with desire and love. Endless, perfect love.
My body began to reform back into flesh and blood again. I would have to learn to control my shifting, but all of that would come in time.
“I have a few things left to do,” I said, finally turning to look at Dean over my shoulder.
He nodded. “I assumed you would want Steven back. I’ve already sent a message to Helen to meet us at the ebony bridge. She will be there shortly with him. We are set—”
“Not quite,” I said, completely within my own faculties now. “You have thought of everything for me. And while I appreciate that,” I stood and helped Mercer to stand with me. “You are forgetting one thing.”
He did. Big, powerful body moving like poetry in motion. Not a blemish or mark on him. He was perfect. And would always be so.
Never again could Mercer die. He was my guardian, yes, but he’d died once. And Death’s sting could never prick him again. Meaning the new War could never use my lover against me. Mercer was forever safe now. And that was good. So now it was time for me to give back to the one man who’d truly sacrificed everything for me.
Dean frowned. “Wha—”
But then he saw them. I’d summoned not just the winged woman, but her lover too, and in a remarkable flexing of power, had been able to even give them a heads up about the new and improved D
ean.
Dean blinked. Then, looking dazed, he muttered, “Excuse me,” before walking around me and toward them.
I walked into Mercer’s open arms, laying my head on his chest, and sighed as I watched my father speak in low tones to the two of them—one a winged woman who looked so much like an angel, and another just a man with brown hair and brown eyes.
But I heard them.
And I saw them both kiss his cheek. The male handed the winged woman’s hand over to Dean and whispered, “She was always ours. I think we both know that.”
Then she turned to Dean, and with her hands on his face, leaned forward and kissed him deeply, a kiss full of passionate love. He kissed her back with the same kind of enthusiasm, never flinching when the male wrapped his arm around her from behind.
“Your father’s world is about to get very complicated,” Mercer rumbled with a low chuckle in my ear.
I giggled, burying my nose in his chest, inhaling the clean scent of his body as the reality—our new reality—began to finally impress itself on me.
“So is ours. You sure you’re up to the task?”
He tipped my chin up and held my gaze as he said, “Where you go, I go too. I never want to be apart from you again, Scar. No matter who you are, or what you are, or what you will be. If you go down in flames, I will go down with you. You’re mine forever, Scarnebris.”
I chuckled and swatted at his chest. “You too, huh?”
He raised a dark brow. “Don’t like the name? We can call you another, or just Scar, if that’s what you’d prefer. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.”
I sniffed, palming his whiskered cheek and trembling because, for a short but excruciating period, I’d thought he’d been lost to me forever.
“I don’t know who I am or what I am right now. All I know is that I have you and Steven again. And that’s everything to me.”
“You’ll figure it out, Scar. You always have.”
I grinned. “Sorry you don’t get Silver Creek back?”
He snorted. “You know I never wanted it in the first place. Everything I did was only to keep you and Steven safe. You guys are my pack.” He shrugged. “Emerson or... somebody else will take over possession of that place. But it won’t be me. And I won’t miss it at all, because the only things I ever needed were you guys. I have my family, and I’m okay with the rest.”
Leaning up, I stole his lips, feeling the breath of death pass through us, but it burned and tingled deliciously, and he groaned, clutching my arms tight.
“Gods above, this is going to be very interesting,” he moaned, and I laughed.
“I hope so. You should know, Mercer, for the sake of full disclosure, that when I saw you die...” I swallowed. “Blue and I... well, we...”
“Shhh.” He placed his finger over my mouth and shook his head. “You owe me nothing. If you want another lover, if you want a harem of sexual partners, I will never stand against you. The only thing I won’t allow is for us to be separated, but whatever you do or whoever you do it with... I trust you.”
I sniffed, touched by his words, even though they were complete nonsense. “You idiot.”
“Hey,” he said with a surprised grunt, “that was supposed to be sweet.”
“While a threesome relationship seems to be just the thing for my father, I’m a very old-fashioned kind of girl. You have been the only thing I’ve ever wanted, Merc. And that’s never going to change. You. Me. Steven. Our little family. That’s all I need. That’s all I’ll ever need.”
He grinned. “Well then, how about we find our little brother and make our way to this sanctuary Dean has found for us and not leave our room for say... oh, ten years?”
I laughed and laughed, feeling ridiculously happy and hopeful. Yeah, life was always going to have its ups and downs, but it was the quiet moments that I would live for. And when I was in them, I would be completely in them. I would be different than my father. Different than Bellum.
Because I wasn’t fighting for some ridiculous game, or even the win. But for something even greater, something worthy of fighting for.
I was fighting for love.
To keep those that I cherished and treasured always safe. I had my focal point, and I would fight like hell to make sure they never suffered again.
“I say that sounds perfect,” I whispered heatedly.
I didn’t know who I really was right now. Scarlett. Tenebris. Scarnebris. I didn’t know what War would plot down the line or the games I’d be forced to play. I didn’t know any of that yet, but I knew this...
I was Lady Death, one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and my time was now...
IF YOU’VE NOT READ my Night series but are interested in learning more about Dean, Pandora, and the rest of the Night characters then I highly suggest starting at the beginning with the Night series collection written as RS Black. The Night books can only be found on the Amazon Kindle Unlimited program!
Want to learn more about my latest releases? Then make sure to sign up for my newsletter! The Scarlett Smith Chronicles are over, but I have a brand new Detective series coming out April 30, called The Grimm Files, featuring a mysterious Mad Hatter, an exiled princess turned detective with a dark history, and all set in the madcap realm of Wonderland. Keep turning the page to find out more!
Other Books by Selene Charles
Tempted Series – Set in the Night Universe (Completed)
Forbidden, Book 1
Reckless, Book 2
Possessed, Book 3
Scarlett Smith Chronicles- Set in an alternate Night Universe (Completed)
Whiskey, Vamps, and Thieves, Book 1
Fae Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Book 1.5 (novelette)
Me and You and a Ghost Named Boo, Book 2
The Vampire Went Down to Georgia, Book 3
Bears of Kodiak Series – Standalone erotic shifter romances (Completed)
Chance, Book 1
August, Book 2
Phoenix, Book 3
Night Series – Written as RS Black (Completed)
The Night Series Collection (Books 1 and 2)
Howler’s Night, Book 3
Red Rain, Book 4
About Selene Charles
Selene Charles is the pen name of a successful NY Times and USA Today bestselling author. She loves to write about the seedy underbelly of things that go bump in the night. If you want to learn more about her books you can follow her on FB.
It’s A Charmed Life, Book 1 of the Grimm Files coming Apr. 30!
Welcome to a world of fantasy, fairy tales, and murder most foul...
My name's Elle. Princess Arielle, for those who know about my past. Cursed by my own father, now I'm banished to Grimm. I'm a siren, killer, and one of the best damned cold-case detectives in all of the bloody realms. I don't stop until I discover the truth, no matter where that truth leads.
My next case sends me to Wonderland, a harrowing place of madness and dark secrets. I'd rather be landlocked than step foot on that tainted soil, but I don't have a choice after discovering Alice's bloodstained ribbon and a bandicoot's claw covered in blood beside two stiffs at the Charmings' sprawling castle. My insatiable thirst for truth leads to a conspiracy that will not only rock the Grimm world but also my own.
No one ever walks away from Wonderland unscathed... No one.
Join me in a spell-binding tale that you aren't soon to forget.
Available for preorder on Amazon, BN, iBooks, and Kobo!
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