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As promised, Death's shadow guards dragged me to a cell where there wasn't even an ounce of light. They threw me inside like a sack of potatoes, and since my hands were cuffed in front of me, I barely caught myself as I landed haphazardly on a cot.
"Thanks, gentlemen!" I shouted after them.
Bastards.
I pulled my legs up to my chest in the cold, damp underground area, watching the bars of my cell manifest fully into place as the shadow guard's marched away. Wherever I was, I was alone. The rest of the cells down here were empty, and the only sound was a dripping somewhere from the ceiling.
Sitting up on the bed, I looked down at my arm, where Death's hand had touched my skin. Where he'd tried to wilt me just like the rose. The area of skin was bare with no trace of his black poisonous power seeping into my veins, but I could almost still almost feel his grip on me.
Leaning against the stone wall behind me, I imagined the look on his face as he reeled away from me.
I counted five-hundred drips of water before I started to feel like I was losing my mind. I desperately tried to break the cuffs around my hands, but not even a droplet of my power came through. I to kick in the cell bars a few times and create a weapon from something in my cell, but everything was bolted down.
Finally, I gave up dragged my feet in their chains back to the cot to lay down. I was so tired that I felt loopy, and at least the bedding didn't reek of anything suspicious like Romeo's did.
As I wondered if Romeo was okay, if I would be okay, I lay down on the cot to rest. The anxiety plaguing every fiber of my being and the hunger for food clawing at my insides made impossible to get comfortable. So, I just lay with my eyes open, miserable.
"My, my. How your stomach growls."
I jolted up from the cot in complete awareness, my eyes rapidly searching around my cell. Death's deep, velvety voice had sounded so close. And although I couldn't see him anywhere, I could feel the cold tingly sensation down my spine that he was near.
"Care for a treat?" he asked, the low drone of his voice like a lulling siren's call.
My heart raced as I stood up and faced the front of my cell bars.
"Show yourself," I demanded, the small wobble in my voice distressing.
It was so dark beyond my cell that all I could see was a black void. And then suddenly, with small whispers in the air, Death emerged mid-stride through the void with a low laugh, the outline of his hooded figure a lighter silhouette against the black behind him.
His head tilted up as he strode forward, stopping to stand in front of my cell. Adrenaline slammed into me. His eyes, trapped somewhere between a cat's and a serpent, shimmered with an ethereal glow, the only visible feature of his face I could see. It was almost hypnotic in the dark.
"I thought I might find you miserable down here," Death said, the velvet purr to his voice like a graze of heat against the back of my neck. "However, I see no tears in your eyes. It's quite disappointing. Who broke you, my pet?"
As I stared back his wicked eyes, I felt a small flicker of anger unfurl itself from within me. "I'm not your pet."
"Hmm, but you're in my cage, chained to my leash..." There was a snap of fabric as a candle suddenly lit in my cell, the outline of Death's cloak like a silken black curtain as he dropped his arm back to his side. "You see, everything in this castle belongs to me. Even the flames lighting your eyes."
I slowly looked over at the candle in my cell, before staring back at him between the prison bars. "You just... lit that candle."
"You're mistaken. I only put back what I took away."
His energy seemed to stretch ahead of him like a cold draft reaching toward me, and I felt the need to take a step back.
A cruel smile curved Death's mouth. "Tell me, Faith," he purred, the cell bars between us melting away like dripping shadow without him even moving. "What frightens you more? Power with permanence, or power with a choice ignored?"
My chest heaved a little as the cell riddled with shadows just outside the aura of the candle he'd lit beside me. He prowled a few steps toward me with a smooth, leisure steps, his head nearly touching the ceiling of my cell.
"I never put back what I take," Death said, standing in front of me like a hooded royal assassin. "No, I choose, and I execute. A prince does not plan to cut off a head and decide halfway through to sew it back onto the neck. That would be silly. And it would make him look weak."
I felt a coiled sensation of fear as his wicked eyes snapped to mine.
"I made you look weak," I assumed was the point of his words.
"You have a firm grasp of the obvious." Death gloved hand resting on his chin and his other hand clasping his elbow. His eyes vanished beneath the shadow of his hood as his head tilted down, and he appeared to slowly rake his gaze over me. "Poisoning her might be a waste of a lovely chest," he muttered.
"I'm sorry?"
"Shh, do shut your pretty mouth. I'm thinking." He sliced an arrogant hand through the air and turned his back to me with a low groan. "Alright, I have made my decision." His hooded head turned slightly over his shoulder. "I feel you made a...valiant...effort with my jester Petruchio. And I want to invite you to stay. At my castle."
I stared at his back for a long moment, trying to figure out his motives. I didn't trust this version of Death as far as I could throw him, and I was still salty from the whole 'him-almost-killing-me' thing.
"Declined," I said.
Death turned slowly around to face me again, the sharpness to his eyes beneath his hood daring me to sass him one more time. "Did you decline me?"
"You have a firm grasp of the obvious," I said with a smartass smirk.
Death went inhumanely still. "You have an awfully spirited tongue for being locked in a fucking dungeon."
"Why? Because I chose a dank dungeon and a slow rat death over whatever the hell show you're running up there?"
Something twitched in his jaw. "With just a snap of my fingers, you could be in tomorrow's evening stew. Filthy as you are, a couple of wash ups and I think you'd taste just fine."
"Cannibalism isn't a cute look on you."
"Clearly you don't know a thing about my look, pest," he growled. "If I ate you, it wouldn't be cannibalism. I'm my own species."
A chill slid down my spine. "You really eat human flesh?"
Death walked a little to the side. "No," he decided to answer honestly, his voice lowering like he was telling me a secret. "But whenever you open that mouth and speak, I genuinely consider it."
"Are you flirting with me?"
Death barked out a laugh, his fangs digging into his lower lip as though to suppress it immediately. "Here's how this is going to go, Hope."
"Faith."
"Evenly disgusting," he grimaced. "I've already had my fun with peasants for the day and exhausted my wrath, but for you it seems to stir awake. Since you insist on this brave tone, perhaps I will make you kneel on the ground and kiss my boots until they shine. How does this sound?"
"Fictional. I wouldn't kneel for you even if you cut me down behind the legs."
His head moved slightly to the side in disbelief, another slow grin prying its way on his beautiful, wicked face. He closed the rest of the distance between us like a jump cut, the rush of air from his movement flatting me against the wall. My heart hammered against my ribs as I stared straight ahead at his broad chest, my eyes climbing their way up his intimidating frame.
"I will only offer this once more," Death whispered, the amusement in his expression fleeting in an instant to that cold, blank slate. "Either you stay down here, in the dark, alone, until the rats nibble away at your skin..."
He lifted his gloved hand between us, the pointed tip of his thumb's talon pressing against the leather fabric of his glove like a blade, as he slowly traced the curve of my cheekbone down to the corner of my mouth. I imagined tip of his talon breaking free from his glove and him swiping that thumb across my neck.
"Or you can come up to the castle with me," Death purred, his deep, velvety voice droning out against my skin like a dark caress. My whole head trembled slightly as he pressed the tip of his gloved thumb slipped between my lips and touched the bottom row of my teeth, rubbing the swell of my bottom lip. "And play, like a good little pet..."
I turned my face sharply to the side. His hand fell away from me, but the rush of warmth on my face and my bottom lip lingered.
"I don't belong to you," I sneered.
His low, sinister laugh made my ears tingle, and I felt myself melting against the wall again. "I think you'll find you just might, angel."
Death's hand shot out toward the candle in the cell, and it went out with a hiss, plunging the cell back in darkness. He was gone. I'd never given him my answer, but then again, he'd never given me a real choice. Only the illusion one.
***
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