Kiss of Fate Read online

  No.

  Not alone.

  He climbed to where she lay and knelt down. Blood spilled onto the stone around her. The lighting washed her out, leaving her skin seemingly sallow and stripping the color even from her lips. They’d been a softer pink earlier.

  A strange sensation wavered through him. This woman had done the impossible. She’d disturbed the malaise around his brothers. Now, as the result of one hateful, premeditated act, following a litany of violence, she would die.

  Cold and alone.

  Judgment glanced upward to where the culprit had fled. There remained a miniscule chance he would call for help. A sliver of baseless hope he might regret his haste and temper.

  Not soon enough.

  The stutter of her breath pulled him, and her eyes fluttered open. The fierceness in them demanded acknowledgement. Broken, battered, and twisted, Dahlia continued to fight.

  Her heart, beating for all its worth, could not sustain against the damage she’d taken. A single tear slid down her cheek, and a raspy breath cut the silence as she whispered, “Help.”

  Judgment tilted his head.

  Dahlia’s gaze fixed on him.

  Still crouched, he studied her.

  “Please,” she whispered, then stretched out her fingers to him.

  A foreign emotion flooded him. The injustice here was his brothers’ failure to act. They’d seen something, and now this beautiful light suffered for it. To show them how they erred, he could do…

  Judgment hesitated, and then flexed his grace. Time slowed as her heart joined her breath in its agonized stumble. At a simple touch of his fingers to her temples, all of her desires and motives pummeled into him as an abstract knowing only he, as Judgment, could read.

  “Make it stop?” The question revealed more of the asker than she might have realized.

  “The pain?” He pressed his palm to her forehead. He was no healer, but he could allay some of it. Comfort eased the taut lines of her mouth.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do not thank me yet, Dahlia,” he said, intoning her name and testing each syllable for her worth. The woman lying there had not lived a happy life, nor one of great comfort. But she had a good soul. A kind one. She sought to help others, even the trash who left her lying here. “You help people?”

  “Sometimes,” she said, a faint smile curling her lips. “Not at the moment.”

  Humor. She was delirious in the ghost of her pain, and still, she found humor.

  “I cannot save you,” he told her, and understanding kindled in her glazed over eyes. “This you must accept from the beginning of our bargain.” She watched him, but made no move or attempt to answer him, slipping far too fast, even as time slowed for him.

  “This should not have happened to you, and while I can’t undo it, I think we can help each other.” Even as he made the offer, a small piece of himself took a step back and looked at him askance. This flew in the face of all the rules. While not strictly forbidden, this was not an action to be undertaken lightly, and there were rules. For him.

  For her.

  “How?” Barely a whisper on her lips. Holding them in that moment between her next and last breath required great skill and effort.

  “I can share my grace,” he told her quickly. “But it will only buy you time. Time for you to help me punish my brothers for abandoning you, and I will punish the one who did this to you.”

  Understanding kindled in her gaze right before her lids fell shut. “How long?” She coughed.

  “A month, maybe a little longer.” If his calculations were right. “But that passing will not be this. The pain and the injuries, they will be gone. You will simply—stop.”

  Another tear trembled on her lashes, and she gasped her next words. “I can’t kill your brothers.”

  No, she really couldn’t. “There are more ways to punish someone than to kill them, Dahlia. The punishment, after all, should match the crime.”

  “Will you tell me their crime?”

  He allowed himself a smile. “Perhaps. But you must agree to this now, or I’m afraid your life ends here.” Her kindness and nature should have been rewarded. Instead…

  Dahlia swallowed, and somehow, she managed to open her eyes. “What’s your name?”

  “You can call me Seth,” Judgment told her as he threaded fingers through the blood slickened hair at her temple. For a moment, her lucidity returned with a bit of her strength.

  “Okay, Seth,” she whispered, lips quirking like this was all a joke. “If this isn’t one of those light at the end of the tunnel moments where I’m experiencing a hallucination because of oxygen deprivation to the brain…I accept. I’ll get retribution for you. You take care of Alex. I was wrong to want to fix him. You can’t fix evil.”

  Judgment considered her for a moment. “You are not asking for mercy for him?” He had to be sure.

  Dahlia’s gaze hardened. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

  No. He really didn’t.

  “Then you have my word.” His voice softened, and he slid his hand deeper into her hair, carefully palming her damaged skull as he lifted her. “And my grace,” he whispered before he released time and caught her last breath with his, closing his mouth over hers and exhaling it back into her body, igniting that stubborn spark that fought on, even as it guttered in the darkness.

  Light flashed. Authority resounded through him, and her heart thundered as he gave her what she would need. Not much, it couldn’t be too much. Her human body wouldn’t be able to take it. But life flooded her, and then her hand clasped his nape, fisting around his braid, and she slid her tongue against his.

  Lightning sizzled through his system as something shifted and changed. Then he lifted his head and met Dahlia’s dazzled gaze. “Wow…” she whispered, then her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed. He caught her easily and rose. Her body used his grace and was already working hard to repair itself.

  Sleep was what she needed most for now. Climbing the stairs, he exited on the roof. The hot, humid air rushed against him as he unfurled his wings and shot into the sky. First, he would settle her.

  Then he would take out the trash.

  A deal was a deal.

  2

  Huh, they always said I had the ‘face of an angel.’ Pretty sure they didn’t mean this… - Dahlia

  Dahlia

  The afterlife wasn’t so bad. I was warm, cozy, surrounded by miles of fluffy blankets. At least, I imagined it was miles of luxury bedding. When I tried to open my eyes, nothing happened.

  Because I was dead?

  Damn, memories slowly trickled back into my head of going to that God forsaken bar, Sinner’s, with Alex. He was upset about a one off comment his boss had made about firing him. So what? The owners of the construction company where he worked were always spouting shit off. They were hot heads to the extreme.

  Then I had made one little joke, something to lighten the mood, but he hadn’t been impressed. In fact, he turned downright hateful. Over the last year of our relationship, he’d been drinking more, quicker to anger, and all around spiteful. Stupid me, I had wanted to help, thought I could bring him back to the funny, handsome man I had fallen in love with.

  I learned my lesson the hard way.

  And now, I was in some kind of in-between place that smelled like clean linens with a hint of lemon, and cradled in a mound of softness. I guessed there could be worse ways to spend eternity.

  But something else niggled the back of my mind.

  At the end, I was drowning in an abyss of endless pain, almost unconscious, definitely not coherent. Through the wavy haze of tears, a man crouched over me. I wanted to say I had imagined it, but he was probably the angel coming to take me to heaven. He had made the pain go away, so he couldn’t have been bad.

  Our conversation about punishing his brothers so Alex could get what he deserved was probably a figment of my desperate imagination. I had wanted him to pay, I had wanted him to suffer like the bastard had mad
e me suffer over the last twelve months.

  A distant chime dinged, reminiscent of a cooking timer, or maybe an old-fashioned doorbell. Soft footsteps sounded through the space, a little more substantial than the delicate bell. Actually, the delicious scent of bacon drifted to wherever I was, replacing the clean smell of the bedding.

  That was odd.

  Please, God tell me I wasn’t destined to be a ghost, forever cursed to smell amazing food without having the ability to eat it.

  Dishes clattered together and cabinet doors closed gently. This place had soft close cabinets, something that was too fancy for our apartment, even though it was one of the nicer but affordable options in town.

  The footsteps were getting closer, and with it, the bacon.

  With more effort than I’d like to admit, I finally opened my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear the blurriness.

  Only, it didn’t go away. Damn it, I needed contact solution.

  “Good morning, how are you feeling?”

  That voice, I knew that voice. The man who took my pain away stood mere feet from me, and I couldn’t see him! I rubbed my hands furiously over my eyes, but when I blinked again, it was still blurry.

  “I can’t see,” I rasped in a voice that should not be heard before I’d had my coffee.

  He made a soft noise under his breath, more curious than alarmed. Warm, calloused hands pulled my own away from my eyes and tipped my face up. This would have been the perfect time to study him, but my contacts were so dry, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were wrinkled over my eyeballs. So to avoid embarrassment, I kept my eyes and mouth shut. No weird expressions, and no morning breath.

  Because his very presence meant I wasn’t dead, right?

  “Open your eyes,” he commanded.

  Covering my mouth with my hand I said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I need contact solution.”

  “Ah,” this mystery man said like everything made sense. Well, I was glad one of us understood what was going on. “You don’t need contact solution. You need to take your contacts out. You’ve been restored to a perfect state of health.”

  “What?” I dropped my hand, then immediately picked it back up. “I’m confused.”

  “Are you? You remember me, do you not?” He left but came right back with something that rustled, most likely a small trash can.

  My heart, which had been mostly uninterested up until this point, started to pound in an ‘oh shit, maybe that conversation was real’ kind of way. It beat so fast and so furious, it pounded in my ears.

  Did I tell him I remembered him and the agreement he extracted from me? Or did I pretend like my body didn’t vibrate with electricity when he kissed me?

  That kiss. Never in my life had I experienced anything like the overwhelming energy running through my body at that moment. My fingers, toes, and even my nose had tingled. Was that normal? Did my mystery hero normally go around giving electric kisses to women in need?

  Hell, I wasn’t sure what I wanted the answer to that to be, and that frightened me.

  I shivered as the vivid memory replayed itself on a loop behind my eyelids.

  “Here,” he shook what I was now sure was a trashcan. “Put your contacts in here, and then we can discuss our deal while you eat breakfast.”

  Our deal.

  Right.

  Aware of his nearness, I pushed myself up in the bed. Yep. A bed. My float away eternity in cloudy nirvana was just a bed. So, what did that make my savior? A shiver tickled up my spine, but I suppressed the shudder as I braced the fingers of one hand around my eye and then hesitated.

  “Do you mind not hovering?” Yeah. My voice came out in that craptastic rasp again.

  “Hovering?” Amusement seemed to linger in that word. Despite the question, he moved away. The blur of him, but not the sense of him. That last part didn’t make any sense. Not much did. It would have to do. I braced my eye open, then pinched the first contact. It itched abominably as I freed it, and the profound relief had my eye tearing. In a hurry to get the other one out, I nearly poked myself in the eye.

  After rubbing them vigorously, I stole a look at my rescuer. He stood a few feet away from the bed, his arms folded and his expression—oh, his face. Even through the sheen of tears, he seemed chiseled from stone. Warm. Living. Breathing. Stone.

  His eyes captivated me. Pale blue, they burned with a light like they’d been lit from behind. No wonder he kissed like a god. He looked like one, too. Even as I tried to stop staring, I dragged my gaze down to those luscious lips framed by a silky soft beard.

  Definitely soft.

  It had tickled my cheeks, even as he lit me up with the first touch of his lips, and he’d tasted like…

  “Better?” The question jerked my attention back up to his eyes, and I nodded.

  “Yes,” I rasped. “Thank you.” I pushed back the covers, realizing that not only was I tucked into the soft bed with its luxurious covers, I was also dressed in a simple shift, the fabric nearly softer than what I’d been lying in.

  A shift.

  And I didn’t have anything on beneath it.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Burned,” he said. My host? Savior? You know what, Seth worked. Seth hadn’t moved an inch, even the tip of his head was barely perceptible. Yet as impassive as his gaze seemed, he trapped me every time I met his gaze.

  And I really didn’t mind, at all.

  He burned my clothes.

  Okay.

  Wait.

  “You burned them?” The rasp gave way to a squeak as I shoved the rest of the way out of the bed. I hit my feet at a stumble and had to catch myself as my legs wobbled a second. “Why did you burn them?”

  “They were covered in blood.” Reasonable. Maybe. “They’re also from your old life. You don’t need them anymore. Come.” He jerked his head once before he turned and walked away. “You need to eat.”

  I staggered a few steps before I stopped again.

  Covered in blood.

  Old life.

  Our deal.

  “Seth?”

  A long sigh met my call.

  “Yes, Dahlia,” he said. “You died.”

  “But…”

  He returned to the doorway and stared at me. “This would be easier over food.”

  “Tell me.” The panic currently clawing its way through my insides to reach my throat was going to erupt in a scream at any moment. That, or I’d wake up in the hospital with a concussion and the terror of a nightmare.

  Please.

  “You died,” he said. “I’ve only delayed the inevitable. I’ve taken the pain of it. This…this will not last.”

  “You said I’d healed to…” Wait, how had he put it? “Restored to full health? No, a perfect state of health. You said perfect state.”

  “I did,” he said with a nod. “I also warned you that it would not last.”

  He had.

  “I’m dead?”

  Most people would have said, “I’m sorry,” or “I understand.” They might have given me a sympathetic look or even a wince. Seth? He shrugged.

  “Yes. You’re dead. How many times do you need me to repeat it for you to accept it? I am prepared to say it as many times as necessary. But you need to eat. Now.”

  “I’m dead.”

  Nope.

  I pressed two fingers to my throat. The steady thump of my pulse was right there. Well, the racing hammer of it anyway.

  Dead.

  Another sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” I said automatically. The words were meaningless, and I got it—he was in a hurry. “It’s taking me a minute.”

  Another urge chose that moment to strike.

  Wheeling abruptly, I searched the room and caught the tile visible through another open door, then staggered toward the bathroom. I moved like I was drunk. Or hadn’t used my legs.

  Ever.

  Restored to perfect health? Right.

  “Where are you going?”

/>   I glanced over my shoulder as I braced a hand against the jamb of the open bathroom door. The opulence inside would need to be swooned over later. “I have to pee.” Then I was inside, and I shut the door.

  I was dead, and I had to pee.

  A little laugh escaped.

  Then another.

  How could I need to pee when I was dead?

  Can I wake up now?

  Nope, apparently, this was my new reality. I wobbled and weaved all the way to the toilet to take care of business. When I finished, I faced myself in the mirror, unsure of what I would see. At first, I squinted, ready to jump back out of the line of sight if it scared me.

  Ha! I looked the same. Actually…

  Leaning into the sink, I poked the skin around my eyes, then stretched it at my cheeks. Wow, death had never looked so good.

  All of the imperfections were gone, the chicken pox scar on my forehead had disappeared, even the slight laugh lines around my eyes were smoothed away. I grinned. Ah, there those babies were. But when I blanked my expression, the skin was photoshopped perfect.

  Seth cleared his throat on the other side of the door.

  Crap, he was waiting, and my mysterious savior might not like waiting. Not to mention, every minute I was awake, my own curiosity raged until I was dying—ha!—to learn what the hell was going on.

  The door swooshed softly as I pulled it open and came face to face with Seth.

  Wow. I had to crane my neck back to look into his face. On the bed, it hadn’t registered how freaking tall this guy was. But now that I was standing, he had to be a good six or seven inches taller than me. And I was five-foot-ten!

  Without saying a word or acknowledging my awkward behavior, he left me to head toward what I assumed was the kitchen. As I followed behind him, walking became easier until there was no residual drunk girl residing inside me.

  Instead of a kitchen, he ended up in a dining room with a massive wooden table that could seat thirty people easy. Long scrapes and deep dents told the story of a well-used table. An assortment of dishes and pitchers were at one end, with one place setting that must have been for me. Yep, it was. He turned once he reached it and clasped his hands in front of him. For a second, it almost seemed like a dark blond braid swung over his shoulder, but with the next blink, it was gone.