Death Untold

Chapter 1

One

LIAM

Nothing was certain, they said on the material plane, but Death and taxes.

Yet the longer I lingered among them, the more deeply I came to understand that despite the frequency with which such platitudes were offered, Death and taxes were merely constructs in their eyes, words to encapsulate complex systems and ideas too vast for the human mind to grasp.

The only true certainty in their world—a world to which I so desperately ached to belong—was love.

It broke all the rules. It decimated once-immutable truths. It kicked down walls and spilled blood and burned so fiercely its heat possessed the power to bond that which, by all the laws of the cosmos, should have been severed.

Indeed, even as the fae’s silver blade had severed Emilio Alvarez’s spine, Gray’s fierce love for him kept him tethered to her essence, against all odds.

His soul vibrated inside my raven form, guiding me on fierce winds high above the burning warehouse, far beyond the small town of Raven’s Cape, through time and space and back again. When I finally felt called to stop, I found myself soaring through the deep indigo skies of Gray’s magical realm.

It was as if she’d guided us both here, though she couldn’t have known I’d already claimed him. I saw her now in my limitless vision, leading the witches from the warehouse, her incubus and vampire steadfast at her side.

All of her companions were fighters, just like Gray.

Just like Emilio.

Sighting the glow of her stone altar in the meadow below, I swooped down and dropped soundlessly to the earth, shifting into my human form just as Emilio Alvarez’s broken body materialized on the ground before me—part man, part wolf, ruined and very near an end he didn’t want to accept.

I suppose I hadn’t wanted to accept it, either. If I had, I would have retrieved his soul, leaving the body for his loved ones to mourn and bury, as was their custom.

Instead, I’d brought him with me.

His blood soaked through the dark green meadow grass, and once again, his soul writhed and spun inside me, a frenzied dance that quickened beneath the shadow of the rune gate and the Shadowrealm beyond. Further down the path, its stone archway loomed, beckoning me to carry him through.

It was, after all, my sacred duty. My purpose.

Yet I was immobilized.

Whether it was his unfathomable strength in resisting Death’s call, or my weakness in performing my task in the face of the pain I’d already caused, I could not bear the thought of escorting the soul of Gray’s wolf to his eternal resting place.

Not until she had the chance to say her farewell.

One more day, one more hour, one more moment to hold a loved one close and whisper all the right words… Every human who’d ever suffered the loss of someone dear to them had wished for the same thing. Begged for it. They believed that the gift of time, however brief, would be a balm for their shattered hearts.

It was the least I could give the woman who’d captured mine.

As if he understood my intentions, Emilio’s soul heated from within, making my skin glow silver. Human or raven or some other creature altogether, none of my vessels were strong enough to contain him long term. His energy was too bright, too strong, even in death.

The pentacle carved into Gray’s altar pulsed a violet-blue, and ahead of us on the path, two of my strongest and most loyal ferriers appeared—a great horned owl and a white raven. They perched in the lower branches of a barren, oil-black tree, awaiting my orders.

But those orders would not come. Not yet.

“Tonight,” I said, “in the realm where all things are still possible, we shall endeavor to stop time for them.” I had no idea how long it would take Gray to arrive—only that she would arrive. Ronan would tell her of Emilio’s passing, and she would find us. Find him.

I knelt in the grass beside his broken body and reached for his hand, his human fingers curled in agonizing pain against the forepaw of his wolf form, his entire body caught mid-shift. His death had been agonizing, but he felt no pain now. The blade had done its work carving through flesh and bone; the silver poison had done the rest.

I brought his hand to my chest, held it close. The blood of the wolf soaked my human clothing through to the skin, and an inexplicable wetness leaked from my eyes.

He deserved better.

Such was the way of all brave men.

“She is coming,” I promised him in a voice so despondent, I hardly recognized it. “Gray will be here.”