“No,” he protested, flinching at the pain. He wrapped his hands around my wrists, squeezing too tight.
“Kieron, that hurts,” I said, trying not to flinch in pain, trying to keep the panic quelled. If he wanted to, he could cast me aside like a rag doll. I’d always loved how much taller he was than me, always admired how strong and capable he was, but now—though I knew he’d never hurt me on purpose—I feared just how much harm that powerful body might do. “Kieron, you’re hurting me.”
Instantly remorseful, he loosened his grip, lowering my hands to his cheeks, and I saw it.
A skull, gruesomely misshapen and black with poisoned blood.
The world around me stopped and shrank until all I could see was its dark form, its empty eye sockets, its bared teeth.
“No.”
I wanted to scream, but instead that one tiny, small word escaped me. It was a puff of air, a breath on a cold morning, a wisp of vapor too fragile to last.
“No.”
Not my Kieron.
Not today, when we were meant to be joined together. Our lives were supposed to be long, stretching out in front of us, rife with possibility and good fortune. We would be married. We would have children. We’d watch them grow and our house would be filled with love, with laughter, with comfort and care, and this was not happening. This could not be happening. The skull wasn’t really there. The skull was wrong. The skull…
The skull snapped its teeth at me, demanding I pay attentiontoit.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, swallowing the shriek that wanted to rip itself from my soul.
I had to think clearly.
I wasn’t going to kill Kieron. That wasn’t happening. There had to be another way. Another path.
So.
If I couldn’t kill him, I’d have to save him, regardless of the consequences that would come.
If.Ifthere were consequences to come.
My parents and the other ghosts had been sick. They’d been sick and would have gone on to harm others had they lived. Many, many others.
I didn’t understand how the deathshead worked, what senseof morality it operated under, how it decided how many potential victims were too many.
But Kieron wasn’t sick. He wasn’t a threat.
I narrowed my eyes as a thought crossed my mind.
It was a terrible thought.
Perhaps the worst one I’d ever had.
Kieronwasa threat.
Not to me, not to his family or anyone in town.
But to Merrick…
To Merrick, he was the ultimate danger. The one who would take me away from my godfather, away from the plans he’d set out for me, the plans he expected me to follow without hesitation, the plans I always had followed…until I’d fallen in love with Kieron.
I cupped Kieron’s face again, studying the skull with fresh eyes.
Had my godfather done this? Did this skull mean what the others had? Or was it simply doing my godfather’s dirty work?
“Damn the deathshead,” I muttered, then sprang into action. I laid out the instruments, pulled down bottles of antiseptics, and arranged everything I would need in neat rows on a tray, choking back sobs I couldn’t afford to feel.
