Page 156 of Protected in Darkness
“No. Maybe not. But…” Well, she hadn’t really considered the logistics of dying. She’d accepted everything he’d told her, probably a bit too easily. There was no denying it scared her, but she was willing. For him, she was willing.
“I have to make the ultimate sacrifice,” he rasped. “To prove my faith in God.”
“By killing me?”
“Yes.”
Penelope swallowed, tried to wrap her head around it. She’d heard people speak of a vengeful God, but surely He wasn’t expecting something morbid, right?
“Okay. So you prove your faith by taking my life,” she said, rationalizing it. “Then maybe something that won’t hurt. An overdose. I could go to sleep, and when I wake up, I’ll be—”
His eyes were cold when they met hers. “I have to drive a dagger through your heart.”
Her hand instantly went to her chest as though she could protect the fragile organ from such a brutal act.
“Once I do, I’ll stand guard over your body. For twenty-four hours, I’m forced to watch over you, to know that I killed you and trust in the Lord to bring you back to me.”
“Twenty-four hours? I’ll be dead fortwenty-fourhours?”
Obsidian nodded. “When you wake, you’ll feel like you’re trapped in your own body, unable to move, to speak.”
Oh, boy. It just got better and better.
“How long does that last?”
“Only a few minutes.”
Well, thank God for that.
“While I’m dead, will you feel the loss? Like we felt before?” She remembered that moment in the shower at the hotel, when she’d thought he left.
He nodded. “You’ll be dead, Penelope. My absolute, worst fear realized. And I’m forced to endure, to know…”
His breath shuddered, his pain evident. He did not want to do this, although it was the only way they could be together for eternity.
Penelope swallowed hard, then moved over to him, needing to be close, to touch him, to hold him.
“I’m sorry, Obsidian,” she whispered as his arms came around her. “I don’t want you to hurt.”
He jerked her against him, his arms wrapping unbearably tight.
“What happens after that?”
“You’ll feed from me. At that point, when my blood’s running through your veins and yours in mine, we’ll merge. Your memories will become mine and mine yours. Everything I’ve ever done in my life, every heinous act will flash in your head, Penelope. You’ll know the truth of what I really am.”
She figured that was the easy part. Penelope already knew what and who Obsidian was. His past wouldn’t change how she felt about him. Nothing could change that.
Oddly, not even the thought of him driving a dagger through her heart.
Penelope suddenly realized it wasn’t her pain she was worried about.
It was his.
“Will I experience anything painful after, you know, I die?”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “Blessedly, no.”
“And I won’t have to cause you any pain?”
