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with my head?”
     
    His expression is stoic as he continues to hold onto my arm. “Who said I was messing with you? Maybe I know something about your father.”
     
    I want to shove him back and run; to get away from him because he has to be lying. Deep down, though—in the bottom of my soul—I wish that he wasn’t and that’s why I stay. “Do you know something?”
     
    He crosses his arms. “I’m not going to tell you until you pay me back for bringing back that guy.”
     
    I shake my head. “I know I should be saying thank you, but the kiss is more than enough.” I force myself to look up at him.
     
    A smile creeps up on his face as he extends his hand to me. Begrudgingly, I slip my fingers through his. Then he jerks me against his body, our chests colliding.
     
    “You can pretend you don’t want to do this,” he says, “but we both know you do.”
     
    I shake my head, unable to speak. “Let’s just get this over with.”
     
    He lets out a low chuckle as he draws a line across my bottom lip with his fingertip. “Close your eyes.”
     
    Forcing air into my lungs, I obey, feeling the power he has over me. I hold my breath when I feel him shift and then his lips are hovering over mine. He takes my hands and places them on top of his chest where his heart is; that is, if he has a heart.
     
    “Take it,” he whispers. “Take the life inside of me.”
     
    My eyes snap open and I try to retreat, but he holds me securely in place. “What? No way.” I shake my head swiftly. “You said you wanted a kiss.”
     
    “It’s almost like a kiss,” he says, his voice gravelly as he presses on my lower back, forcing me to stay close to him. “Just a little extra.”
     
    “I don’t care… I said a kiss…” I’m not even sure why I’m arguing because both seem just as bad. “Besides, you’re already dead. You don’t even have life inside you.”
     
    “If you really believe that, then why are you so afraid?”
     
    “I…” I trail off, feeling a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I just walked into a trap. Was any of this real? The club? The guy I stabbed? None of it really happen, did it?
     
     “Feel it,” Cameron commands, ignoring me as he lowers his forehead against mine. “Take my life from me, princess. I’m asking you to.”
     
    “Why?” I manage to say, but it’s hard to speak because I feel the spark of life within him—breathing, beating, fully alive and awake—waiting for me to take it away, blow it out and make it mine. “Why do you want me to do this?”
     
    “It doesn’t matter,” he says softly, his voice brimming with elation. “What does matter is that you said you would and that deep down, in that place you won’t admit exists, you know you want to feel it… the taste of a life from another.”
     
    “No…” I say, but it’s a lie because, now that he’s said it, I want to taste it. I feel myself falling towards him, like my body is sinking into his, but I’m not the one moving. He is. Sinking into me, his life spilling into my veins, like smoldering flames that simmer out as soon as they touch me…
     
    “No…” I try to pull away, but it’s too late. His life engulfs me, hot and blazing, burning and breathing.
     
    Moments later, the fire starts to fizzle and becomes heavy and thick, like tar running through my veins. I can taste the foulness of it, but at the same time—within the distorted place I don’t want to admit exists, the one created by the Reaper blood inside me—I want it.
     
    I want more.
     
    When I push my hands forward, crushing them against Cameron’s chest, he lets out a painful yet blissful moan as his head slants back and more life and sparks burst into me until his life is consuming every inch of my body. Heavy and weightless at the same time—and somewhere between it all—I get lost. I float away into the darkness. And in the midst of it, I swear I feel feathers touching me, but before I can figure