Page 122 of In Between Death and the Devil

“I—” I looked at my hands in confusion. “I don’t know what happened. I went to draw more power from Fen and I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean, you couldn’t?” Marcus asked.

“It was like I’d reached the bottom of whatever there was to draw.” I didn’t know that was possible. Fen seemed to have an unlimited amount of power.

“You’ve created more things at one time before,” Titus said with a frown.

“I’ve never done it while creating an illusion, though. Those require quite a bit more than creating something tangible.” My stomach felt like I’d swallowed lead. I didn’t know how I was going to defeat Death, but I imagined it was going to take a lot of power.

“Maybe Fen used a lot today,” Marcus said.

Or maybe there was something wrong with our Death Chord, maybe it wasn’t strong enough. Or maybe it was me. Had I reached my own limits in some way? I swallowed.

“Hey,” Titus said. “Talk to Fen. See what he thinks. And we’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe things will be different. You’ve been making a lot of progress.”

My smile was tight as I nodded, but I had to admit he was right. I was so wound up about the challenge that even small obstacles felt huge. I was probably blowing it out of proportion.

* * *

Except Fen wasn’t any help. He was in the Dungeon until late and when he finally did come to bed, talking was the last thing on his mind.

“I ran into a problem during training today,” I said breathlessly as Fen kissed his way down one side of my neck.

The sight of him at the bedroom door, eyes nearly black with heat and hunger for me, had almost made me forget what I’d wanted to talk to him about. I was in his arms and already wet before I remembered.

“Mmm. What kind of…” he scraped his teeth against my skin in the way that I loved, making my knees weak, “problem?”

“I stopped being able to pull power after a certain point.” I gasped as he nipped the top of my breast before working his way across my chest to do the same on the other side. “Like I’d drawn all there was.”

“Oh, is that what I felt?” He kissed his way up the other side of my neck. “You must have been doing quite a lot.”

“I was but—oh.” He’d reached the spot behind my ear that made me go molten. “I need to be able to…” He yanked my shirt—actually his shirt which I’d been wearing to bed—over my head and dipped down to suck on one of my nipples. “To p-pull more.” His hands slid down to cup my ass. His palms were large enough to cover most of each cheek, despite my ample assets. It made me feel owned in the best way. “Fen, please. I can’t concentrate when you do that.”

He drew one last, deep pull on my breast that made my toes curl, and then let go, straightening to his full height. “I think you overestimate what you need. Plus, you’re still learning. Maybe the limit was self-imposed, and you’ll be able to draw more tomorrow. Or maybe we need to deepen our bond, by doing this.” He gave me a lingering kiss, then tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “Do you need to talk about this right now, or can it wait until the morning?” Gold flecks swirled in his eyes.

I bit my lip. All I wanted right now was his hands and mouth on me and his cock inside me. “It can wait.”

“Good. Now, how do you feel about calling me ‘sir’ again?”

* * *

We never talked about it the next morning, because Fen was gone when I woke up. Daphne told me at breakfast he’d gone to the Dungeon early to work with a soul.

Training was almost exactly like the day before. I reached the limit of how much power I could draw earlier than I needed. Day after day. It never budged. Titus finally switched tactics, working out exactly how much power each action took and how to achieve the same thing with less, but the finite limit frightened me. I’d never been very good with strategy, one of the reasons I never played chess with my father. If I couldn’t increase the amount of power I drew, I would have to end the challenge with Death quickly. Otherwise, all she had to do was outlast me. One more way, out of far too many, that I could fail.

I should have discussed it more in depth with Fen, but he was barely around. The only time I saw him was at night in bed, and it was clear he didn’t want to spend that time talking. Neither did I. It was the one part of my life that felt good. I didn’t want to weigh it down with my failure. Besides, what if it wasn’t just my failure? What if there was something wrong with our Death Chord? If that was the case, deepening my connection with Fen through physical intimacy might solve the problem.

It didn’t. After a week of nothing changing, I decided I couldn’t avoid it anymore. During our midday break, I went looking for Fen.

He was a hard man to track down. Every time I arrived in one part of the castle looking for him, I was told that he’d just left for somewhere else. I began to think he was avoiding me.

“Let me guess,” I said to a Tempter in the kitchen. “I just missed him.” It was the sixth place I’d looked. He was definitely avoiding me.

They nodded, a frightened look on their face.

Blowing out a short breath through my nose, I rolled my lips inward. “Did he say where he was going?”

The Tempter shook their head.