Prologue
Alec Darwin was
dying, or as close to it as one could be without having that last
little spark of life flitter away into nothingness.
He closed his eyes
and lay back, shifting slightly when a rock dug into the small of
his back. Should he go to the trouble of trying to remove it, he
wondered absently, so he could lie for eternity in comfort? Or was
such a trivial thing worth the effort? Did he even have the
strength to do it? It had been all he could do to stagger to the
area he had the previous day cleared of small, pointed rocks, his
final resting place.
His shoulder shifted
in mild irritation. The rock ground into his kidney, the pain of it
distracting him from his plan. Dammit, he hadn’t seen a rock when
he fell to the ground, his strength draining from him as his body
squeezed the last morsel of energy from the remaining teaspoon or
two of blood that was slowly absorbed into his dying
flesh.
He was supposed to be
cherishing his martyrdom as he lay dying in the Akasha, not
thinking about a damned rock the size of a watermelon digging into
his back. He was supposed to be thinking of the pathetic tragedy of
a life that he had been forced to live, unenlivened with any sort
of joy or happiness, or even hope. He shouldn’t be wondering
whether if he rolled over onto his side, the damned rock would let
him die in peace.
If only his Beloved
hadn’t died. If only he’d come to her a few minutes earlier, he
could have been there when that idiot reaper lost control. If only
he’d bedded her and Joined the minute he knew she was his Beloved,
rather than allowing her to give in to her mortal sensibilities,
demanding he court her.
A last breath passed
his lips as he tried to hold on to the image of her face, his one
true love, the woman who had been put on the earth to save him, and
who had died the victim of a senseless accident that was directly
responsible for his death at that moment.
Awareness slid away
from him, the rock ceasing to be an annoyance, the last few sparks
between his brain cells providing not the image of his Beloved, as
he so desperately wanted, but that of a woman who had lain in a
faint at his feet a few months previously.