Free Darkness Falls (DA 7) by Keri Arthur Page A

not?”
    “Yes, but you just can’t pop in and take over a room like this. They’re a business. Hell, they might have already rented the room out to someone—”
    “I will go down to reception and ensure that cannot happen,” he said. “In the meantime, you should sleep. You cannot continue to go on as you are.”
    “But the sorceress—”
    “May yet be locked in hell, for all that we know.” He placed his hands on my shoulders and gently but firmly pushed me toward the bed. “If you care nothing for your own health, then at least think about the health of our child. Please, get some rest.”
    “That’s not playing fair, reaper,” I muttered, as my butt hit the bed. “Besides, we did that wholeenergize-through-sex thing not too long ago. If you can go on without any other rest and sustenance, I should be able to.”
    “When you are full energy, yes, you will be able to.” There was little inflection in his voice, but more than a little impatience in his thoughts. “But you are not that yet. Rest.”
    Tiredness washed through me at his words, and I had to wonder if perhaps he was subtly forcing me to obey.
    “No,” he said, the impatience evident in his voice this time. “I cannot. It was one of the more unfortunate effects of sharing my life force.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “I’d hardly call it unfortunate.”
    “It is when you are being unreasonably stubborn.”
    I touched his arm lightly, my fingers cool against his more heated skin. “Azriel, I’m not being stubborn. It’s just that we’ve been three steps behind the sorceress up until now. We have a chance—and possibly only a brief chance—to get ahead of her and find the key, and we need to grab it.”
    “A few hours will not make a great deal of difference to our chances of finding the key,” he said grimly. “But it might well make a vast difference to our chances of surviving whatever fights the fates have in store for us.”
    “Fair enough,” I muttered. “But if you’re going to nag me like this for the rest of eternity, I won’t be a happy woman.”
    “If we survive the next few days, then I promise, I will do all in my power to ensure your happiness.”
    He was half smiling as he said it, but there was a seriousness—a darkness—in his eyes that had my stomach churning. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “Nothing—”
    “Damn it, Azriel, you agreed to stop that. You said you’d be honest—”
    “And I am.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We are both in a precarious situation. The fateshave given no certainty of life for either of us, but that has been our situation since this quest first began.”
    “But the fates have said something since this quest began, haven’t they? I can feel it, Azriel. It hangs like a weight in your eyes and your soul.”
    “They have done nothing more than emphasize the precariousness of the situation, but that is something we have long been aware of.” He shrugged. “Now, please, rest.”
    He was lying. I knew it; he knew it. The fates had said something else, something he feared to tell me. I swore softly but knew my reaper well enough by now to know he was never going to tell me what it was.
    I tugged off my clothes and climbed into bed. As I pulled the blankets over my shoulders, I met his gaze, a smile teasing my lips. “Seeing you’re forcing me into bed, the least you could do is give me a kiss good night.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Is this a required custom here on Earth?”
    “Totally,” I said. “And if you don’t kiss me good night, I’ll only get moodier.”
    “Heaven forbid that happen,” he murmured, then bent down, his lips brushing mine briefly, before the kiss deepened, becoming a long, slow exploration that had desire curling through me again and heat sparking the air between us.
    “That,” he murmured eventually, “is a very dangerous custom. And if you did not need sleep so badly, I might be tempted to join you under those