"03 - A Disagreement with Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Craig Shaw)

Norei whistled softly. "Alea was right."

"Alea?" I murmured. Had Alea been here?

Norei nodded, more to herself than to me. "When she told me that she had embraced you, and nestled her cheek tenderly next to your own, and promised you she would do anything, anything at all, to break you from this mood, and that, to all of this, you showed not the slightest reaction, I doubted her. Until now."

Alea had done what? I did not remember an embrace, and Alea was the sort of person, what with her long blond hair and trim actress's figure, with whom an embrace

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would be memorable. And there had been cheek nestling as well? And she had promised to do anything?

Anything? Well, not that I would have done anything, because, after all, I was promised to my beloved Norei. But still. Anything?

And I didn't remember any of it?

Norei frowned at me. "There must be some way we can get you out of this state."

I frowned back at her. I hoped that there was. Obviously, from what Norei had told me, the depression I was in was more serious than I had thought. I furrowed my brow, but the memory of Alea was lost to me.

Anything?

Norei reached out her arms to me and clasped me firmly.

"I think this calls for drastic action," she whispered, a grim half-smile upon her lips. She leaned in my direction.

What was she doing? My master was gone! I didn't have any time for such foolishness. Her full lips were much too close. I wanted to turn my head away.

For some reason, I did not.

I closed my eyes, and we kissed.

The kiss lasted for quite some time. I felt a tingling warmth in my chest, which spread outward as the kiss continued, until it heated me from the top of my head to the ends of my toes. And the true center of the warmth emanated from Norei's soft lips, the sweetest lips anyone had ever kissed.

The kiss ended at last. I gasped for breath. I opened my eyes.

Perhaps, I reconsidered, there was hope, after all.

"Now," my beloved said again. "Would you like to talk about it?"

I nodded, not yet able to speak.

"Ebenezum is gone," Norei summarized. "Death has taken him. But Death really wants you."

I nodded again. I marveled at my beloved. How could she be so clearheaded after such a kiss?

"And Death would be glad to trade your soul for Ebenezum's?"

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