Preamble
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but in my next life, I’m taking it easy. I worked my ass off my entire life … for this?
“Poor dumb Thiago.” There was the hint of a smile on Mateo’s scarred lips. The pink silk faux-kimono was slipping off his shoulders as he leaned toward me over the small table. The poisonous flowers embroidered into the silk enhanced his cold expression.
Mateo had never treated me poorly. In a world full of magic and monsters, Mateo had to be the weakest mage I’d ever met. His family had physically and mentally scarred him for his lack of ability. But god damn, the man was gorgeous, especially with those scars. And there was nothing weak about the rest of his body. He could body slam me every day, and I’d always ask for more.
This was the man who poisoned me. The man I’d worshipped for the last ten years was the death of me. I was so surprised, I couldn’t even muster a means to save myself. Sixty years fighting every day of my career, only to die in my own home.
My heart raced. The room melted around me. I knew it was a hallucination from a fast-acting poison. I don’t know how he found a poison I wasn’t immune to. If I wasn’t so busy dying, I might have thought about it more.
“Don’t worry about your worldly possessions.” He tilted his head with a gentle smile, the same way he would before I left for work at all hours of the day. “I have someone to console me, and he’s good with money.” He touched my cheek with a single finger.
His touch burned. That’s how I knew I wasn’t going to be able to avoid death this time. I’d grown so cold that his body heat felt like fire. I’d gotten close to death so many times, too. I didn’t think I could recover from this one.
“I hope he strangles you,” I spat out.
His expression turned into fury. His mother had been strangled. Though he’d witnessed it, the actual murderer wasn’t punished for the crime. Mateo’s low status in the family meant he wasn’t allowed to tell people his own father was her murderer.
You’d think it would make him averse to murder.
As everything went dark, I regretted saying it. I’d never gotten mad at Mateo. Before now, the man could do no wrong in my eyes. Then again, he’d basically been kept like a housewife while I worked tirelessly.
Maybe I’d never deserved a relationship. Widowed in my twenties, one failed marriage before I turned thirty-five, and my third lover kills me. Maybe in my next life I’ll be content with a pet, like a dog or bird, or something.
