"C'mon, if you'd told me that to have that bond we had to have sex in a regular basis, you just needed to tell me" I laughed by saying that and he did too.

But of course, it didn't happen because of sex. He told me that's not how it worked. If it was, lots and lots of his people would be bonded. It was just because we were closer to each other as the days passed, as we knew each other better – well, he knew me better. He wasn't yet at sharing past events mood.

It didn't take long for me to notice that it was really happening. It was indeed strong, as he said, and even though I joked about it just to lighten up the mood, I realized how serious it was when started to feel, especially when I would black out with pain and he'd be all worried. He didn't even need to be around or too close for me to feel his apprehension and worry. I was never a good liar myself, so he always knew when the pain was killing me just by the look, and now he didn't even need to look to know the pain was crippling me.

But it wasn't only for bad feelings. Curling up inside his arms would always calm me down even after a hard and bad night of visions and nightmares, so whenever we were cuddling, I would feel him happy because I was happy. Also, now I had an advantage. I could never tell whether he was or wasn't approaching me, but now it changed. Just after popping out the portal, I could always sense he was there now. And, of course, I don't even need to mention how sex was even more perfect after that.

Everything now was intensified and it was amazing.

It was weird a bit. I could actually feel his love for me and his feeling of protectiveness towards me. The bond showed he would die for me and, even not being able to do much, I would die for him as well.

It had been a while that we were together now, six or seven months? It was hard to know. I wasn't keeping track of time. But the need to be with him raised as the days passed, the urge to have him beside me each time he left and the agony and apprehension I felt that were vanished by the time he popped out of the portal. It was too strange and I would need more time to get used to it.

It was rare when I would see him actually sleeping. He didn't need to, but would eventually, mostly after animal like sex nights. But in some mornings, I could seriously just stay there, watching him sleep, for the whole morning, without bothering to do anything else, curled up to his chest with his face buried in my hair, my hand softly caressing him.

He was a quiet sleeper and in some nights he would be in such a deep sleep that I could even caress his face without him waking up. His arms around me never loosen the grip even in sleep, so I couldn't get out of bed without waking him up, and I clearly didn't want neither to happen. I would just stay there, paying attention to every detail of his face that, even asleep, had this angry expression carved in it.

I giggled noticing that even in such relaxed moment his scowl would never fade, placing a light kiss on his cheek, doing that on his half parted lips right next. I knew he was awake by the time he kissed me back with this tenderness. "A nice way of waking up"

"I'd do this more often if you slept regularly" I said, my chin on his chest after he turned around, laying me on top, looking at him "And not just when we have sex for a whole week worth" I laughed.

"You're lazy by the morning. You would have to wake up first and we both know that is hard to happen." he caressed my cheek and sighed.

"What is it?"

"I wouldn't like to leave you now, but we will be acting in the next few days" he sat up with me in his arms. "We will gather and discuss, but we are not sure for how long."

"You mean, with the Council?" and he nodded "Well… I know you guys win, that's comforting enough for me." I shrugged "Just… don't get too hurt" There was nothing I could do anyway. They had to do that. "But... you guys could come discuss in here, couldn't you?"

"I would like to, but we don't want to leave the Makers alone to take care of the humans even if the place is hidden."

"One can never be too careful, right?" I sighed; a bit saddened.

"Will you be alright alone for this time, my love?"

"I can handle myself" I smiled "Used to live in the streets, remember? I'm tough" I hit his arm with a slight punch "I'll be ok. Is not like I have anywhere else to go. Don't have your head thinking bout me while being there"

"I won't"

I rested my head on his chest "You can stay a little longer, can't you? It's a bit cruel of your brothers to strip me from you this early in the morning" I hugged him tight and he laughed.

"We need to organize ourselves, little one" I felt his fingers tangling down through my hair in a slight caress "But sure, I can stay here a little longer" he kissed the top of my head.

The silence followed for a while and I giggled with my thought "So that means I will be free of training for a while. Awesome" I just wanted to see his reaction.

"Why do you sound just like the three of them when they were young?" he growled "using every bit of opportunity to skip training" he negatively nodded his head "So reckless. And dares to say that wants to fight in battles…"

"Fine, stop it!" I said, a little angry, and he laughed "Geez, didn't have to do that to convince me to keep training" I snorted "You sound just like my mentor back on earth…"

"Then indeed you are reckless"

"Stop that!" and he laughed as I stood up, heavily stepping down in the wooden floor. "I'm going to take a shower" and I walked over to the bathroom.

"Thought you wanted me to stay with you." He said, playful.

"You can always join me, you know that"

"And you know that taking a shower is the last thing you will end up doing"

"Pervert" I laughed, walking past him with my stuff to the bathroom.

"I am not talking about me. You are the pervert one". But he just waited outside. He was right after all and I laughed thinking about that while the hot water started to fell on my face. I would pretty much forget about my shower was he there with me.

In days like that, freezing cold and snow falling all the time, the lake would pretty much freeze me to death if I dared to bathe there, if the river itself wasn't already frozen, so I would just go to the amazing shower to have this perfect hot water running down and I would pretty much spend long minutes in there and completely forget about the rest of the world, sometimes just with this hollow stare to the tiles of the wall.

It was funny to think of them like, building up the house and connecting wires and stuff for the hot water, but I just figured it was all made by and running through magic. It was the most logical explanation, as there were no power sites in there to provide energy like we did on earth and they wouldn't probably bother to properly build something. If they had to handle that kind of hassle, they would just search something already built.

Back on earth, free of all demons, the humans in the refuge were now free to search and retrieve items they thought they would need and also retrieve personal belongings that they could eventually find, and so the searching area was amplified. My brothers managed to go back to our house and gather most of our belongings, some of them gave us some comfort from our old days, and so for those cold days in the fortress, I had my perfect furry and warm bathrobe and all my winter stuff.

Death of course would just look at me like I was a freak. The cold didn't affect him as much as it did me. That was obvious. He would say I looked like a package ready to be sent away, all wrapped in layers of coats. "You didn't feel this cold back in the Kingdom of Dead. And I tell you, it was way colder than here."

"I was being constantly thrown away and attacked. There was no time to feel cold" I laughed, removing the towel from my wet hair and staying just in my bathrobe, going straight to sit on his lap for a little longer until he had to leave.

When he really needed to leave, We went outside just to find that Despair was already there, waiting his master to take him where he needed to go, sticking his nose right in my face to sniff me when I came out the door "Hi for you too, dear" I patted him in the neck "Take care of him" I whispered to the mount, pointing out to Death and Despair neighed, agreeing with me and slightly bumping me aside.

Death suddenly pulled me closer when I was distracted with the horse and kissed me, his hand caressing my reddened lips right next "I will be back before you blink"

"You better" I smiled. He gave me a final kiss in my forehead before putting on his mask and mounting his steed that neighed in excitement as he led his master to the newly opened portal that soon took him far from there. "You better…" I sighed and went back inside to sleep at the first chance I had.

I slept through the entire day, not willing to do a single thing in that cold day, hugged to his pillow that carried out his scent. I didn't know for how long he would be away with his brothers, but I just thought that that would do for this period. It was reassuring, though, when I had the vision again that they were going to win.

It was never a certain vision, to be true. It only showed me that they went there to confront the Council and managed to get out of there alive, with the entire place crumbling down, unharmed. I wasn't sure if that was real or if it was just my mind saying that they were awesome and could get out of it without a scratch, even confronting the ones that gave them their own powers, in order for me to stay cool about it.

But being honest, there was no way for me to stay cooler than I was. Death made sure of it, and also that vision was good enough to keep me calm. They would come back. Period. And then I would have less to worry about if I wanted to go out of there, after all, the Council had eyes everywhere, so sending minions, angel or demon alike, was pretty easy, thus having them out of the game would decrease the potential attacks aimed for me whenever I was out of the fortress.

Don't get me wrong, I love the place, but I hated being confined. Back in the days with my brothers, when we needed to stay in a certain place for too long without the possibility of going away in order to complete the mission, I would go crazy and need, at least, a week off to go away for a while. And after Death told me that there was much more than the humans know when it comes to other worlds, it just lit up my curiosity and I wanted to explore those places so much. And also, I would very much like to visit my brothers whenever I wanted without being an imminent threat for everyone around.

That was, obviously, one matter I would put in the table and talk with him. He could show me everything and we could go anywhere.

But I distracted my thoughts off of that within the next days as training became my routine for almost 24/7, only my pain in the chest being enough to make me stop training, or if I ended up pushing myself too hard and having to get some rest. That was the time I missed him the most, because his healing magic would do much better than mine for my pain, and his warm and comforting arms would ease anything.

"I'll have to do it myself…" I thought for a while, part of the pain being that we weren't together. Death would tell me later that it had to do with the bond as well.

And so I kept with my routine for about a week, seeing my own improvements, setting myself my own goals and, of course, using all the time I had to sleep. It, eventually, turned out to be something bad, because the vision of Sammael torturing me became more frequent and waking up from those wasn't easy. My chest burned and ached more each day, and I kept trying to make it fade away, but every night as I had those visions, it would come back harder than before.

I wondered if Death could feel it even being far away and I hoped not. It was the last thing I wanted. He would have lot of time to worry about me, but not in that moment. I could handle myself, I told him.

Since my healing wasn't working, I searched in his inventory for those healing shards, looking again to that locked chest in his room, again curiosity filling my mind, but I just walked past that and looked for what I wanted. By the time I found one shard and broke it, I felt numb in a good way and just threw myself in the bed to sleep and rest. That would be a day without training for me.

If only I had been able to sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the afternoon, I realized because it was still bright, but, Christ, my chest was burning as hell. I imagined it to be the effect of the healing shard, that had worn off, but it wasn't. I have felt it once and it wouldn't hurt it that way. It was as if it hadn't been any effect at all. I was twisting the fabric of my shirt so hard it was all wrinkled and stretched, the other hand held in a tight fist.

I felt my entire body burning and reached my hand to my forehead just to conclude I was burning in fever as well. It was keeping me from focusing my vision in anything and I just kneeled in the floor, the pain going and coming back stronger as ever, the grunts now turned into muffled screams until the time I couldn't hold it back anymore. I tried to go towards the river, to see if the cold water would help it go away, but I couldn't even reach there. In fact, I couldn't move. The pain was so strong that all my muscles contracted as if I was having the worst cramp ever.

Finally I felt like something stabbed me, but from inside out, as if something wanted to come out from there. It really hurt as if it was opening, but nothing was physically happening there.

I fell to the floor, still twisting my shirt, as if it would ease the pain, barely breathing and hallucinating, because I started seeing people in there, random ones, and ended up seeing my father, reaching out for me and telling me to stand up, that I could endure this because I was his little strong girl. My eyes watered, both from the pain and from hearing him say that.

I looked around, and nothing was in eyesight, not even the house, not even the lake. I was probably going mad from the pain and it didn't let me focus on my surroundings.

And then I thought I was probably unconscious, because I started seeing Sammael, right beside me, his large figure blocking the light from my face, so I couldn't see his. I knew it was him because I saw the outline of his upside-down wings and, somehow, I could see his wicked smile.

The pain grew stronger, I looked away from his figure and a loud scream left my mouth, probably the loudest one I've ever heard coming out of myself. "Death!" I called, even though the still conscious side of my mind knew he wasn't there, the barely awake part ached for him to come and help me, to ease that unimaginable pain I was feeling, to held me in his arms until that faded away.

I looked aside and saw Dust landing in a tree branch nearby, as if it was watching me. I couldn't think that I haven't seen Dust since I finished my journey with Death, but seeing the raven there only made me call for Death once more, that maybe now he would be able to hear it.

But he wasn't there. He couldn't hear me. Not this time.

I finally passed out, but not before screaming out his name once more.

/l/

Guys, thank you so, so much for coming with me in this adventure of mine and coming this far. I loved writing it and i hope you guys liked it too! Maya and Death will be together again, I pinky swear. Stay tuned or hit the follow button so you dont miss the sequel.

Thanks a mill for all of you.

Se you soon.