The Rest is Silence
an excerpt

There was something strange about his touch, a strange chill that accompanied the orgasm he brought me to. Even so, he felt substantial, sure of what he was doing. The way my hands had been able to grip him so firmly deceived me. I was entirely unprepared for what he told me as we lay on the bed with our energies spent.

“Tyren,” Aden muttered, my lover’s eyes half-shut in a warm contentness.

“Nn?” I turned my tired head in his direction, dark eyelashes half blocking my view of him.

“I’ve got something perfectly absurd to tell you,” he said. His voice was lowered to a near-whisper.

My heart tightened as all the possible things he could be prepared to tell me flitted through my mind. My sleepiness had abated some, curiosity pouring over it. He turned silvery eyes downward, mulling over whether or not the words should be spoken. I watched him with an apprehensive patience.

A strange smile I could never have hoped to put a word to slinked onto his face. Still he was not looking at me - instead his gaze was fixed upon the mattress below us. “I am dead,” he told me cryptically. At least I thought it was a cryptic statement. It could hardly be literal. The blank stare on my face prompted him to add a quiet, “Yes.”