A Shadow in the Reaping by Brynne Weaver

Chapter 14

My heart thrums in my chest. My stomach coils a burning path in my belly. Ember gives me a benevolent smile as she pulls away and looks in my eyes. There's neither threat nor comfort in her expression. "I'll see you soon, brother," she says as she turns her gaze over my shoulder. "Let me know if I can help in your hunt. Dinner tonight?"

I do not want to go to dinner. Like, at all. Hard pass.

I hear no sound behind me, but Ashen must nod because Ember's smile widens. "Good," she says, and her smile turns to me. "Bring Lu."

Fuck. I guess I'm going to dinner.

With one final smile, Ember turns away and drifts down the hall in her gravity-defying heels. I hear the door slide open against the stone floor behind me and I watch Ember disappear down the corridor without a backward glance before I turn to follow Ashen into the room.

The Reaper holds the door open for me, watching over his shoulder as I pass the threshold and enter the suite. It feels similar to his house on the other side; vases and gilt-edged tables and dark hues and oversized paintings. The carved ebony headboard of the wide bed stretches up the wall. I'm staring at the sheen on the midnight blue bedding, lost in my new wave of panic. I'm not really seeing what I'm looking at, but I'm staring at it nonetheless. There's only one thought swirling in my brain:

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

Shhhhhhhiiiiiit.

"I would suggest that I can take another chamber and you have this one, but it is not safe for you to be in a separate room," Ashen says as he sets our bags down next to the bed. I'm listening, but not really understanding the meaning behind his comment. The refrain of 'shit' is still dominating my thoughts. The Reaper's head tilts. His eyes narrow in question and maybe concern. "I can sleep on the floor," he offers.

I shift my gaze to the floor and then back to him, still not processing the connection between his words and their meaning.

"Vampire..."

That snaps me out of my loop enough to glare at him. He introduced me as Lu just a moment ago, and now suddenly I'm a creature once more. Just vampire. I suppose I should be relieved it's that and not Leucosia, but for some reason the former only irks me more. At least I finally get that he's talking about the bed.

I think I can control myself, Reaper. We can share a bed like grownups, I write, tossing my journal next to him on the sea of midnight sheets. Ashen reads the message and gives me a questioning look over his shoulder, then opens his backpack to retrieve a black shirt from its depths.

"We will go first to pull records from the archives, and then we will meet Ember for dinner. Tomorrow we will head to Cairo," Ashen says, his back to me as he unbuttons his shirt. It slides down his shoulders, revealing the black tattoos that cascade across the muscles of his back. There are geometric flowers and stars, birds and black script. The entry wound from the werewolf's blade cuts a pink swath across a patch of scrolling honeycomb. The edges have nearly healed, the ink creeping back into the shining skin of the wound.

I watch for a moment as Ashen places the old shirt on the bed and folds it. He moves as though I'm not even here. The clean shirt flutters over his shoulders like a cape and he pushes an arm through one sleeve and then the next.

My heart is still rumbling in my chest as though it'll roll away and leave my body behind. Even the sight of Ashen's sick body isn't enough to take the chorus of 'shit' from my brain. It's now a proper Mariah Carey melody up in there. All I Want For Christmas is shit, apparently.

I walk to the far wall, looking out the tall, narrow window at a garden of mazed hedges as my thoughts storm through my mind. Ember could have killed me. She could have said my name to her brother. She could have called in a contingent of Reapers to steal my soul. She did none of those things, but it doesn't mean she wants to get drunk together and make TikTok videos on a Saturday night either.

Whatever it is that she wants from me, I have the feeling Ember will soon seek to collect. Is this how my sisters found themselves backed into corners? Is this how they wound up with swords slicing through the meat of their hearts? I don't know how I've lived so long coming so close to death. Now here I am, in the realm of it, in the room of it. And not only that, but I am drawn to it. I can't look away from it.

I am so, so fucked.

I close my eyes and lean my forehead on the glass, its temperature only a fraction colder than my skin. It soothes my face but it cannot touch my soul. I've been here for what, ten minutes? Max? I'm pretty sure this is where I'm gonna die if I can't keep my shit under control for ten minutes. Fucksakes, I could barely even handle the journey to get here. I would rather die anywhere but here. Literally. Like, send me back to Cheese Louise and Puptown, I'll happily die in the smell of cheesy wet dog. How can I die here after everything I've done to live? I'm not sure what living means anymore, but to perish in some reckless tailspin just to feel something seems like a waste of all the suffering I've endured.

It doesn't register that Ashen is speaking to me as these thoughts are spiraling through my head. When his hand touches my arm, instinct kicks me from stasis to action. My hand whips the dagger from my belt and slices an arc from the air between us. Ashen catches my wrist and twists before I can strike him with the blade. The dagger falls into my other waiting hand. It isn't until I'm driving the knife up toward the Reaper's throat that I realize what I'm doing.

I meet his eyes and time feels like it grips onto the moment. I let the kaiken drop and it clatters on the stone floor.

I look down at the blade and back to him. My eyes must be enormous when I mouth the words I'm sorry. There's a faint trace of amusement in Ashen's expression.

"Do not startle the vampire. Duly noted," the Reaper says as he bends to retrieve the dagger from the floor. He straightens and holds it by the blade so I can take the handle. The point faces his heart. There's something vulnerable about it. There's trust in his eyes.

I pull the dagger from his hand and look at it for a long moment. Even if I'd struck him with it, I probably wouldn't have killed him. If I had, he would just come back. There are very few ways to kill a Reaper for good, and most of the time it's not worth it to try. You only incur the wrath of their kind. I guess we're alike in that way. When you kill my family, I get a little pissy about it too.

"All right, vampire?" Ashen asks, and the ghost of his touch from the last time he spoke those words heats the skin on my belly. I look from the knife to his face and his brow furrows. "You seem... strange."

I give him a look that says what the fuck do you mean, 'strange'?

"...Strange-er."

What the-

"Stranger than usual."

My look intensifies into a glare and I sheath my dagger as I turn to the bed. I sweep the pen and journal from the slick sheets.

I'll tell you what's strange, Reaper. The Shadow Realm. I've barely seen any of it and I can already tell this place is weird AF, I write, showing him the note.

His lips purse in the most adorably fucking annoying way as he looks to the ceiling to consider my words and then nods. "Yes, I can't really disagree there," he says, meeting my eyes before his narrow in mild suspicion. "It doesn't explain why you are acting strange, however."

The whole fire corridor of terror isn't enough of an explanation?

"No, I don't think so," Ashen says, and I throw up my hands in irritation.

Maybe it's your weird echoey building. Maybe it's your ridiculously perfect-yet-deadly Reaper sister. Maybe it's your freaky mazey hedge thing out there that's got me feeling a little on-edge, Reaper, I write, pointing out the window as he looks up from my note. I snatch my journal from his fingers. Maybe it's your fucking sheets. Have you not heard of a weighted blanket? How is this supposed to be comfortable?

Ashen fights a smile as he reads my note. "What's wrong with my sheets?"

They're slippery. And thin.

"Slippery?"

I turn to the bed and slide my hands across the surface in dramatic fashion. I pick up the edge of the thin fabric and flap it in the air to demonstrate my point. SLIPPERY. See also, THIN, I write, staring him down as he battles his grin. He's losing.

He smiles. I frown. We stare.

And then, a realization. An epiphany.

Oh my fucking GOD. These are your sex sheets aren't they.

I pass him the note and Ashen laughs. Properly laughs. It's maybe the greatest sound I've ever heard. It's so warm. It's so rare. I would steer my ship onto the rocks just to hear it again, to see his face vibrant with its afterglow. But I know that game. I'm a siren, for fucksakes. So when his laugh tapers off and he repeats "sex sheets" in an incredulous voice, I do my best to nurture a fierce glare.

Yeah, Reaper. That's all these are good for. They certainly aren't good for sleeping.

Ashen laughs again. He looks to the bed like he's never seen it before. When he looks back at me there's a fire in his eyes. "I'll have you know they are quite luxurious."

My eyebrows raise in a challenge but he says nothing. For a long moment, neither of us moves. The glare dims in my eyes. The flame brightens in his. He takes a step closer. I stand my ground.

"What's the matter, vampire? Afraid you won't be able to keep your promise?"

What promise?

Ashen takes another step closer. A wicked gleam ignites in his eyes. "To control yourself."

This game is getting very dangerous. My desire is feeling very real. A coil of heat turns in my belly. My heart feels too hot beneath my bones.

I didn't promise anything. I said, 'I think I can control myself'. Does that sound like a promise to you? I pass him my note and watch as he reads. He meets my eyes as he hands the journal back. My fingertips graze his and the coil of warmth strokes my ribs.

"No," he says, his voice low, the timbre as thick and rich as honey. "In fact, it sounds like you expect you will fail."

I pull my notebook from his grasp. I write a message. I turn it to him.

It sounds like you WANT me to fail.

Ashen's gaze meets mine and then descends to my lips. The flame brightens just enough that my vampire eyes can see it. I feel the steady cadence of his breath. I hear the rush of blood through his heart.

We don't move. I feel caught between the things I want and the things I shouldn't. Things that are dangerous and things I desire. Memory and the need to be wanted. Secrets and the truths that blood and breath cannot hide.

Ashen's gaze is still soldered to my lips when I see the flame begin to dim in his eyes. He swallows. He takes a heavy breath. I know what he's doing. He's doing what I should be doing but can't seem to. He's putting on armor, from the inside out.

I take a step back before he can be the first to do it. I meet his eyes for only the beat of a heart before I turn away toward the door.

I already feel like I'm unravelling here. One moment, one word, one look at a time.