A Shadow in the Reaping by Brynne Weaver

Chapter 24

"It's nice to finally have the chance to talk, just us girls," Ember says, jerking the chain that's coiled around Molpe's neck. My sister's body twitches in response, but her mind is caught somewhere in between, somewhere both now and in memory. I hope that she feels less than what I see.

I look from Molpe to Ember, putting on my fiercest expression. It's not hard. Because I'm going to rip her fucking throat out.

"I see that wicked gleam in your eyes, vampire. Before you get any ideas, let me just say that I know where your other sister is. Your favorite sister. And I can bring her back, you know. But without me, you'll never find her."

Ember gives me a smug grin and then loosens the tension on the chain. Her smile turns sweet, as though she's the most benevolent creature in all the Shadow Realm.

"You're going to help me."

I shake my head.

"Oh yes, I think you will. If Aglaope isn't motivating enough, how about I throw my brother into the mix. If you don't help me, I will ensure it becomes known what he did."

I give her a vexed look. He hasn't done anything wrong with me, at least not that I know of. Also, the fact that she would place him into this little game of hers makes want to kill her, resurrect her, and then kill her again.

"He's not always been the perfect Reaper of the Shadow Realm, if that's what you're thinking. You're not his first... indiscretion. You should ask him about Rosaria Wyre. Now that, my love, is a sordid tale."

I feel like I'm burning up with rage. I unsheathe the kaiken on my thigh and grip the handle with all the fury of my body channeled through my palm.

"No, I don't think so," Ember says, yanking the chain and bringing Molpe to her feet. She uses my sister as a shield. I glance at Molpe, her vibrant green eyes clouded by time and despair. They stay locked to mine and I feel her. I feel the plea that she conveys in her half-vacant gaze. "I have ensured that if you harm me, everyone will know it was you. And you already have one Reaper life to atone for."

"What do you want," I say out loud. My voice rings like bells, shimmers like a beacon in this hallway of House Urbigu.

"There it is!" Ember chimes, her face bright with a delighted smile. "I have been so hoping to hear that sound. It is truly beautiful. So much prettier than the voices of your descendants. Don't get me wrong, they sing beautifully, but you... you are special. The last of your kind. But it doesn't have to be that way. I can bring Aglaope back."

"What do you want," I say again. My hand is vibrating with the anger that churns in my core like lava. I hold my dagger to my side, trying to keep the tremble in my arm hidden.

"I want you to find how they made the hybrid. Bring that knowledge back to me."

Well that doesn't sound so bad, really, I think as I furrow my brow in confusion.

"Bring me whatever it takes to make another."

Okay that sounds a little bit harder, but I can probably do that.

"And then we will make our own hybrid with the power to take on the Realm of Light."

Umm, that's probably a pipe dream.

"And you will bring it there and unleash it upon the enemy. The angels."

Okay fuck that shit. This bitch is crazy.

"I know what you're thinking, that it's impossible. But it's not, Lu. I realized it as soon as you showed up in our Shadow Realm. I knew right away that you aren't just a bright soul. You're a bright soul with a free pass to the Realm of Light." Ember pulls the wispy strands of hair from Molpe's shoulder and lays her chin on my sister's papery skin. "The angels are mobilizing against us. It's why Angelwing has shown up. It's why they're working with werewolves to make hybrids, to change the balance of control in the Living Realm. They want to wipe out the Reapers. To take control of the immortals. But you and I, we can steal that power right out from under them. And you can bring our vengeance to the Realm of Light."

"This will never work," I say, standing my ground on the threshold as she pushes Molpe a step toward me.

"It can. All you have to do is say yes. But the way I see it, you don't really have another option."

A slow and poisonous smile creeps across Ember's face. My fangs graze my tongue. We're staring at one another when footsteps approach from the far end of the corridor. Neither of us moves. We both know who it is.

"What are you doing here, Ember?" Ashen asks, his voice calm and measured. I glance toward him and his eyes are fused to mine. I turn my gaze back to Ember and she smiles as though we're the best of friends.

"I'm just visiting, brother. I thought Lu might recognize this vampire soul I found wandering near Bit Akalum tonight. I guess not."

Ashen halts at my side and glances at Molpe before training his eyes on his sister. "How lovely. I am sure Lu appreciated the intrusion. Time to go."

Ember's smile grows as she looks from Ashen to me. "You are right, brother. The hour is late. I will see you tomorrow, before you leave."

Ember turns away, pulling the chain with her as Molpe stands before me. My sister's eyes say so much in the instant before she's torn away. She keeps them tied to mine until she's forced to turn away. My throat closes tight, like every second suffocates me. I feel tears gathering in my eyes.

When Molpe turns her back I throw my dagger.

The blade strikes below her shoulder. Molpe drops to her knees. The silver kaiken is still laced with Angelwing. Within a breath she falls to the stone, unmoving.

I notice for the first time that Ashen's hand is curled around my free arm. He could have stopped me, but he let me throw the blade.

Ember looks down at the soul who has died a final death at the end of her chain, then bends down and pulls my dagger free. She tosses it in the direction of the door and it clatters across the floor. Ember turns her gaze back up to mine and smiles. "I expected nothing less," she says, then turns away, pulling the chain taut as she drags my sister's body down the corridor.

I clasp a shaking hand to my mouth. Ashen skirts around me to pick up the dagger and then pulls me back into the room and closes the door, locking it behind us.

"What's going on, Lu? What's happened?" Ashen asks, his gaze surveying my face as he tosses the dagger and a thick book onto the armchair.

I shake my head, trying to subdue the tears that are determined to streak down my face no matter how hard I fight them. Ashen stands before me and grasps my upper arms as his eyes bounce between mine.

"Who was that soul? What does Ember want from you?"

I can't even shake my head this time. I can only bite down on the inside of my lip until blood hits my tongue.

Ashen lets go of my arms and stalks to the bed, grabbing the pen and journal. He returns, shoving them into my hands.

"Tell me what the fuck is going on," he says. I hear the thinly veiled frustration in his voice, even though he tries to keep it measured and clear. I hear anger too, and I'm not sure if he's furious at Ember for her manipulations or at me for shutting him out. Maybe both. "Tell me, Lu."

I tear my pen and journal from his hands and throw them across the room.

I can't do this anymore. This place, these Reapers, this life. These demands. This confusion and all the things I feel.

All I've tried to do for the last three hundred years is feel nothing at all. I've spent centuries cocooned in a life that wasn't mine. Always hidden. Always lonely. And now I'm in the Shadow Realm and it feels like I've broken out into the light, but there's no safe place in which to hide.

Ashen turns away, casting his confusion to the pen and journal on the floor. I feel split wide open as I watch him move away to the centre of the room. I know I can't go back to the way things used to be. And I don't want to go back.

So if Ashen is going to kill me, I want it to be for a single word. One that means something to me. One that he'll never forget.

"Ashen."

His spine fuses, rigid as a blade.

There's a moment where time seems to stop. He doesn't move. I don't even blink. The only thing that's real here is the air that moves in and out of our lungs.

The seconds tick by but there is no blade through my heart. There is no fire and smoke. There's nothing between us but space and all the things I've left unsaid that can't stay quiet anymore.

"I'm falling in love with you, Ashen."

He turns his head. His eyes are locked to the floor as though it has swallowed him into another dimension. The tattooed bird on his neck seems to take flight. When he turns, he breaks away from his thoughts and his eyes lock on mine, his expression unreadable.

I stand my ground. I accept whatever happens next. All the moments of my life that have brought me here, I'm thankful for every one. I will not close my eyes.

Ashen strides toward me. Before I can be sure if it will be a sword or a kiss, he sweeps me up from the floor in an embrace. I wrap my legs across his back and my arms over his shoulders and I let go of everything spooled in my chest.

"Did you think I didn't know it was you?" Ashen says, his breath hot along my jaw as one of his hands presses to my neck, the other gripping the bare skin of my legs.

I nod my head, but as I replay a word or a look I start to realize the truth, that he's known for a while. Maybe all along.

"I've been waiting for you to say something, anything, Leucosia."

I grip tighter to Ashen's shoulders as he turns us toward the bed. He presses his lips across the column of my neck. His kiss is urgent with desire. He lays me on the bed and I pull him down with me, unwilling to let go. His palms are hot on my cool skin as they travel up my legs.

"Do you want this?" he asks. His hands still as he pulls away and looks into my eyes.

I nod. “Yes. I do.”

Tears are still warm on my cheeks. Ashen lifts a palm from my thigh and brushes them from my skin with a gentle hand. There is reverence in his touch and the way his eyes follow the movement of his fingers across my flesh.

"If you want me to stop, I want you to tell me,” he says in a voice as rich as golden honey.

I nod again. "I promise."

Ashen meets my eyes, like every word I've spoken is a gift. His lips descend to meet mine and for a moment his gaze is still fused to my eyes before it's shuttered away. I work the buttons of his shirt free and run my fingers across the tattoos that I remember from when I healed his wound. The face of the jackal. The rolling script and the geometric patterns that follow the planes of muscle and bone. His warmth seeps into my fingers and ignites them, and I want to feel every part of him, to trace every line until I know him from touch alone.

Ashen pulls away to strip the shirt from his shoulders, his eyes burning coals of bottomless need. With a slow and careful hand, he pulls the bow free from the halter tie of my dress. He lets the fabric ties and their tiny gold beads caress my skin as he pulls them down across my chest, his eyes filled with layers of longing. His fingers trace the slope of my neck and the line of my collarbone. He leans down to press hot kisses across my jaw, down my throat, across the pulse of my surging blood. “Libbu isriq, ekimmu,” he whispers into my skin. You have stolen my heart, vampire.

It feels like being filled with starlight hearing those words. Like all the dark and suffocating loneliness I felt has been lit with something rare and beautiful. One final, treasonous little tear escapes from my eye and for a moment I think he won’t know it, but he does, and he kisses the path it streaks until even its warmth is nothing but a memory.

I run my fingers through Ashen's dark hair as he presses his lips across my chest. He pulls the peak of my breast into his mouth and circles it with languid passes of his tongue before kissing his way to the other side. Every press of his lips feels purposeful. Each kiss means something to him. Each kiss means something to me.

Ashen’s other hand flows beneath the hem of my dress, climbing up my thigh and sweeping across the soft flesh above a womb forever sleeping. He traces the bones of my hip and my heart shivers in my chest. His fingers tug the laced edge of my panties down, pulling them across my legs, past my knees, until they fall to the floor.

He undoes the button of his jeans with one hand, his other gliding across my thigh. My heart is roiling in my chest as though it's caught in the swell of the sea. I watch as he pulls the last of his clothing off, the length of his erection springing free as he undresses.

“I don’t think that’s gonna fit,” I say, my voice thick with desire as a sly grin spreads across my face.

A wicked smile lifts the corners of Ashen’s lips. He leans over me, bracing his weight on his fists next to my waist. “It’ll fit.”

“Are you sure? It’s very big.”

“I’m sure, vampire,” he purrs. Our smiles dissolve as we watch one another. I catalogue every detail of his face, from the flecks of color in his eyes to the curve and angle of his jaw. I feel heat in my belly, in my cheeks. I want him more with every second that ticks by. My doubt and fear crumble away beneath his watchful, worshipful gaze. I feel like the great monuments of Saqqara, eroded by sand and storms until only the core remains.

Ashen’s eyes ripple with a flame of desire. He brushes errant locks of hair from my face. I feel his length press to the seam of my body and we both go still as he looks at me, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

"I want this," I whisper. "I want you, Ashen."

The flame brightens in his eyes. They stay fused to mine as he slowly pushes his into me, my flesh stretching around him. When he has filled me with the full length of his erection he lowers his face to mine. Our ragged breath mixes between us, smoke and nectar. He pulls out just as slowly, and then glides into me again. When I moan with desire and close my eyes he kisses my lashes, framing my face with gentle hands.

“Every word,” Ashen whispers close to my ear as his thumb traces my parted lips, “every sound you make… I imagined your voice so many times when I read your written words.”

“And is it what you expected?”

Ashen draws away enough to look in my eyes as I lay my hands his face. He slides to the tip of his erection and thrusts into me and I moan, my core coiling with tingling heat.

Ashen smiles, his fingers following the curve of my bottom lip as he does it again and I growl with desire.

“No. It’s one thousand times better,” he says.

Ashen’s lips seal to mine and we find a rhythm that's as natural and graceful as music. My hands follow the curves and ridges on Ashen's body. His arms. His shoulders. His back. I press my fingertips into the cords of muscle that roil beneath his sweat-slicked skin. I touch every inch of flesh I can, greedy for more.

The pace intensifies. Ashen's thrusts grow more powerful. An urgency builds, that we are both chasing something to a precipice. His hand grips my thigh and I fold my leg across his back, lifting my hips, taking him deeper. I feel my climax coming like a breaker crashing onto shore. My back arches and my core pulls taut around him as I say Ashen’s name, over and over until I can’t speak anymore. My veins spark like fuses and my breath catches in my chest. Ashen buries his face into my neck, moaning in pleasure as he empties into me. Stars explode in every nerve, in every chamber of my heart.

For a long while we lie unmoving, Ashen's weight comforting on my body. I feel the storm of beats and breath in his chest as it presses against mine. When his lungs steady, Ashen layers kisses across my neck until it tickles and I laugh.

"That sound," he says as he pulls away. His gaze shifts between my eyes and then trails across the details of my face, landing on my mouth. "I cannot imagine your song could be better than that sound."

I laugh again and his eyes spark with delight as he sweeps an errant strand of hair from my cheek. "You haven't heard me sing anything by Celine Dion. I crush that shit. I'll make you cry, guaranteed."

Ashen smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Up this close, I can see the tiny flecks of gold that warm the tones of brown. His smile slowly fades away until only his attentive gaze remains.

"Sing for me," he says.

I shake my head but smile. The way he looks at me, he knows that I will.

"Come on, vampire," he murmurs as he snakes his arms beneath my back and lifts me until we're sitting chest to chest, still joined at our center. He pulls the bunched-up dress over my head and the elastic free from my hair, running his fingers through the long strands.

"Sing what?" I ask as Ashen drags his lips across my neck up to my ear, biting my earlobe. It sends a shock of gooseflesh down my arms. The hot coil of desire turns in my belly and I close my eyes, my heart already raging as I feel him harden within me.

"The song from Bit Akalum," he says, and I tilt my head to catch his gaze with a question in my eyes. "I wanted to hear it in your voice. I thought if you could place your trust in me that maybe you would sing it for me one day." Ashen trails his fingers across my cheek and locks his eyes to mine. "I already knew who you were. That I wanted you, like this. That I would break any rule, that I would do anything for you."

I watch him for a moment. I must have the most surprised expression on my face, because a faint smile lifts the corner of Ashen's mouth.

"Did you hear me, vampire?"

I nod, trying to unlock the sudden tightness in my throat. I lean forward and press my kiss to his. When a rhythm starts to build between us, I pull away to hold my lips to his ear.

I've been sleepless at night

'Cause I don't know how I feel

I've been waiting on you

Just to say something real

I sing until there is no more room for words in passion, until even a siren song can't withstand the power of a kiss.