Once there, he didn’t get far. Sitting on the edge of the bed before his legs gave out, he looked down at her beautiful face.
“I thought--” his throat moved as he swallowed. “I thought that was it. That you’d... you were...”
She smiled and patted his chest. “Not human. Remember? Can’t get infected by lycans... or anything else.”
“Thank fuck,” he breathed and then gave a small laugh, pulling her closer so he could rest his forehead against hers. “One day, beautiful, you’re gonna have to tell me what you are.”
She reached up to brush his cheek. His breath caught at the soft touch. “One day, I promise. Just not today. I’m fucking wet through and frozen to the bone.”
He chuckled, fingers under her chin as he lifted her lips for a soft and gentle kiss. He needed to touch her, needed to kiss her and reassure himself that she was okay. That she was alive.
She wasn’t human, being dead didn’t seem to stick, and apparently neither did a lycan infection. That should all be ringing alarm bells, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the fact that she was okay. Letting go a long sigh of relief, he stopped asking questions. If there was one thing he’d learned about her, it was that she would answer when she was ready. She was okay, so that was fine. And it left only one thing to worry about.
“Let’s see what we can do about getting you warmed up. Shall we?”
She gave a slow grin as he lifted his head. “Typical man. One-track mind.”
“Is that a complaint?” His thumb smoothed over her cheek.
Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, the still cold fingers of one hand sliding up to the nape of his neck. It was his turn to shiver as heat rolled through his veins. “Hell no. As long as you throw in a hot bath, I’m all in.”
“I’ll drain that one and run another,” he suggested as he stood again. “But this time, I’m joining you in it.”
Chapter 2
Liberty, Oakwood. A shitty little town in the ass-end of beyond. There was absolutely nothing noteworthy about the place, apart from the fact it had a higher percentage of paranormals than any town I’d seen in years. Not normally a problem. Most of the paranormal persuasion kept to themselves and tried to avoid the notice of people like me.
While I look, walk and talk human, I’m not. And those fuckers know it. Unlike humans, who can’t tell what it is that tells them to run the fuck away from me, paranormals are usually all too aware I’m a reaper.
Forget the boney old dude in the robes with the scythe. He’s not been around since at least the Middle Ages. I’m his great-great-add-a-few-more-greats-grand-daughter. Or something. Whatever, like every Reaper out there, I carry a piece of him, my Grimm, within me.
It’s what gives Reapers their abilities and lets us see things others can’t—like the lifelines of every living creature. It’s like some fancy sci-fi heads-up display, but I don’t get anything as useful as the time blinking in the corner of my eye. Instead, I get active lines, like a pyrotechnic to-do list that never ends. Once one “goes active,” I track it down and separate the soul from the body for its onward journey. Kind of like a final destination air hostess but without the snazzy uniform, and way more attitude.
Reaping these days is modernized...to a degree. Most of us still use bladed weapons—I use sickles to cut the soul from the body—but we get assignments via email from the head office. My department is Violent Deaths. Violent, human deaths.
I’d been quite happy following my active lines and town hopping until Liberty had come up on my radar. Then the shit had hit the fan in all kinds of ways, leaving an abandoned meat factory full of lycan bodies for the police to deal with and me with a raging Lycan infection.
Whatever was happening here, I felt more like myself this morning. Especially after Troy had nursed me through the infection last night. Score for being a reaper, I couldn’t be turned into a lycan. Which is a good thing, I don’t think I could afford the razor bill.
But, given that I’d dispatched an entire pack last night, which was waaaaay outside the remit of the VH department, I’d expected orders to high tail it out of town this morning, but instead...nothing. No new timelines popped up in the corner of my vision and the Grimm was uncharacteristically quiet.
I’d managed to get a couple of hours of snuggles and shut-eye with Troy at my motel on the edge of town. I’d even managed to snag breakfast and enough coffee to sink a battleship at a local diner and had been contemplating another waffle when four silver lines went supernova in the corner of my eye.
Silver. Human timelines. Souls ready to reap. Almost.
When I arrived at the scene—a typical traffic accident involving speed and the stupidity of younger, male drivers—only one of the passengers, a girl who looked all of twelve but dressed like an off-duty pole-dancer, clung precariously to life. Just. Poor thing. No one with that much blood outside of their veins had any long-term, or even medium-term, survival prospects.
The state she’d been in meant her blood-thickened gurgles were incomprehensible, but I could hear things not in the mortal realm. In the Shade—the area between life and death reserved for the recently deceased and people like me, who could enter it at will—she cried for her mother. I couldn’t help with that. My duties didn’t involve next of kin notification, but stepping between the worlds, I gave her peace by pulling a sickle from its sheath at the small of my back and cutting her lifeline so she didn’t suffer anymore. It was a little before her time but fuck it… sue me. I’m not that much of a bitch that I can watch someone writhe and die in pain.
It was a normal reap so I shouldn’t have stuck around, but the little voice in the back of my head pointed out that in a small town like Liberty, cops were cops. Which meant no traffic cop cliques, just people like Troy heading out to things like this.
And bingo, I was right. Uniformed officers arrived first and worked out that they were dealing with the dearly departed. Wreathed safely in the Shade, they didn’t notice me so I stuck around.
I deal with humanity daily, but when people meet me... well, those are special circumstances. People under stress do not ever respond the way they normally would, and let’s be honest, knowing you’re going to die is about as much stress as you can get.
Which means watching people who aren’t about to die fascinates me. I’ve been a Reaper most of my adult life, and I’m from a Reaper family, so I’ve never been around normal people much. Nor have I ever had a regular job. My expenses are paid by the “head office,” and cash appears in my bank account each month. I’ve never had my credit card declined. Not even once. I don’t abuse it like some Reapers I’ve met. I buy what I need to do my job. That doesn’t involve designer clothing or jewelry. What would be the point? I often end up covered in blood, and sparkly things are difficult to clean.
Normal people, though, are weird. Give them an accident, like the one laid out in front of me, and what do they do? If they’re in a vehicle, they slow down to get a good look. Or they stand and watch. I mean, come on...tell me the point in that? It’s not as if the dead make good entertainment. They’re dead, as in devoid of life, movement, and pretty much everything else. What do you expect them to do? Get up and dance a damn jig? Elvis has very much left the building, people.