John nodded and turned to the uniform he was talking to. Troy headed the opposite direction, locking gazes with Laney to let her know he could see her. Only an idiot wouldn’t pick up that he wanted to talk to her, and Laney was no idiot. She nodded slightly and turned, walking through the crowd to her big black monster of a motorcycle. Troy’s breath caught. He’d had too many friends killed on the backs of those things to be entirely comfortable with her riding it. His jaw clenched.
Either way, it was another part of the conversation they were going to have.
Chapter 3
I mingled with the crowd against the cordon and watched Troy and his partner get out of the car. My breathing caught in the back of my throat as butterflies decided my stomach was ground zero for a head-banging concert. The man looked just as good, better in fact, in the daylight. How the fuck did he do that?
He walked beside his partner, looking all sexy and not disheveled, but a little... mussed and tired. The dark shadow on his jaw made my fingers itch to stroke it, and the rest of him. I bit my lower lip as memories from last night rolled through my mind. Two rounds. Different locations. Damn right he should look tired. The stamina the man had was awe inspiring. So much so, I had to check his timeline several times to ensure he was just human.
Yup. Just human.
Coffee mug in hand, he barely looked at the scene. Instead he was scanning the crowd. When his eyes met mine, my heart leapt. Stupid thing. Despite the Grimm’s current silence on the matter, I knew things between us couldn’t go anywhere. Reapers were always on the job, day and night, and how the hell was I going to explain that to a normal? Worse, how did I explain that to a cop? To Troy?
Hey, sweets, I kill people for a living. We cool? Yeah, that would fly like a lead balloon.
Then it hit me. He could see me. Again. He didn’t break eye contact as he headed to his car. No words, but I got the message. Nodding, I turned and headed to my bike. We needed to talk, and it wasn’t the kind of talk we could have with an audience.
I set off up the road, making sure to keep him in my mirrors as I went. The little devil on my shoulder urged me to take off and break the speed limit, anything that could get me arrested. A hot shiver whispered through my body. Cuffs and Troy, now there was an explosive situation waiting to happen. Again. I couldn’t wait.
A quick twist on the throttle sent the bike roaring away, and I caught sight of his surprised face for a moment in the mirror before distance rendered him indistinct. I could almost hear the frustration as he put his foot down, chasing me. There was no way he’d catch me when I was on these two wheels. Let’s just say, you won’t find a model like mine from any dealer or manufacturer anywhere in the world. Hell, even I wasn’t sure what its top speed was.
I was sat on a picnic table off the road a mile or so from the accident when he skidded to a stop. He got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him to stalk over to me, anger rolling off him in waves.
“Just what the fuck was that?”
Concerned Troy from last night had been cute. Sweet Troy patching up my injuries...sexy. Angry Troy glaring down at me like that? I’m a twisted bunny because that was as hot as all the hells. Plural.
“What?” I glanced back at the road with a look as innocent as I could manage.
“You know exactly what I mean!” he growled and slammed his hands down on either side of my hips. I swear I felt the wood crack but kept my eyes level to his. He was strong for a human. Most wouldn’t have moved the wood at all.
“That little ride?” I couldn’t help it. The snark always managed to escape. If I tried to hold it in, I’d explode or something. “You might want to get your car checked out. It’s a bit on the slow side.”
He snarled a curse dirty enough to make a marine blush. “You could have been killed. Doesn’t that bother you? Because it sure as hell bothers me!”
I already had my mouth open to throw something back when his last words registered. I shut my mouth with a click and looked at him. He cared. He actually cared. About me. The emotion wrapped around him like a cape as he glared back.
Fuck. Me.
There is a moment in every Reaper’s life when we have to make that decision. A crunch moment. The moment we have to come clean and tell someone not in the life what we are and what we do. My grandpop told me about his crunch moment. The conversation when he’d told my nanna, before they were married, what he was and what he did for a living. Her reply has been family lore for decades. “Well, Jack, there’s death and taxes and I’m sure as damnation not marrying a taxman.”
This was my crunch moment. I knew it as sure as eggs were eggs and grass was grass. It was a soul-deep knowledge that clanged with finality. I knew if I made some snarky comment and walked away, I would never tell a non-Reaper what I was. Who I was on the inside. I couldn’t do that. It would be tantamount to shutting myself away and never reaching out again.
“Laney? Are you listening to me?” His demand brought me back to the present, to face the frustration, anger, and fear etched onto his face. Whoa, I was responsible for dragging all that depth of feeling from him?
“No.” I shook my head, realizing I’d answered his questions out of order. “Sorry, I mean, yes. I’m listening. But no, I’m not worried about being killed.”
He started to speak but then stopped with his mouth half open. A frown drew little furrows in his forehead. “You’re not? Why the hell not? What do you think you are, immortal or something?”
I choked back a laugh. He was serious, and I shouldn’t find his concern so amusing, but I couldn’t help it. It was sweet.
“Not immortal, no. I can die. I just can’t be killed.”
He looked at me as though I was one sandwich short of a picnic. To be fair, in his shoes, I’d be calling the men in white coats to bring out the latest model of hug-me jackets.
“What do you mean, you can die but not be killed? That makes no sense at all.”
Birds tweeted in the trees behind us, sounding way too happy with life as I debated how to answer. No doubt the more scholarly amongst the Reaper families would have found an eloquent way to explain it, but I’m a blunt kind of girl. I kill things for a living, so my social niceties aren’t the best developed.
“Can’t kill something that’s death.”
“Dead?” Anger flirted with Troy’s expression, his lips drawing tight. “Do you think I’m stupid? I know you’re not human, but you’re not dead. I got you back last night, you’re breat—”
I put my fingers over his mouth. His lips were soft, and instantly my memory provided sensory recollection of what they’d felt like against mine, and other places.
My voice was soft when I spoke. “I didn’t say dead, Troy. I said death. I am Death. A collector of souls. That’s why I was at the accident... I was there to send their souls to the afterlife.”
Her words stopped Troy dead.
The anger rolling through his body drained as he tried to process what she was telling him. He’d been so worried. No, that was the wrong word. He’d been scared out of his damn mind when she’d taken off on that monster bike of hers. Lean, low and deadly looking, it was some kind of superbike but not one he recognized. Like her, it slipped in and out of focus if he tried to look directly at it.