Chapter 2

CHAPTERTWO

He’d hurt her. He was wrong for doing that. But hell, he’d lost track of time. That never happened to a Reaper.

He’d intended his time with her to be mutually pleasurable, no strings. But the first time she met his gaze, she’d unbalanced that idea as surely as the wheel shooting out from beneath her display had toppled those bins.

The knowledge that was always there for him, for any Reaper…wasn’t.

If someone crossed his field of vision without direct eye contact, he could shield himself from the information if he wished. But if he looked into someone’s eyes, the book of their life opened to the final page.

Their gazes had held. One beat, two beats.

Nothing.

Instead, he’d discovered the first chapter of their paths crossing. He’d found dragonflies. Magic. The scent of tea. Sunlight sparking off golden hair that turned into red-orange fire.

Dance with me in the storm.

I will never give you harm.

She’d been murmuring that as he followed her into the back of her store. Even as she carried her fallen toys, she’d walked lightly on her feet, had twirled twice, done a sidestep and back to center, dancing to the cadence. She didn’t seem aware she was doing either the dancing or the grounding chant. He’d unsettled her. He didn’t mind that.

When she’d reached up and let her hands glide over the outline of his skull, she’d been testing the energy of his intent, but the motions matched the pushing back of a cowl. Then her eyes had held him in that significant pause.

Before they lowered.

Submission was a powerful magic. She’d offered it as an invitation, not a mandate, but courage was required at that threshold. It wasn’t meaningless or ephemeral. It could leave a mark on the soul. A mark became a link. Connection could become a binding, a permanent one.

Everything about her spoke of the things that made no sense to the mind, but were clear as blue sky to the heart.

Protectiveness was in his nature, but the surge of it toward the witch had been unusual. Chaos and power swirled around her. She was dangerous, a force to be reckoned with, but there was a vulnerability there, too easy to see. She could be destroyed by it.

Dance with me in the storm.

I will never give you harm.

He’d had to depart far too abruptly. But he’d left her a gift. An apology and a promise wrapped up together. He wondered how long it would take her to find it.

His inability to see her mortality might not hold the significance he’d assigned to it. He didn’t know much about Chaos witches, but the very name suggested an explanation.

Then there were the two friends they’d met while gathering toys from the street. A half-succubus witch who oozed sensuality and power, accompanied by a Dark Guardian, an Underworld elite enforcer.

Guardians were among the few who could recognize a Reaper, no matter their shielding. They had no quarrel, though Silas had noted the Dark Guardian’s body language became more protective toward the half-succubus, in case Silas was there for her. Interesting. Guardians rarely found a mate. Much like Reapers.

Silas wasn’t in the habit of revealing himself to anyone. Keeping his cloaking in place was second nature to him. Removing it required more thought and effort.

Practice had made it that way. While he went to his dormant state periodically, as all his kind did, he didn’t do it until it was necessary to recharge. He liked interacting with humans. Walking among them, enjoying their world.

Most Reapers his age didn’t. They saw everything with old, tired eyes. Eventually, one day, they were gone. Instead of recharging and returning, they dissolved into the shadows of caves and remote places. They became the peaceful energy hovering in quiet spots. The spirit resting in the hollow of a lightning struck tree, or under the blanket of a creek’s bottom silt.

When a new Reaper appeared in their ranks, he or she would be an old soul, but compared to the existing Reaper ranks, they always seemed fresh-faced and eager. He’d become a Reaper over four hundred years ago, but Honora, the leader of their Wake, often told him that he’d retained that quality. Since she made the observation in her flat, impossible-to-interpret way, he wasn’t sure if it was a compliment. It surely wouldn’t be today.

Though he was next in line to command their Wake, today he’d acted like a novice Reaper. Like any job, time management decisions were important. Sometimes terminal illnesses could wait a day or two for a Reaping, because a soul, finally uninhibited by the pain and medicated confusion of their final days, wanted to linger near family, say a mental good-bye.

In contrast, sudden death usually needed immediate guidance. The disoriented soul might hover over their loved ones, injecting them with a formless despair and anxiety as the soul screamed to be acknowledged, not realizing it had left its body.

The age of the soul could mitigate that. Once past the threshold of death, an older soul calmed down a bit, was able to lower the wall between this life and past ones, which helped them let go of the mortal form.

Like the child he’d Reaped several weeks ago. Despite its five-year-old body, the soul was on its eleventh incarnation. It had been placidly waiting for him, sitting on the hood of the police car which had responded to the hit-and-run that had ended his mortal life. The soul knew how to manipulate matter, so he’d been turning the lights and sirens on and off, perplexing the rookie officer first on the scene.

“He was upset about seeing a child’s body,” the soul had told Silas. “I was distracting him.” There’d been sadness in the spirit’s kind voice, as he acknowledged the life and family he was leaving behind, but otherwise he was calm about his transition.

A newly minted soul, their first crossing, was a different matter. Younger souls had a harder time recognizing that wall between this and past lives, let alone lowering it. Which was why he’d needed to be on time. Why he’d had to hurt the witch by leaving so abruptly. Being three minutes late could be as catastrophic as three days.

The soul could be frightened, uncertain. And unprotected, vulnerable like that, they were a magnet for a Soul Collector. A newly minted soul had a pure energy they could use to augment their own power.

Cursing, Silas increased his pace, moving through and then outside the main part of the town, using portal currents where they existed.

He landed on the street in front of Cal Horscht’s home, and a jogging woman shrieked. She couldn’t see him, but his energy had blown her forward several strides. That wasn’t what had caused her startled reaction, though.

Damn it, he’d cut it too close.

To mortal eyes, Cal’s house with its green, well-tended yard was soaked in sunshine. What Silas saw was a darkness cloaking the backyard and spreading outward toward the street. Soul Collectors liked to pollute the area they inhabited, and the first greedy fingertips of it had reached the jogger.

She’d pulled her ear buds free, had spun around to see what had sent such a wash of disturbing feelings through her. Seeing nothing, she still bolted for the safety of home, base survival instinct overriding rationality.

Silas uttered the words to shove the billowing roll of energy back into the rear fenced yard and contain it. If it had engulfed the jogger, she would have suffered a year of nightmares.

Whether he’d fucked up or not, he had one mission now. Cold rage flooded him. His battle instincts rode that surge, a waiting arsenal of skills to do what he was born to do. The shepherd protecting a member of his flock.

He called his scythe to hand. The curved blade gleamed with blue and orange flame, the fires of Heaven and Hell together. As he gripped the solid ash handle, energy rushed through it, giving the wood a red color that moved like running blood.

White flame sparked on the arched edge when it made contact. The tip was a lethal finger that would hook, draw blood, and rip through whatever flesh it touched.

Silas vaulted the six-foot privacy fence, landing just as the creeping apparition at the center of that spreading mass was spiraling into a point toward Cal’s fallen body. While it wasn’t the ultimate goal, the Soul Collector had a reason for laying hands on it. The cord between it and the soul was still connected. A clawed hand reached out of darkness.

A chihuahua with the bravery to deserve a much bigger frame held his ground between the fallen body and Cal’s soul, yapping and snarling at the Collector as it prepared to slice through that connection and seize the cord. Typical for a first incarnation, Cal’s spirit looked much like the elderly body on the ground, though his shoes were missing, ethereal toes curled into the thick grass. Unlike his body’s fixed, staring eyes, his brown-eyed gaze wasn’t vacant. It was full of terror and confusion.

The Soul Collector’s head had emerged from the darkness, a mix between a hairless lion and bear, three times larger than either. It saw Silas, bared its teeth. With a swift movement, it sliced the cord with its talons, wrapped it around a thick, spiny wrist with a deft twist. In the same breath, the beast tried to reopen the portal to yank itself and Cal through.

Cal was airborne, crying out in fear, hurtling toward that opening, a vortex of darkness. He’d be seeing every fear of his worst imaginings, the adrenaline intensifying and compacting the soul energy he had, making it an even richer meal for the Collector.

Silas brought the scythe down, cutting the cord a foot away from Cal’s spirit. He grabbed the soul around the chest with one arm, spinning them both back toward the yard. Cal stumbled free, a tumbling float and fall, because the cord that connected him to earthly things like gravity had been severed. Now it was just muscle memory. Habit. The known and familiar in a world that was anything but.

“Begone,” Silas told the Collector. It crouched on the edge of the dark doorway a few feet above them. “You have no business here.”

The umbilical cord had enough residual soul energy for the Collector to transform it into a barbed whip. As the creature lashed out with it, Silas blocked and sliced through the cord with his blade, but it had been a distraction. The Collector sprang over him. Landing next to Cal, it wrapped its arm around the soul’s throat.

The dog attacked the Collector and cried out in agony at the poisonous contact. Silas levitated him out of the way, dropping him on the far end of the yard. The demon opened up another portal and leaped backward into it, holding Cal to him, digging into Cal’s spirit flesh with those sharp claws. If they could hear it, the soul’s scream of terror would have speared the heart of everyone in his neighborhood.

A new soul sounded like a child.

Silas leaped after them. He got his arm and upper torso through, but had to divert energy to keep the closing portal from severing him in half. The Collector had too much forward momentum; Silas had lost the chance to pull Cal back out.

He could let go, or he could follow him.

Silas pulled his scythe in with him. The portal slammed shut, and they were tumbling through a world of blood and lightning, a tunnel to the demon world that felt as terrible as it looked.

Offering yourself, Reaper?The whisper in his head held a million violent deaths. Hate, lost hope. Despair at a level that would hold even the mightiest down and bury them with the cold dead.

There was Heaven, the afterlife. Hell was a place of redemption, of order and logic. Punishment could be dispensed there, but those who administered it weren’t evil.

Evil lay in the in-between places. It liked to lurk in the channels and boundaries of the Underworld, in its dark shadows, looking for the lost. Poised to steal them and take them back to the demon region of the Underworld. A place no one went. It was wholly theirs.

No Reaper did what he’d just done. No one from the world they’d left could win a fight in the demon world. On Day One of their lives as Reapers, they were all told that.

We do all we can to deprive Soul Collectors. But we do not, under any circumstances, follow them into their world. We cannot retrieve a soul from there. And giving them a Reaper is not an option.

There was a first time for everything, and he wasn’t giving them one damn thing. He’d committed himself, and now only one goal mattered.

He swung the scythe through the rushing, hot air, now full of a choking snowstorm of ash. He found solid purchase, and won a scream. Cal’s soul fell free of the Collector’s grasp and into Silas’s arms.

“Hold onto me,” he told the terrified spirit. In a heartbeat, its primal instincts shrunk it from a man-sized form into a child, a toddler, wrapping arms and legs around Silas, burying its head in his neck, hoping to be absorbed and escape. Or at the very least, grab the illusion of protection before he woke from the nightmare. Silas was good with the scythe one-handed, even against a fast opponent, so he circled the small form of shining light with one arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

He’d failed Cal, and he had to make that right. No matter the cost. Doing his job well wasn’t merely about pride. Nor even about the balance of the universe. Caring for each soul he was charged to protect was who Silas was. A guardian. Which was likely why Dark and Light Guardians could recognize a Reaper.

A soul had so much potential for substance, things it would earn in subsequent lives, if the soul was given that chance. Cal would have that chance.

Pain seared across Silas’s back, grabbed at his legs. With a roar, Silas responded, the scythe flashing around him and Cal, turning them into a spinning star with sharp points that found purchase and drove the Collector back.

But they had reached the outer ring of the demon world, and their fall was about to meet hard ground. Others would join the Collector, coming to the foul beast’s aid.

With the last spare thought he had, Silas thought of the witch. He was glad for the gift he’d left her. If they ever met again, would she still possess it? How would it change in her keeping?

If he never saw her again, he hoped she would understand he meant it, despite the briefness of their meeting. As much as one hoped a relationship could be a line, sometimes it was one dot on a blank page. A significant momentary intent, to treasure amid a whole lot of white space.

He’d told himself it was her nature that shielded him from the knowledge of her death, but about to be scalded of anything but truth, he wanted to believe otherwise.

Though their own timeline and that of their brethren were not available to them, Reapers could see the time and cause of death for every other race and species, from a Guardian to a tomato plant. With one notable exception.

A Reaper couldn’t see the death of his own soulmate.

A mercy, because carrying around the knowledge of how and when the person you loved most would be taken was a cruelty beyond imagining. He didn’t mind imagining she might have been that person for him, no matter how painful believing it right now would be.

As other minions rushed to the Soul Collector’s aid, Silas spoke the words to charge the scythe. Then he put everything aside but fighting for Cal’s soul, with all the strength the Lord and Lady had given him.

* * *

“What a dick.”

It didn’t have to be his fault to hurt. Ramona acknowledged that, even as she appreciated Ruby’s solidly loyal blunt assessment.

“Why am I always surprised when a male not typically human ends up being a typical dick?” her friend continued.

“Because if you have a dick, you can be one,” Raina observed, handing the almond cakes around again. Ruby topped off their wine, splashed liberally into glasses Raina had brought in a plaid-lined picnic basket. Since Ruby had recently learned she was pregnant, her glass contained apple cider. “Whether Guardian, titmouse, or garden variety homo sapiens,” Raina added.

“Or Grim Reaper,” Ruby confirmed.

Mikhael had recognized right off what Ramona’s visitor was. He’d even found out his name, from his vast army of Otherworld contacts.

Sylvanus Pendleton, known as Silas.

Their fifteen-minute encounter had happened exactly twenty days ago, a nice round number that coincided with this month’s full moon ritual; hence the offer of supportive male bashing from her two closest friends.

“Are you okay?” Ruby touched Ramona’s hand.

“Sylvanus was the name of a woodland spirit, a demi-god protector. I felt that kind of energy from him,” Ramona said. “Like a tree growing in an ancient forest.”

He had a name like music. Sylvanus, Silas.

She didn’t want to see Ruby and Raina exchange the she’s-still-messed-up-over-him look, so she tipped her head up, looking into the branches of the trees above them. Their preferred ritual spot was a glade in the wooded area flanking Raina’s house, part of her extensive property.

Just fifteen minutes. Seriously, she found it even more puzzling than they did. She supposed a Reaper was capable of making a bigger impression on a woman than most males.

Her lips twitched. She hadn’t managed the full body-to-body contact that would allow her to confirm that as an appropriate sexual innuendo. But she sure could imagine. It seemed like all she’d done, every day since then. She cleared her throat. “His mother named him well. I assume Reapers have mothers.”

“Still a dick,” Raina said into her wine glass, the red making her lips look extra glossy. “Everyone has a mother, even if the mother is the Goddess alone. Gina wanted to know if he’d Reaped the soul of a famous person. George Washington. Chadwick Boseman. Elvis.”

At Ruby and Ramona’s expressions, she shrugged. "You know my sex demons are as inquisitive as babies."

Ruby snorted. “With the sexual skills of ten generations of Renaissance courtesans.”

“Which is why I’m so filthy rich.” Raina tapped her glass. “Say ‘courtesan’ again. It’s so sexy in your pragmatic Agent Hill Avengers voice.”

“Don’t make me pinch you.” Ruby shook her head. “He might not even know who is famous. Who says he watches TV or listens to music? He might just wander the ether and meditate. Become a tree in an ancient forest when he’s not Reaping.” She dipped her head toward Ramona.

“He has a dick, and he’s interested in her," Raina said bluntly. "I think he’s doing more than meditating. I suspect he’s seen at least a few movies. Or read a book or two. Mikhael said Reapers are like Guardians.”

“Derek says they’re more like Light Guardians,” Ruby corrected. “‘The good guys.’”

“You know he said that just to yank Mikhael’s chain,” Raina retorted.

“No doubt. But even if he’s a dick when it comes to a woman, it says he’s a good guy dick.”

Ramona sighed and stretched out on the ground, putting her head in Ruby’s lap. “Let’s look up at the stars.”

Obligingly, both women set aside their glasses. Raina stretched out with her head on Ramona’s stomach, and Ruby used one of the cushions they’d brought to support her own. Her touch drifted over Ramona’s hair, finger combing out the long, wavy locks over her hip and upper thigh. Clouds drifted across the moon.

During the ritual, energy had been raised and targeted for various intents. The wellbeing of Ruby’s pregnancy. The inner balance of Li, Raina’s most mature sex demon. He was approaching thirty, a dangerous time for incubi.

In the aftermath of the ritual, there was always this temporary peace, an easing to the sharper edges of worries. They felt the connection to the ancient wisdom of crones, the nostalgia for when they were maidens. They also carried the protectiveness of mothers, toward whatever was given to them to protect, whether Raina’s young sex demons, Ruby’s coming son, or Ramona’s…what?

She would have no children, would likely never have more family than what was linked to her right here and now. But that was okay. She knew her job.

Protecting the world, however that presented itself to her.

They each carried their fair share of power, and particularly when they did a ritual like they did tonight, they were aware of its influence, the responsibility for its wise use. When bestowed or earned, power always had a purpose. Whether daily purpose or world-saving purpose, it was intended for use, to be pushed to its limits, explored fully, worn out…

A lot like the life one was given.

Raina put her hand on Ramona’s knee, tapped it. “You’re so quiet. We’ve been teasing to help, but we’re sorry he left the way he did. I know he made a big impression on you.”

“I don’t know what responsibilities a Reaper has, but I could tell he lost track of time, being with me.” There was some balm to that, but why hadn’t he returned?

Impression was a good word choice, because he’d left a stamp on her soul. Some days it felt like a boot print. Other days, it was as if he was holding her again, in that unforgettable grip. At first, she’d thought it just the resonant aftermath of an erotic encounter. She’d had actual sex that wasn’t as intense as those few minutes together, though that wasn’t saying much. For a Chaos witch, intimacy was a tricky proposition.

She didn’t know much about the kind of extremes that she was sure Ruby and Raina had experienced. They didn’t go on and on about them, but they were evident.

Ruby lost her train of thought when Derek gave her one of those penetrating looks that reflected what he did to her behind closed doors. And while the shock of Mikhael and Raina becoming a mated pair had ebbed somewhat, the erotic vibrations between them became so intense when they shared the same room, it could inspire a small snowstorm to cool everyone off.

In all fairness, Ramona hadn’t meant to do it. When it started, she’d hoped it would limit itself to her immediate proximity, so that she could scurry out of the room with it. Instead, it had dumped three inches of snow in Raina’s dining room. Amid the swirling flurries, the sex demons initiated a snowball fight that took out two teardrop crystals of Raina’s antique chandelier.

In the ensuing tirade from their mistress, they’d scattered to escape her wrath. Whereas Mikhael had sat at the end of the table, comfortably sprawled, ankle on one knee. As he watched Raina threaten their lives, his dark gaze tracked the flash of her golden-green eyes, the way her voluptuous curves quivered with her indignation. Ramona had been pretty sure he had plans to take her on that snow dusted table. When he glanced her way while Raina was distracted and mouthed Run now, with a quirk of his lips, Ramona had prudently made her own escape.

She didn’t live far from Raina’s. As she’d walked home, she’d felt flakes melting on her cheeks and imagined Silas touching her face once again.

Turning her head toward Ruby’s touch now, joy and a poignant despair filled her. It refused to go away. The memory of him was a ribbon wrapped around her heart, an adornment for a gift. As if her heart was the gift, or…

Whoa.She abruptly sat up, easing Raina’s head off her lap before she stood. They performed the ritual sky clad and hadn’t yet slipped back into the robes they’d brought, so Ramona held out her arms, watched the moonlight reflect off her pale skin, the scatterings of faint freckles she possessed.

“Like the inside of a perfectly baked cinnamon roll, and likely tastes just as good.”The town baker, who liked to outrageously flirt with his clients under his wife’s indulgent eye, had described Ramona’s skin that way. But those freckles had a more serious origin, which was what had inspired Ramona’s thought process now.

“He left something,” she realized. “I thought it was a feeling from me, and it is, partly. I’m making it stronger.” Making her miss a stranger far more than was warranted.

Like a soul marking.

Almost as soon as she had the thought, the other two had put it together. Raina and Ramona were on their feet, kickass intent in their rigid forms.

“No…” Ramona gripped their hands. “I don’t want it destroyed. I want to understand its shape. How it got there. How…I might have accepted it.”

A soul marking had a lot of forms. It could be designed to melt like consumed candy, leaving a nice lingering memory, if that was all it was. But if not…

Though he hadn’t looked back after he left the shop, when he’d stepped back from her, there’d been a cauldron of regret on his face.

She’d questioned that perception, whether it was just her wish that he’d felt that way, but now… He’d left her a gift. Was it something for any woman he touched, a thanks for her moment of favor or respite?

“Okay,” Ruby said. “Stay still.”

She laid her hand over Ramona’s heart. Or rather, over Ramona’s hand, because she already had her palm pressed there. “When I focus on it, it spins out from that point,” Ramona said. “The stronger I feel his absence, or the more I think about him, the more I feel its hold.”

Raina laid her hand over Ruby’s, so she too could get a sense of what they were dealing with. Ruby was the best technical crafter of the three of them. So as she tuned into those energies, Ramona could feel them aligning, revealing themselves to the intent witch.

“It needs more than a simple Reveal spell,” Ruby said, curiosity in her voice, and a reluctant admiration. “It’s like an Unravel in a Reveal. For only knowing you a short time, he achieved a remarkable understanding of how your magic works, Ramona. Or his energy is just intuitively compatible with it. We can help stabilize it, but it’s designed for you. You have to be the one to grasp the end and tug it free to open the spell, reveal its full nature.”

Well, crap. Her magic could scramble the most stable spells better than a skillet of eggs. But it also usually worked out the way it was supposed to. Despite her being supremely pissed over her chandelier, Raina had probably enjoyed being taken on her dining room table by her powerful and handsome Dark Guardian. Right?

Ramona knew the best way to work with her magic was not to try and direct it. She couldn’t push it in the direction she thought it should go. The way she wanted it.

That said, she still considered leaving it alone. Maybe feeling a hint of whatever this was, knowing it had been left for her, was enough. A gift that remained at her doorstep, something she could wake up to in the morning, step past as she came and went to work. Know it was there as she fell asleep.

It would be proof. But proof of what? The meaning of gifts was important, and to understand that meaning, some gifts had to be opened.

Damn it.

Fine. She took her place in their marked circle, mute acceptance, and the other two followed. They hadn’t opened the circle yet, offering the proper farewell courtesies to the four quarters—go if you must, stay if you will—so little was needed to prepare for further energy work.

Because the three of them did magic together so regularly, reconnecting wasn’t difficult, either. The strong hum she felt as they linked and engaged helped to reassure her, somewhat.

“Do the Unravel and feel your way through the Reveal,” Ruby said, her hazel-colored gaze still gauging what couldn’t be seen by the untrained eye. Raina had the same focus. “We’ll fill in the gaps and if something goes haywire with it, we’ll try to keep the core in place. Not the first time we’ve had to improvise in the face of the unknown. At least this time it’s not life or death.”

“If we’re not building the track an ass hair’s width ahead of the roller coaster wheels, I feel spoiled,” Raina agreed.

“I don’t want to lose it. I know that sounds idiotic, and desperate…” Had she really become so lonely she’d turn a chance encounter with an intriguing stranger into a major drama? One that thickened her throat, made her clasp the other two women’s hands in fervent entreaty?

Raina touched her face. “Be easy, love. We get it. Mikhael is the world’s biggest dick sometimes. It’s what I’d expect from a guy over a thousand years old with a direct line to Lucifer himself. He’s also everything I ever wanted in a male. Caring, protective, funny and scary intelligent. He gets my music playlists, which is the best compliment I can give a man. He knows what I need, sometimes even before I do. So a man can be a dick and someone worth keeping.”

She shot a teasing look at Ruby. “Derek is even more of an overbearing, self-righteous prick, but Ruby refuses to kick his ancient ass to the curb for the same reason.”

Ruby arched a brow. “Mikhael is older.” But the tug at her lips said she didn’t disagree. “Let’s do this.”

“Maybe try to throw a shield around it once it’s revealed, so I don’t obliterate it,” Ramona said. Though if her magic wanted to zap it away before anyone caught a glimpse, even herself, it would. She’d have to accept that as what was meant to be.

Please don’t.

Enough of this.

Ramona closed her eyes. She let the Chaos take her on a swirling ride down into her subconscious, where that torturous feeling was strongest. An arrow. She followed it, that absurdly deep sense of missing him, a winding path to her core. She should be mad at him for doing this to her, but she couldn’t find any anger in herself. Just yearning.

There it was, sitting in a dark corner. It took the form of a porcelain box with a purple sparkling color like the T-shirt she’d worn that day. But when she put her hands on it, it shattered, the pieces spinning away. Her heart plummeted.

But then a glittering particle rose before her like a tiny sun. She hadn’t broken the box. It had merely opened at her touch. The light drifted around her, eluded her grasp playfully. When she stopped trying to catch it, it settled on her upraised palm and became a dragonfly.

He’d done the delicate spellwork so subtly. Maybe when he was kissing her breast, his hands on her in such a distracting way…

As her fingers closed over the mote, it shimmered. Another unlocking, where her touch was the key. Golden light spilled forth, at first like the rays of the small sun, and then they began to twist into ribbons, moving in a serpentine dance around her. They encouraged her to dance with them, turn and spin. When the ribbons wrapped themselves over her arms, her upper body, she drew in a breath. Their sensual heat carried the memory of his touch, so vividly the desire for it tripled in her erratically beating heart.

“Ramona.”

Slowly, she became aware they were calling to her, Ruby and Raina, coaxing her to open her eyes.

They were still holding her hands. Her arms were stretched toward them. A ribbon of fire visibly spiraled up the right one. When it reached her shoulder, it moved to her throat, wrapping around it once to form a collar that teased her pulse. The constriction affected her breathing, but not in the strangling way. The heat didn’t burn her flesh, either. Instead, both sensations roused her darkest erotic imaginings, the fantasies she’d had of belonging to a male who could claim her like this.

As if hearing her thoughts, both reactions increased, just enough to shoot need straight down the center of her body.

When she gasped, she could almost hear the husky, satisfied male chuckle. The ribbon continued its spiral around her other arm. It wrapped around her waist, a thigh, down to the ankle, back up and…

She convulsed as a knowing touch passed over her sex, between her buttocks. Her knees gave out, her body offering itself to the bindings. Raina and Ruby lowered her to the ground as arousal spiked, teased. A moan came from her as the heat started a second full circuit, from the starting point at the first wrist again. She arched into the constriction, helpless to resist it.

Raina and Ruby kept their hands on hers, their palms at her back, holding her steady. Though she couldn’t find words, immersed in the pleasure of the gift, their demeanor told her they knew she wasn’t afraid or in distress. They remained watchful in case the spellcraft took a turn for the malevolent, but Raina’s free hand stroked her hair, her green-gold eyes glowing, the succubus energy only adding to the potency of what she was experiencing.

The gift’s intent wasn’t to give her full release. There was a direct message to that. Silas intended to retain that pleasure for himself alone. The thought spiked in her vitals, a need for him that wouldn’t ease until she saw him again.

But, Goddess...As if it knew she could take no more without that release happening, the thrumming heat and sensation started to ebb, the ribbons to disappear. Except at her wrists.

Her gaze fell upon them as the gold vanished in a shower of sparks, like the final strike of a blacksmith’s hammer. In its place were two bands of script. The ink was a burned wood color, like a henna tattoo.

For only she that has my soul—one wrist—can engage my sword. The other wrist.

She stared at the words as Raina and Ruby helped her back into a full sitting position. Her body was throbbing.

“One of the writings of Alpha Behn." Raina’s feral smile said she appreciated Silas’s creativity. "‘Love Letters Between a Noble Man and His Sister,’ which I mostly interpreted as the author lusting after his sister, wanting to bed her, instead of his wife. But the line is beautiful, and I expect your Reaper has his own meaning behind the words. Probably sans the obvious sexual entendre about engaging his sword.”

She passed a finger over the marks on Ramona’s wrists, lifted a brow as Ramona shivered. “He’s also got a kink flair to him. I’d say he’s a presumptuous bastard, but for the nature of it.”

At Ramona’s curious look, Ruby explained. “It’s fueled by your wishes and desires. As long as you want the marks, they will stay. If your feelings for him increase, they’ll get deeper and stronger. When you don’t want them, or if your feelings lessen, the marks will fade away at the same rate. We feel no coercion or manipulation to it.” That reluctant admiration in Ruby’s voice had increased. “It’s very deft magic. Complicated.”

And he’d put it in place in a matter of seconds, while giving her pleasure.

She also agreed with Raina. The sword thing wasn’t necessarily a sexual reference. His protection was on her, his…interest. A message that had to mean “I will be back.” Right?

“Your magic isn’t the only thing he picked up on quickly,” Raina noted. Ramona closed her hand over one of the marks, rubbed it with careful fingers, as if she might accidentally erase it.

“That’s just fantasy.”

“It’s reality,” Raina replied bluntly. “An orientation you’ve had to accept as a fantasy, thinking there was no man who could make it an option. I’d say he picked up that option and marked you as his. Whatever you did to him during those few minutes,” she added dryly, “don’t teach it to my demons. Overly attached clients are not good for business.”

When Ramona touched the left mark, gooseflesh spread to where Ruby still gripped her upper arm. The heat of the other woman’s palm was different from the heat in the ribbons. Ramona could feel the contrast. What was in the bands was definitely a strong echo of Silas’s touch.

So where had he gone, Ramona wondered. And when would she see him again?