Chapter 4

CHAPTERFOUR

Sixteen months later…

“How come there are no sexy Reaper figurines?” The one she placed in her display window was a nutcracker with a terrifying skeleton face, glinting ruby chips in the eye sockets and a black cloak sewn with silver threads to pick up the glint of the scythe it carried. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re all kinds of intimidating, and your craftsmanship is impressive, but you don’t make me want to drop my panties. If I was wearing any.”

She returned to the aisle from which she’d retrieved the nutcracker. Two shelves were crammed full of Reapers. She had whimsical ones, like a battery-powered figure possessing a maniacal grin and red lights that ignited in the eye sockets. When a button concealed in his cloak was pressed, the resulting sound was caught between a desolate wind and an animal growl. Another was a ceramic birthday centerpiece, with an outstretched skeletal hand and a charming smirk on its bony face.

She also had more serious ones, like the recently purchased piece crafted by a master woodworker. The Reaper was two feet tall and the centerpiece for a front entry display of her most tempting wares. The artisan had used the grains and imperfections in the wood to give his creation a gnarled appearance. Maybe she could ask him for a commissioned piece. A sexy Reaper.

Or she could mark all the Reapers fifty percent off, an early Halloween sale or straight up clearance. A symbolic clearing of her mind.

The missing and wanting him hadn’t abated. It had grown stronger. Raina and Ruby had offered to help her remove the wrist markers, no matter that her desires were driving their continued presence. But a Chaos witch understood better than most when a magic was behaving exactly as it should. It wasn’t a new lesson for her, realizing the truth could be torture.

Maybe time did work differently for a Reaper. Or he was a fucking sadist.

As her toy train did a spiraling loop above her and chugged onward, she pulled forth a quote she’d been using to keep her sane. “Time to ‘either get a train of cheerful ideas, or hang myself by tomorrow morning.’” Samuel Richardson, The History of Clarissa Harlowe.

Being well read was an excellent way to confirm you were walking a path beaten by a lot of feet. It helped pull oneself back from total hysteria, versus being overly tempted to go over the ledge with the other lemmings.

“I guess I was right. At least the part about him not coming back.” Her voice echoed through the shop, but not the way it usually did when she was by herself. It bounced off something that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

She wasn’t alone.

“I meant to come back.”

* * *

She had her hand on the animatronic Reaper. When her grip tightened on it, damn if she didn’t activate it. Tinny demonic growls vibrated under her touch. She pulled her hand away, but went fully still. She’d imagined whole conversations where he spoke to her, gave her commands. Talked about what kind of fertilizer would be best in her vegetable garden, or didn’t that cloud in the sky look like a dragon?

But it wasn’t her mind who’d just spoken to her.

She hadn’t heard the door open, but she felt the wash of energy course through her shop, over her. Around her. Her pulse accelerated like the Ferrari that Raina claimed Mikhael loved even more than her.

How many times had she heard Silas’s voice in her mind, knowing she was only recalling it, possibly embellishing its deeper notes, the sensual murmur of syllables against her breast, her throat? After almost a year and a half, she really should have lost the true cadence and tone, simply because that was what time did to the memory. But not a single thing was unfamiliar. It came back to her like a long-lost wish, a rush as glorious as when she’d first felt it.

“Well. You did come back. You’re here, aren’t you?” Her voice was remarkably even. Smooth on all the surfaces, like a concrete box.

With a bomb ticking inside it.

The frame of the shelving shimmered, and she steadied it, in that indirect way she did. Couldn’t manage her magic in a straight line. Had to run at it sideways. The dense wave that had been about to topple and break everything in front of her changed direction. Went up toward the high ceiling, played havoc with her kites, making their wings rattle.

He was moving. She could see the blurred outline of him in the corner of her eye, her head slightly averted to avoid a clear image. He had been standing at the top of the aisle, and he was coming closer to her.

She slipped away, rounding the corner to stand on the other side of the tall shelf unit. She gripped the edge. “Stay there,” she said. “Please.”

He paused, three feet of polished wood separating them. She stared down her aisle, away from him. Her gaze fell on her white-knuckled hand. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt today, the draped sleeves edged with lace that fell over her knuckles. Three rings. Middle finger, ring finger and thumb. A pentagram etched into a slender silver band on the ring finger. A purple stone clasped by a scrolling Celtic design displayed on the middle. She wore a man’s heavy silver ring on her thumb, and she’d had to pad the inside to make it fit.

Saul, one of Raina’s incubi, was a fan of the Sons of Anarchy TV series, about an MC club who used the Reaper on their cut. He’d learned of her interest in Reaper designs and given the ring to her for her birthday. Raina’s sex demons viewed Ramona as an adored aunt.

From one angle, the Reaper carried a scythe. From another, the scythe blade looked like the Reaper’s cloak sleeve, the handle of the scythe transformed into a sword he was drawing forth.

It was scary and intimidating. And kind of hot. Maybe the draped sleeves would conceal it. Not that anything could conceal the army of Reapers he was standing in front of.

The ceramic birthday centerpiece was motion activated. As he shifted in front of the shelf, it spoke in its Alan Rickman, Snape-inspired tone, the syllables drawn out with menacing reassurance. “Relax. I’m just here for cake.”

Her magic tossed a Reaper dish cloth over it, burying it under the folds.

Please, let a customer comewarred in her head with Don’t let anything disrupt this moment. She didn’t know why she felt so panicked.

“Is it good that I’m here?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She had no idea how she was managing a normal tone. Or maybe it only seemed that way to her. Since she was having a difficult time finding breath, she could be sounding like she was about to hyperventilate. “You’ve been gone so long; I’ve created a whole life for you. Hobbies, interests, family. Friends. What you most dislike about your boss. Who is your boss, by the way?”

“It’s complicated. So you’ve been thinking about me.”

“No. Of course not.” She closed her eyes. He moved around the shelf, came up behind her. She shivered.

“You’re not listening,” she whispered.

“I am. But I’ve waited an eternity to be close to you again.” The roughness to his voice destroyed another layer of her resolve to hold it together. “It’s made me…lose my manners.”

She was standing in front of a shelf of puzzles. She’d arranged some of the boxes upright to display the pictures on front. They fell over, quiet thumps, sliding to precarious positions.

In an open space in her shop, she had a puzzle table, always with one in process. Customers with a few minutes and the inclination could try to find a few more connecting pieces. She kept the box hidden so they wouldn’t know what the whole picture was, until enough pieces had been put in place to see it start to come together.

She wouldn’t ask him why he’d been gone so long. She’d decided she might lose more than she could bear in knowing. She’d made peace with that decision, but it was a fragile peace.

“What’s good in life is always simple.” She said it aloud, because she needed the reinforcement, the reminder. The maxim routinely helped her forge a path through complicated layers of spellcraft. Or emotions.

He touched her, stroked her hair slowly, with deliberate patience. She had to be imagining the tremor in his fingers in that first second of contact. Because after that his touch held the same confidence and surety she remembered and occasionally tried to bury. But when it came to him, her memory was a dog forever off the leash, running after a scent until its heart exploded and it dropped, insensible to anything.

Lucky dog.

His voice dropped another octave, something raw and intent in the tone. “Tell me about my life, witch. My hobbies. Interests.”

She grabbed for the distraction. “Rock painting. Because you travel so much. You paint them and leave them in random places for people to find.” Her gaze slid to her ring. “Do you carry a scythe?”

She’d had dreams about it, the gleam of the blade, a flash of lightning across skeletal sockets, illuminating and turning them into fathomless eyes.

“Yes. It can transform into other things, too.”

“Like what? And why?”

A shift to his fingers, as if he had lifted a shoulder. “Depends on the soul. I like the shepherd’s crook best.”

His knuckles whispered down her upper arm, setting off a ribbon of heat beneath the snug fit of her sleeve.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

He stilled, but didn’t draw back, so she moved out of reach again, three more steps to the next section of shelves. Potions. Her gaze rested on one for adult acne.

The last woman who had purchased it had woken up after its first use to discover a blue rash staining the tops of her hands. In her dermatologist’s lobby, she tripped over the mop of a custodial worker named Brahms. Hecaught her before she could fall. Glancing down at her hands, he’d smiled and said, “Blue is my favorite color.”

They struck up a conversation, during which the rash simply faded away. They went on a date, and eventually fell in love. Which was the woman’s original motive for wanting to clear up her skin problems. She had a tattoo of a blue heart placed on the back of her left hand, which Ramona saw when she was invited to their wedding.

The way to happiness, what someone truly wanted, was rarely a straight line. Before she understood Chaos magic, Ramona had tried to make potions to turn out the way they were “supposed to.” When she learned she was a conduit, not a control, she’d learned the deep pleasure of watching her erratic magic do exactly what it needed to do.

But when things came too close to her own heart, it was hard not to guard it. To not be fearful about where a decision might take her. Trembling as she sensed him closing the distance between them again, she doggedly pressed onward with her description of his imagined life.

“You have siblings. Two brothers, one younger. You two older ones protected him from neighborhood bullies. Your favorite subject in school was math.”

“Good choice. Sometimes all I did was count how long it had been since I last saw you. Hours, minutes, seconds. Heartbeats. I imagined it as a countdown to when I’d see you again.”

He wasn’t touching her this time, but he had his head dipped so his breath feathered across her ear, the tender skin of her throat. Her hair was pulled over one shoulder, leaving that side of her neck erotically vulnerable. “Why do you think I left that day, Ramona?”

It was the first time he’d ever said her name. Had he heard it that day? Maybe Raina had said it aloud where he could hear it.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to talk about it. Ever.”

“I’m getting the impression it’s the only thing that matters. At least right in this moment.” The tone of his voice shifted. A command, urgent. Imperative. “Show me.”

She crossed her arms. “No. Have you earned that?”

“Turn around and look into my eyes. Decide for yourself.”

“I can’t.”

One hand moved to her shoulder, an insistent pressure. She obeyed it, but she stubbornly kept her gaze down, staring at the planks of her oak floor. Then she saw his feet. Bare and muddy.

No. It wasn’t mud. Layers of dried blood were spattered over his feet, ankles, shins. She could see through the tattered folds of a gray robe. The trousers under it were shredded up to his knees.

“Goddess.” Her gaze raced upward, taking it all in. A rough twine rope belted the robe, but it was loose at his lean waist. Wide sleeves, also torn and bloodstained. Then she saw his other hand, held to his side. It was misshapen, broken. Two nails were missing.

As the startled sound of distress broke from her shocked lips, the strength he’d likely expended to chase her around her shelves, sound as in control as he’d been on the day he’d met her, abandoned him. He fell to his knees. She did her best to catch him, while his arm with the undamaged hand dropped around her waist, trying to help him stay upright.

His cowl covered his head. She pushed it back, her hands gentle, and saw the thick hair she’d remembered, only it was matted, the cowl separating from it stiffly. She stifled another startled gasp as she uncovered bone, a section of exposed skull.

“I’m sorry,” he said against her abdomen. “But after…here was the first place I wanted to come. I couldn’t wait. Don’t be afraid.” He had his forehead against her breasts. “I’m going to look at you.”

She wasn’t feeling fear. She was feeling rage, enough to vibrate her walls, rumble through the floorboards. Cold fury formed ice on her shelf edges. Who had done this to him?

Then he lifted his face and shock took over.

Being a witch, she was used to all the propaganda about her kind. She was okay with the modern-day holiday holdouts, like pointy shoes and hat, the latter supposedly inspired by the garb of European beer wenches. But there were the darker, more dangerous suggestions, such as witches casting curses on innocents, or making children and farm animals sick.

A reminder of how easily the wrong assumptions could be made, especially when driven by fear.

His face was like the Reaper on her ring. A naked skull, the bone the color of antique paper. But deep in those eye sockets, she saw the rich green color she remembered. There was some flesh on the right side of his face. A hint of his lips, a cheek and temple.

“Should have waited until it regenerated fully, until I looked the way you remembered, but I ended up here.”

His voice, so calm and reasonable. A remarkable touch of humor, as if this was no big deal. But she heard more, too. She thought she possessed rage? Pure hellfire ran in the underground currents of his voice. The battle he’d endured to get here had been hard-fought. But that feeling was mixed with other needs, emanating from him so strongly she couldn’t separate and decipher all of them.

“Silas, how can I help you? What can I do?”

That green light glowed deeper. “You know my name.”

“Yes. Mikhael found it out. He’s a Dark Guardian.”

“Dark Guardians. Resourceful.” He was still gazing at her. Even without the familiar tells, she recognized he was taking her in, every feature. “So beautiful.”

“Yes, he is. Raina says he’s too beautiful. It annoys her.”

A glint among the green. The misdirect had amused him. Despite his appearance, that reaction held all the qualities that could touch her like a physical stroke and give her heat. The icicles on her shelves were melting, a sound like dripping rain. She felt some of it fall on her shoulder, penetrate her shirt, kiss her neck.

When stripped of everything, a soul’s hunger had no normal limits. His gaze moved to that droplet, and then his unbroken hand went there. It was fully bone, but it feathered over her skin so lightly, so aware of what would give her pleasure. It was his touch. Just a different texture.

The roughness of his voice confirmed her thoughts about the direction of his. “I want to put my mouth there. Everywhere. But I guess I’ll wait until I have lips again. Though biting you isn’t off the table.”

“Are you in pain?”

His gaze slid up to her. Instead of answering, he repeated the command he’d uttered moments before. The one she didn’t want to resist. “Show me, Ramona.”

She extended a trembling hand to him, the sleeve draped over what he wanted to see. “A gift should be unwrapped,” she said.

He grasped the lacy hem, pushed it up.

At his touch, the heat ignited. The words had darkened over the months, a precise script in the richest dark brown against her flesh. At his regard, it shimmered with flame, the heat passing over her fingers and his.

He dropped his head down, turned her hand over and put his mouth on her palm, her pulse. She felt that hint of his lips, but as he’d said, she mostly felt teeth. When he bit her as promised, a light graze, pleasure struck her. Her hand had fallen on his head, fingertips on bone, the heel of her hand on his damp hair.

He looked like hell, like he was torn up a million different ways. Yet he had her thinking of sex, instead of far more critical things. He seemed to need that reaction.

Chaos witches were often healers, and she was no exception. Patients had individual needs and reactions. When he moved his face to her midriff, rested it there, she curved both arms around him, holding him, a tall man on his knees. Hurting, but conveying she’d just welcomed him home in the way he needed, to start healing the right way.

It didn’t end the doubts she’d had these many months, or resolve everything. She suspected he was still determined to tell her why. Eventually she’d have to hear it, because there was far more going on beyond her own concerns. Something had tried to destroy him, and maybe had almost succeeded.

“It’s okay,” she murmured “I’m mad and confused, but I’m glad you’re here.”

He smiled against her stomach. She wouldn’t swear to it, not with the rain still dripping onto her from her shelves, but some of the moisture penetrating her shirt might be coming from tears. Who knew a person could cry with no tear ducts?

When he spoke, though, his voice had that same steadiness. “My apologies, but I need a place to pass out. I will be better once I wake.”

“How are you not screaming?”

“I sort of screamed myself out. Plus, I’m trying to impress a girl with my fortitude. It helps when there’s no muscle to give it away with twitching, or skin to show clammy sweat. Though I expect I smell like a charnel house.”

At her curious pause, he added. “A vault for corpses. Like a morgue or a slaughterhouse. Sometimes I hold onto older terms, from different times.”

“Like gee golly whiz?”

“It’s golly gee whiz, and it’s one of my personal favorites. After groovy. Or don’t take any wooden nickels. That’s the same as don’t do anything stupid. Which I obviously did.”

“Let’s get you to my back room, then.”

As he lifted himself to his feet, he seemed to be moving all right, if stiffly. But she was opening her healing instincts, more intimately connecting her to what was going on with his body. He was under a tremendous amount of physical duress, a combination of what he’d endured and how much energy his regeneration process was taking. She had no idea how he'd walked into her shop.

The girl was impressed.

They turned a corner, navigating around a tower of silk top hats, crowned with a stuffed white bunny toy, and he stumbled. He would have fallen back to his knees if she hadn’t pressed up against his side, holding him

with an arm around his waist. His other arm fell across her shoulders. She wished she was taller, because he was stooped in their entwined position. He gave her more of his weight than she knew he intended, but she bore up, covered it, so he wouldn’t try to refuse her help.

Lady, he’d called it right. With her senses now fully probing everything going on with him, he smelled like death. Decaying, fetid death. Violent death, punctuated by tears, blood, terror.

She remembered that night at her house, all those months ago, after the moon ritual. Where she’d sensed something evil and wrong in the night.

“Is whatever you escaped coming after you?” She’d reach out to Raina and Ruby for reinforcements. They’d send it back to whatever hell it had come from, with twice as much damage as it had inflicted. People thought her a gentle witch, and she was. But no one would get to someone she cared about while she could protect them. She’d go after it until it would choose its worst nightmare rather than mess with who and what was hers again.

“Escaped? I kicked its ass. It’s running from me.” She heard the wry self-deprecation, liked him all the more for it.

“Not today.” He gave her a serious answer then. “And not like that. No danger to you.”

The cryptic comment was strained, so she decided to hold further questions for now.

She had a cot in her back room for when she wanted to catch an afternoon nap or preferred to sleep here. She eased him to the mattress, then hurried to the front to turn her Open sign to Closed and lock the door before returning to him.

He was unconscious. It startled her, but the even rise and fall of his chest, the twitch of his uninjured hand, helped reassure her. After all, he’d said he was going to pass out.

Her clunky 1950s rotary phone rang. It was a match for the one at the farmhouse, the loud jangle setting off her nerves. Even with the low tech, she sometimes had to perform magical acrobatic bait and switch tactics to keep her magic from sabotaging it. However, today it behaved, perhaps because of the urgency driving the call.

“Miss Ramona.” It was Gina, Raina’s youngest sex demon, who also served as her receptionist and hostess, since she couldn’t serve clients unsupervised. Her ability to feed off of sexual energy could still get away from her and potentially injure them, even with Raina’s protections in place. “We’re trying on new role-playing costumes and doing skits to see who’s the most convincing. Raina said you need to come over and—”

“She felt something off with me and wanted to make sure I was okay, without seeming like she was overreacting.”

Gina paused. Before she could reply, Raina was on the phone. “The emotional blast through our Linking almost straightened my hair. What’s happening?”

“He’s here, Raina. He’s come home.”

The words matched how she felt. Though she’d stopped talking about him months ago, her wrists couldn’t lie, couldn’t say the connection hadn’t remained, becoming all the stronger, welcoming him back to her.

Her sisters also knew how she’d suffered over it, evidenced by Raina’s next words. “Tell him not to go anywhere. Ruby and I will be there shortly to barbecue his ass-dragging carcass.”

“I think he’s been trapped somewhere all these months. I don’t know yet exactly what happened, and he says he’ll be okay after he rests, but it was pretty bad.” She paused. “Is Mikhael home from his last trip?”

“He’ll be here by tonight, if whatever he’s doing doesn’t turn into a shitshow, which is what happens fifty percent of the time. Why do you ask?”

“Before he passed out, Silas seemed pretty certain nothing would be following him here, but I’m not so sure. Something feels off. I’ll reach back out to you if Silas feels differently about it when he wakes, but I feel like it would be good if Mikhael could come by when he gets home. I assume Derek’s still gone.”

“Yes. He’ll be back with Ruby and Jem later in the week, though.”

Whenever her thoughts were drawn toward Ruby’s young son and Derek’s devotion to them, the family Ruby so richly deserved to have after all she’d endured to get them, it gave Ramona a bolstering warmth. A welcome feeling now, even though she couldn’t linger over it. “All right. I need to tend to him.”

“You sure you’re okay? I can come over until Mikhael gets back.”

“I’m a lot of things right now, but no. Thanks for offering.”

Even though Ramona could feel her concern, she knew Raina would respect her wishes. When Ramona cut the connection, she returned to Silas’s side.

Healing was a Chaos witch skill because the body of any species was a complex thing, with a lot of chaotic energy to it. She could tap into it, find her way to what was needed. Doing it while the patient was unconscious helped minimize their pain and discomfort.

The bloodstained cloak was unsalvageable, the rotting death smell embedded in the fibers. He must have been filtering that out for her, with the same remnants of power that had kept him on his feet as long as he’d managed. His upper body was mostly regenerated, but where blood had dried the cloak, she discovered the skin beneath had been flayed or cut from him. It explained the nicks on the exposed bones.

Her anger at the brutality wouldn’t help, so she focused on what would. Warm water drawn from the tub in her full bathroom helped her loosen and free the fabric from abused skin. As she slipped the loosely knotted rope at his waist, her fingers grazed his firm abdomen, the line of hair above his navel. As Raina had said, everything had a mother.

His fingers on the one hand had been crushed, but the busy swirl of aural colors around it were evidence of the energy working to repair the bone.

No wonder he’d passed out. He'd diverted vital healing energy to get to her, speak to her, resurrect the desire between them. Did he feel he’d needed to do that to ensure a proper welcome? Had he come to her as his best choice of a safe haven?

It didn’t matter. His relief at being with her, his pleasure at seeing her again, had been sincere. Plus, anyone in need could always find a haven with her. Not just sexy Reapers.

She remembered the fine grace and beauty of his limbs, his torso and hips. A noble, strong face. An interesting one. She wondered that the Goddess didn’t darken the sky and boil the seas when someone tried to destroy one of Her creations this way. But maybe that was why She’d built them unexpectedly resilient, knowing her creations’ penchant for destruction.

Now that he was sleeping deeply, the reconstructed skin was knitting even more swiftly, moving upward from his collar bones and throat, reconstructing that noble visage.

While what was going on with his hand was definitely an immortal’s healing power, this part was different. She leaned in, studied the process. It was possible that the skeletal visage was his true Reaper form. On a normal day, perhaps the mortal covering could be shed and shrugged back on as a Transform spell.

Which meant he'd chosen to keep the mortal covering. Let it be cut and flayed from him. To confuse his enemy? Or buy time?

Pushing and adjusting his body as carefully as possible to remove the cloak, she discovered the man was far more solid than he looked. When she eventually managed it, she dropped the ruined garment to the floor, leaving him only in the ragged trousers.

Her heart tightened. Tremendous effort had gone into hurting him. A ripple of uneasiness came with the thought, because what she saw said killing him wasn’t the priority. This effort was either to punish or force him to do something he wasn’t willing to do.

Forming a square with her two hands like a small screen, she passed it over his body, focusing on that rectangular space. A magical form of X-ray, to probe, scan and see if there was anything her talents could do to reinforce or augment his body’s own healing ability.

She paused over the center of his chest. There was something there. A dense mass, a…

It moved. And spat darkness at her.

In an instant, she was against the opposite wall, one flattened palm up in a defensive warding, the other in an offensive claw, ready to cast a counter.

For several intent moments, she waited and watched. Nothing. Silas remained unconscious. She took a cautious step toward the cot. Then another. Close enough to see a symbol now visible on his chest, the texture and color of ash soot. It set off every alarm she had, confirming why she’d wanted Mikhael.

Dark Soul magic pulsed from it.

Shit.

Did Silas know he’d been marked with a curse?

She approached cautiously, her gaze narrowing as the mark faded from view, a monster retreating back beneath the bed. The reaction had been a warning, but she sensed she’d been a distraction. Its prey held its focus.

Silas.

She wouldn’t probe that area again, not until Mikhael was here or Silas was awake. While she could handle a lot of things, if a Reaper was on par with a Guardian, whatever had the power to curse him fell in line with their hierarchy and she wouldn’t let pride result in catastrophe.

For now, while the curse or whatever it was lay dormant again, she’d do what she could to get him back on his feet. Then they could figure out what was needed, and who else needed their ass kicked.

Since his trousers were in no better shape than the cloak, she fetched sewing shears to cut him out of them. Settling on the edge of the cot, her hip pressed against his calf, she grasped the fabric below his left knee in a careful hand. Some people were ticklish around the knees. The tender thought helped mitigate her apprehension as she positioned the blades to cut the fabric.

In the next blink, things became far more alarming again.

Her patient shot out of sleep like a fish yanked from the water by a sharp hook. But what the fish brought into the boat made that hook look like a paperclip.

He’d told her he carried a scythe. She saw it up close and personal, conjured in a flash of heat and grasped in his intact hand. The blade was wider than the span of his shoulders. And it was notched under her throat.

Green fire blazed in his eye sockets. The lethal focus left no doubt he had held his own in whatever fight he’d left behind. He was the thing that gave monsters nightmares.

This wasn’t that curse’s doing. As her heart flailed on the edge of full arrest, a working part of her brain observed how much sense a protection spell would have made while working on a man who’d just escaped severe violent trauma.

She’d had no time to raise a counter that wouldn’t harm him, but her magic didn’t usually wait on her conscious decisions when her life was in peril. A vine was wrapping itself around the handle above his grasped hand, sprouting little yellow flowers and then growing cucumbers over the edge of the blade. It only took a couple seconds for them to achieve the size and weight that put enough pressure against the blade to sever the vine. Several of the vegetables tumbled to the floor. One landed on her foot with a thump.

The fire in his eyes flickered. The point of the blade eased back a spare inch. She could sense many things happening in his disoriented mind, but she’d count on him being the male she believed him to be. Months of unbridled imaginings with no information to change their direction could give a woman faith in all sorts of unlikely things.

“Silas.”

At the sound of his name, slowly, that fire died back. Then, in one shift, his face was restored to its human look. Still bearing some cuts, but no open patches to show bone. Confirming her theory, he’d healed enough to use the Transform spellcraft. A power nap worked wonders for an immortal.

The scythe vanished. She’d yelped when he’d lunged at her throat, but a different sound, one of relief, came to her as he put his hand there instead. His thumb brushed the cut squeezing out tiny beads of blood.

If she’d taken a deep breath, shifted at all, the blade would have severed her windpipe. He muttered an oath.

“I shouldn’t have come until I was healed.”

He was trying to push off the cot. Perhaps he didn’t realize how clumsily he was failing at it. Transform ability or not, his body was doing a major heal. It had no patience left for any other major activity.

He might be too strong for her to hold him, but not if they were talking the power of will. Hers for him to stay. Plus his desire not to leave, which she sensed was gratifyingly strong.

He’d put his foot on one of the cucumbers. It puzzled him enough to look down, recognize what the bumpy-textured impediment was. She scooped it up to keep it from being squished. The other two had gone under the bed. She’d get them later. They’d make a good salad. As she put her other hand on his forearm, she found his skin was warm. She wanted to stroke the small hairs layered there. Instead she gave him her best stern healer look.

“There’s a variety of reasons you chose to come to me, I hope, but one was you thought you could regain your strength here. You could. Can.” She pointed the cucumber at him for emphasis. “I don’t care how often you whip out your scythe, you’re not leaving.”

He blinked at the vegetable. After a tense moment, his lips twitched. “Going to stop me, little witch?”

“Call me little witch again, and the ass-kicking you just had—I’m sorry, dished out—will seem like a picnic.”

Despite the exchange, she saw the sincere struggle over it in his face. He didn’t want to cause her harm. Because of that, her tone softened. “I’m all right. You didn’t hurt me. You’re still you.”

It was that way. When you endured something horrible, you had to remind yourself, send out that challenge. You didn’t win. You may have taken everything that I loved, but you still didn’t win, because I still have me. The lifetime companion that never left. The one that could be your best friend, your advocate, your truest helpmeet.

He had covered her hand, and their fingers had twined, hers tightening on his. Too much. She eased the grip, though he didn’t seem to mind the hold as he stared at her.

At length, his gaze shifted to the largest thing in the room with them. When he blinked again, as if doubting his whereabouts, his lips curved in a slow smile, as if he’d found what he was looking at a familiar and welcome sight.

The back rooms of her shop were divided between storage, a full bathroom, and a weaving room. Her cot was in the weaving room. She had several types of looms in here, the largest one an eight by ten Navajo frame loom made of maple and big enough to do carpets. Ruby had once asked why Ramona didn’t put it somewhere on the farm, where she could have windows. With how deep she went in her head when she used it, she didn’t need them. The pattern she created was a world coming together.

Same for the thread she spun from a variety of materials. Silk, wools, cotton. His attention had moved to that section now. While like the looms, she had several different spinning devices, like a drop spindle and a Charkha, her favorite was her spinning wheel. Polished wood, and over a century old, it held the vibrations of its past users. Whenever she laid her hands on it, she felt like she was reconnecting to souls who knew her, fingertips meeting through the windowpanes of time.

“You make your own thread,” he said.

“Some. I also buy or barter from others.”

The intent to leave that was keeping his body upright seemed to reluctantly ease. “I came to the right place to reconnect to this world. A weaver, a spinner.” He sent her a look. “You asked who my boss is. It’s the Fates, technically.”

“When did this happen?” The suspicion forming in her heart made it an effort to push out the words. She admitted she wanted it confirmed, though. Even if it was pointless pride, it would be a balm on the hurt she’d nursed and turned into other even more painful possibilities.

His eyes held hers. Despite whatever else he was dealing with, he was noting her reactions, logging them. “Same day we met. Though don’t let me off the hook just because I was trapped in a pit of interdimensional evil.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Her heart thudded painfully. Their hands were still linked, and she’d shifted her chair closer between his knees. “You’re not the first jerk to use that excuse for bailing on me. When did you get free?”

That furrowed brow again. “Not long before I came here. I had to get Cal to The Gate first. After that, my mind wasn’t clear on a lot of things, but the need to get here was.”

It made sense. An unconscious choice, fixating on his last good memory. You’re trying to protect yourself, and there are bigger issues right now, she told herself. “Cal?”

“The soul I was supposed to shepherd that day.”

“Shepherd does sound a little less scary,” she noted. “Is that why you prefer it?”

He reached out, tapped her ring. “Lot of propaganda out there. Making us something to fear. Big, bad and scary.”

She’d seen the flash of dangerous heat in his eyes, felt its energy when he’d brought that scythe into the equation. He could be something to fear. She wasn’t going to remind him of that, since he seemed to have decided to stay. But the big, bad and scary was probably also why he’d gotten a soul where it was supposed to be, despite what had tried to interfere with that.

Her gaze rose. Seeing his fully restored face, including those distracting lips and deep-set eyes, the gleam of his brows and hint of his hair growing back to feather against his forehead, brought a rush of other feelings. When they’d met, she’d thought the prominence of his bone structure had added to his captivating looks. Now she could almost see the shimmer of his true form beneath the firm skin. It didn’t change her desire to stroke his skin, touch his mouth. It might actually increase it, knowing that, like her, he was something most would consider overwhelming. Or dreadful.

She looked down at the cucumber, turning it in her hands. “You heal fast.”

“Faster when I’m trying to impress a beautiful witch.”

She frowned. “Don’t do that. I’m glad to see you. But even if I wasn’t, you don’t have to be charming when you feel like shit. Let the healing take the time it needs.”

He deliberately touched her face, her jaw. She stubbornly kept her gaze on the vegetable, scraping at the bumps with her nail. “Ramona, I want to know if there’s more I need to apologize for. I want to know why you thought I didn’t come back sooner.”

“There are plenty other things to deal with—”

“This is the matter I want to deal with right now. It’s important.” He dropped his touch back to her wrist, loosely holding it, stroking the words branded there.

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t true. It has no relevance.”

“Tell me.” He took the cucumber away and set it aside. Lifted her face to look at him. Even in a weakened state, he had a gaze that could laser right through a woman’s defenses. Damn it all.

She sighed. “I figured you didn’t come back for the same reason most men do, after they feel the shape of my magic. They realize it’s too…unpredictable.”

“Tell me who left you for that reason,” he said with deceptive mildness. “Their current life will expire far sooner than they expect.”

She chuckled, she couldn’t help it, though other emotions were going to strangle her. “You sound like a mob guy. Can you do that? Expire someone’s contract?”

“I can do lots of things. It’s not my most impressive talent, though.” That light smile was back, though she could tell it was on a close-to-snapping thread. He was an excellent masker, but she wasn’t fooled. He was in pain.

She put her hands on his upper arms, applied pressure to ease him back to the cot. “Seriously, stop flirting. You’re suffering.”

When he laid back down, a breath escaped him. She noted the easing of his muscles as fatigue made itself known again. But when he lifted a hand to her face, his expression made her swallow every word she could have said.

“Flirting with you is the nicest thing I’ve done…in a while.” It was the second time he’d paused over the issue of time. “How long have I been gone?”

Sixteen months, two weeks and twelve days.But what she said aloud was, “About a year and a half.”

“Lord and Lady,” he muttered. “Damn it all.”

“How long did you think it had been?”

“In the translation of time there, it was a couple weeks.”

Shock coursed through her. She’d thought about time distortions like in the Fae world, to justify his prolonged absence. But still... “Why weren’t your own people, the ones in this time zone, looking for you?”

“They very well may have. But what we do…it’s not unusual for a Reaper to take a few months to recharge, or disappear altogether when they can handle no more of it. Or their time to do it is simply done.”

So guiding a soul from its body wasn’t easy on the Reaper. She wondered if he meant physically or emotionally. Possibly both.

“While the ranks of a Wake are mind-connected,” he continued, “and our Cast leadership can likewise speak to the commanders of those divisions, we are also solitary. When one of us vanishes from our collective minds, the Reaping schedule realigns. Because of that, we rarely question it. The Reaper may eventually reappear, or never return.”

“But would that realignment happen if you were taken?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been completely out of contact with my Wake commander like this, and the connection has not yet reestablished itself, despite my return.” His tone suggested that was unexpected. “I don’t believe any of my kind have ever done what I did, and that may have affected the usual course of things.”

“What did you do?”

His mouth tightened. “A Soul Collector tried to seize the soul and pull him into the demon realm of the Underworld. I followed. We’re supposed to obliterate the soul rather than let it be taken. We’re not ever supposed to cross that threshold. But I thought I could protect the soul, get us out of there, with him intact.”

“Which you did. But the Soul Collector got there first because of me, didn’t it?”

His gaze locked on hers. “I made an error in judgment that day, but spending time with you was not part of that error. You were not aware I had somewhere to be. The responsibility was mine. Understand?”

“If you understand how sorry I am it happened.” She laid a hand on his arm. “There might be another reason you can’t communicate with your Wake. I think you’ve been cursed with Dark Soul magic.”

He didn’t immediately react as she explained what had happened. But as she finished, he had his hand on his chest. When he concentrated, she saw him detect it.

And it realized it had been detected.

Silas became rigid again, his jaw set. As he probed deeper, the ash soot symbol came forth, and he dipped his head to look at it. The vein in his neck pulsed black, worrying her. She bit back her protest. She didn’t know his capabilities, couldn’t say that whatever he was doing to dislodge it wouldn’t work.

But when a foreign body planted itself, capable of vast harm, even destroying its host, she expected that host would experience a primal desire to knock it loose, dig it out. Like using a blow torch to blast a leech off the skin, the revulsion a form of hysteria.

Silas didn’t reach that point. Still, when he left off whatever he was attempting, too many moments later, the skin over the mark was weeping blood, and he was bent forward, breath shuddering out of him in a way that told her he was in agony.

“Damn it.” His curse reassured her that what he was experiencing was the ebbing aftermath. As the mark faded to a dull impression and disappeared again, he stared at the spot. Put his hand over it, despite the blood. “It seems my pride may have caused far bigger problems.”

“I doubt it was pride. The soul was yours to protect.”

Silas pressed his lips together. “It’s perhaps a good idea to ask your friend to send her beautiful Dark Guardian over.”

“Already did. He’s away right now, but due back soon.”

He digested that. “You have good instincts.”

“I have no interest in facing something coughed up from the demon world without serious backup.”

He nodded, though his expression was brooding. After a brief hesitation, she retrieved the basin of water to clean the blood off his chest, since it was slipping down his abdomen toward the waistband of his trousers. Afterward, she’d offer him her shower, if he felt up to cleaning himself.

She pushed the chair out of the way and knelt between his spread knees, putting her hand on his leg to adjust herself on her heels. She brushed her hair back over one shoulder to keep it out of the way and wrung out the cloth. Then she looked up at him, and froze.

His brooding expression had altered, become something different. Though her trepidation and worries ran deep, she offered him a nervous smile. “It’s funny how our bodies sometimes distract us with better things when it all gets to be too much.”

He traced the side of her face with his fingertips. “It’s one of the Lord and Lady’s nicest miracles,” he said. “Another is that there’s more than one way a Reaper can restore his energy.”

Which explained why he looked like he could be thinking what she was surprised he might be thinking, after all he’d been through. She also saw him tone it down, recognize the weight of what remained unresolved between them.

But as he moved his touch to her hair, winding a lock around his fingers, she had to admit a lot of things could be resolved without words. Particularly when a man’s touch had just enough weight to it to tell her what kind of male rested behind those eyes, what he wanted from a woman.

The kind of woman who needed that exact thing from him.

I’d say he picked up that option and marked you as his.

She pressed her lips together, conscious of the position of her hand, poised at his chest and abdomen, and what held her in place.

“May I tend to you, my lord?”

Green fire sparked. “You may.”

Yes, it was a miracle. A very welcome, heated one that sent electricity through her. She cleared her throat, put the cloth to his flesh. Sought a distraction for them both.

“You said Cal. Did you mean Cal Horscht?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t know much about Cal, but she recalled his obituary, people assembling for the funeral. “Will you tell me about him?” She noted Silas’s abdomen was every bit as firm as it looked, muscle curving under the palm of her hand, separated by damp cloth. The arrow of hair above and below his navel gleamed with the moisture.

“He lived a colorful first life, though relatively sheltered, usual for a first incarnation. He was a young soul, so this was his first body,” he added for her clarification. “Ideally, a soul is more protected on the first round, a sampler of possibilities. He played baseball as a teen, dreamed of making it to the minor leagues. Became a business owner instead, a pizza restaurant up north. Retired down here.”

Her hand stilled as he spoke. The matter-of-fact glimpse of his job held the mysteries of life and death to most people, including her.

“Yes. He liked to fish. When his grandchildren came to visit, he’d take them out on his boat.” She remembered that much, through the conversations of others. Few degrees of separation in a small town. “Do you get all that information when he’s put…on your schedule?”

“I get the basics, but I usually gather more. Observe the soul a few times before their Reaping, to know what reaction I might expect when the death happens. Helps me know how best to prepare, to guide and care for them.”

Silas paused. “During our time together in the Underworld, I learned far more.”

“While you were going through this?” Her gaze slid over the bloodstained trousers.

“They were trying to force me to give him up, so I’d surrounded his soul energy. He could speak in my mind.” His jaw set. “Cal was brave. He helped me persevere, tried to assist me however he could. For a new soul, he showed remarkable courage and resourcefulness.”

He subsided, staring into space. She’d sought to distract him. Instead, regrettably, she saw her questions had taken him back to what he had endured.

In the company of the soul he’d been trying to save.

* * *

To make it end, all Silas needed to do was let go, expel the miniscule but treasured spark that Cal had become, hidden where nothing but Silas’s own will could allow it to be reached.

Silas wouldn’t consider it, would never consider it. The alternative was unacceptable; living with the knowledge he’d failed the soul he’d been charged to protect and shepherd to The Gate. But having Cal help him with the resolve had been immeasurably helpful. He would never forget the surprisingly intrepid soul, and hoped their paths would cross again.

He jerked, realizing the witch had spoken to him. A soft, “hey,” before she leaned in, standing up on her knees to brush her lips against his shoulder. As she recognized his awareness, she laid her hands on him and slipped them around to his bare back. A loose hold, not restrictive, but a reminder of another body. Bringing him back to the present.

He shuddered at the feel of her mouth, and cupped her skull, stroking fingers through her blond locks. “I have dreamed of this hair. Touched with fire.”

He thought of her wrists. The way the words had embedded themselves in her flesh, telling him the depth of her feeling, even months later. The bond between them…it had to be what he believed it to be.

But he wouldn’t speak of it. His mind was soup, and he needed to go into a Deep Sleep, recharge, finish the full restoration of his body and spirit. But his need to be conscious and in this moment with her felt as important to his healing as the dormant regeneration period.

Plus he needed to reestablish ties with other Reapers and talk to the Dark Guardian about the Dark Soul marker embedded inside him. Its roots were buried deep. Not like a parasite. It wasn’t drawing anything from him. Truth, he couldn’t feel it when it was dormant. But that only made its potential purpose all the more dangerous.

Since the thought made him unwisely want to try to dig it out again, he gave her more of Cal’s story when she settled back on her heels. The emotional blank spaces Cal had filled in as they endured hell together.

“His first wife cheated on him with his partner in the restaurant, and the two of them moved to Florida. That happened after the kids were in college or out in the world, saving ugly custody battles.”

But the pain of betrayal remained. Learning that love could be a rose bush with more thorns than petals, and the heart’s blood accounted for the deep red color in them, had been the first important imprint lesson for Cal’s soul. As it was carried forward into different lives, those imprints would form foundation blocks. Depending on how he made peace with them, it guided his future choices. It didn’t necessarily determine how bumpy the road ahead would be, though, since life had far more than one difficult lesson to teach a soul.

Silas had done everything he could to make Cal insensible of the things happening to him and around them in The Pit, the name they called the demon’s Underworld realm. That horror wasn’t intended to be part of those lessons. But Cal had realized enough to know Silas was fighting to protect him, and done what he could to help.

Silas’s gaze went back to Ramona. She seemed to be mulling his words, possibly thinking about the vagaries of love and loyalty. Though he’d corrected her impression, he didn’t like why she thought he’d left. He would take his first opportunity to prove she never should have believed that.

“Cal’s heart attack happened while winding up the garden hose in the backyard. His youngest daughter was living with him to help out, but she was at work. He had a great dog. A chihuahua with a warrior’s heart.”

“Zed. I see his daughter walk him by the shop some days.” She rested on her hip, leaning against his leg. “Cal’s journey was more harrowing than most, but are they usually scared?”

The question would have meaning for her, as it did for anyone who asked. Everyone had lost someone. Or was facing their own mortality and what lay beyond it. He focused on answering her question, though his gaze lingered on her face, the curve of cheek, shape of her jaw and lips.

“It depends on the soul. There was a girl I escorted—she was not a new soul, but she died as a child and, depending on the maturity of the soul, that can be more jarring for some than others. Sometimes they don’t let the wall fall between that life and the past ones as quickly, so they don’t necessarily realize what lies ahead. She held onto her child’s form and asked me a lot of questions on the way to The Gate. Held my hand the whole time.”

It gave him a slight smile, remembering. He turned his hand over on his knee, looked at his palm. “Occasionally, her fingers would tighten on mine, when she felt the waves of fear that came from being separated from her mother, her family, and all she had known in life.”

Ramona slipped her hand into his, and his fingers closed over hers as he shifted his gaze to her face. “She had blonde hair, too,” he murmured. “Only whitish gold, like you see on the young, like swan feathers.”

When they’d finally approached The Gate, she’d stopped, staring at it. He’d told her Reapers didn’t cross The Gate, and she’d latched onto that. “How can you be sure what’s on the other side of that is something okay? That it’s not something to be afraid of?”

Silas had dropped to his heels. She had seen him in his human form, much as Ramona was seeing him now. Despite the young soul’s fear, she hadn’t changed him into anything else, like a familiar relative. Which meant she saw him as a trusted authority figure.

He touched the outline of light around her energy, an affectionate reassurance. “Fear is just the gateway to wonder. It’s merely a matter of finding the courage to step through it. Besides, why would they send someone like me to guide you if it was scary?”

He’d made a comic scary face, lifting his free hand to act like a monster’s claw. She’d giggled. When he’d gently shepherded her through The Gate’s light, she held onto his hand until the last moment, the rest of her disappearing, her fingers suddenly loosening and then sliding away, peaceful as a toy boat released into a pond’s current.

“Silas?”

Another voice, just as gentle, bringing him back to the present. To the hand linked with his on his knee. He didn’t know if he’d told her the full story or drifted off. He really needed that Deep Sleep. He was not acting like himself. He should be more concerned about that.

Gazing at him with a healer’s insight, Ramona separated their hands, but only to rest her palms on his knees. “I’d like to give you some additional healing energy. I think it would help.”

The Deep Sleep would be sufficient to restore him, but he was reluctant to give himself to unconsciousness so soon after being in her presence again. Though perhaps he should. When she glanced down, he realized he’d gripped her wrist again, was holding her tightly.

He hadn’t been jesting about other methods of restoring himself. Being around her, inhaling her scent, touching her flesh, reminded him of all the comfort that could be found from a woman’s body. The deep, rejuvenating pleasure of bringing her to the brink of surrender and well beyond it, made the thought of doing so almost irresistible.

Especially after what he had just experienced. He could still smell the stench of sulfur. Feel the agony of the poison fire, the cut of the flail, talons ripping…

He wanted to bury his nose in her hair, her soft bodice, her flesh. Between her legs, inhale the earthy scent of her arousal, reminding him how generosity, beauty, love and pleasure could purge the plagues of hate, pain and cruelty from his blood, his mind.

A Reaper had many job stresses, but he’d received a concentrated shot of all the worst aspects of them. He shouldn’t have come here first. He had regenerated his form, but his mind, heart and soul were shredded.

Deep Sleep. He needed the Deep Sleep. But what he wanted was something very different from that. Wanted it strongly enough to call it a need.

She’d risen to her knees again, hands moving from his knees to his shoulders. Yet when she moved one hand to his nape, to stroke his hair, he gripped the other wrist and pulled them both in front of him to stop her from touching him.

Her hurt expression turned to something else as he put his forehead on her captured knuckles. Pressed it there and held. He couldn’t hold back the words, the emotions surging dangerously behind them.

“You can’t touch me like that, witch. I won’t be able to control myself, and there is too much in me now. I will pin you to a wall and possess you completely, with no regard for the things we need to say to one another first. You will feel I used you, rather than wanted you. No one is allowed to treat you like that, including myself.”

A tremor went through her that tightened his grip. While she wisely remained silent and very, very still, he took several breaths. Thought of her kneeling at his feet, tending him with her warm cloth and gentle hands. Ironically, the submissive nature that so tempted him helped him regain control. She deserved the best from him.

Time and courtship, what every Dominant male owed a strong woman who craved submission.

At last, he lifted his head. “Yes,” he said formally, “I would be honored and grateful for your healing skills.”

While her expression appeared calm, the little pulse in her throat was jumping, and he could feel the tension in her slim body. That Chaos energy that could turn her hair to fire was close, snapping in the air, electricity on his skin.

She might think she wanted him to take her over, but the fantasy of having a male rut on her with mindless need was far from the reality. Submission wasn’t always sensible. Which meant he had to be the Master she needed.

Steadying the explosive edge of her response wasn’t difficult, but it was a relief to find his ability to do so well within his range. He also had other tools in that arsenal, ones connected to a different, more earthy energy.

“Ramona,” he said with quiet firmness. A reminder that she was making him wait for an answer.

She snapped out of her racing, erotic thoughts, which meant he could relax his jaw, stop gritting his teeth to restrain himself. The tendrils of desire from her had been playing up the columns of his thighs as noticeably as her fingers on his nape.

“Yes, sorry. If you could lie back, my lord.”

When he did, he realized he might not have helped his control much. An accomplished witch wielding power was a sensual, moving exercise. Fortunately the academic side of him was curious, since he hadn’t yet had the pleasure of watching her purposefully exercise her magic.

She prepped herself by tilting her head left to right once, a stretching of neck muscles. She gave him an absent smile, a surprisingly effective attempt to ease the intensity of the past few moments.

“Do you offer your healing talents to many in the community?”

“Sometimes. They tend to work out differently than expected. Almost always in the ways they’re supposed to, but it’s difficult for people to accept that. Some spontaneity is fun, but people like to be able to predict most things. I guess that’s why so many people fear death, right? They don’t know what to expect, can’t predict how it will happen, or where they go afterward. I like what you said to the girl.”

She had spread her palms out over him as she spoke. He saw the energy gather to her, as if eager to come to her hands, wind around them. He understood the feeling keenly. “Do you remember her name?” she asked.

“I remember all their names,” he said. “Birdie. It was Brittany, but her baby brother called her Birdie. It stuck.”

She smiled. The magic was spinning out, becoming a web of light drifting down over his bare chest, hips, arms and legs like a blanket. At its first touch, he felt things that brought relief and comfort from unexpected places. The touch of a snowflake on a brow. Sunlight on a car hood, felt through the palm. The wildness of a storm.

Dance with me in the storm.

I’ll never bring you harm.

He kept his gaze upon her as the words danced through his mind. When his hand had been crushed, he’d held onto those two lines. Two partners dancing who couldn’t be torn apart, as long as he could keep reciting them together. Just as Cal couldn’t be torn from him.

She twisted her fingers around one another, separating the energy into threads she wove into his body, like stitches for a wound. While the pattern seemed random, the raw edges that had been ripped open were being brought together. With astounding strength of purpose, she was retrieving his shredded mind and spirit from that terrible, desolate place. That trauma was the biggest wound that needed healing, to clear his head and deal with that mark, what it meant.

Her eyes had fallen shut. She was focusing, intensifying the healing. Her Chaos magic unfurled fully. It had its own will and intent, not consciously guided by her, but still her.

Which was when he recognized the danger. Something he would have seen right off if his mind wasn’t so scrambled.

As a witch, she would know to skirt the edges of the mark and leave it untouched. But Chaos and Dark Soul magic existed hip to hip with one another, and the healer in her came too close. What lived in that mark grabbed hold.

The veins in his regenerated flesh turned black as the invader used those routes to seize her glittering strands of magic. It reached for the fuel that Chaos magic could provide it. Even more importantly, it reached for her.

His current physical state be damned, he was off the bed, his scythe called back to hand. As he swung it, he shoved her away. A twisted marriage of golden and black energy arced in the air between them. He sliced through it and lit it up, torching the poison down to the smallest molecule. Ashes fell like rain.

Since the severing snapped the mark back into its unwilling host—him—his chest cavity burned like a son of a bitch.

When he’d shoved her, she’d landed on her pretty ass by the wall, but she’d sprung back up. She threw out what looked like…cupcake sprinkles. Each one speared a piece of toxic ash, spinning it down to the floor and dissolving it into a multi-colored mist that smelled like candy.

He was sure there was a reason it had taken that form. He’d have to ask her.

Unfortunately, the Deep Sleep had a way of coming for a Reaper, when the Reaper took too long to come to it. For one more moment he stood tall, the scythe grasped firmly. Then he swayed and she was lunging for him.

“I won’t keep fainting in your arms,” he promised her. “Do not do anything further until the Dark Guardian arrives.”

Then he promptly lost consciousness again.