Chapter 8

CHAPTEREIGHT

“Yes,” Silas said. His grip on his scythe was tight. “I assume that was why I was removed from the Reaping schedule.”

Honora frowned. “I reviewed that possibility when you sent me your message. The Fates do not seem aware of your return. It is as if…you are not visible to them.”

His expression flickered, but he helped Ramona to her feet. She noticed he made certain she was stable. While he stayed close enough to help if that changed, he turned to face his Wake commander. “The Dark Guardian, Mikhael Roman, is seeking more information,” he said.

“I did not direct you to bring in a Dark Guardian.”

“I called him when Silas showed up at my place,” Ramona supplied. When Honora’s gaze turned in her direction, the prolonged silence made Ramona uncertain if she was expecting more information. “He’s kind of my brother-in-law,” she added.

Honora blinked once, then returned her attention to Silas. “Come speak to me alone.” Then she walked away.

“I’ll send you back first,” Silas said to Ramona. Granite was in his voice, the set of his jaw.

“No need. I’ll stay right here and wait for you. It’s a nice spot. Dandelions and everything.” Plus a panoramic view of human carnage. When he gave her the same Sphinx stare, she shook her head. “She didn’t see it. None of them saw it, Silas. Not even you. She might need more information from me when you two talk.”

Though she could sense his desire to override her and send her back to her shop before dealing with Miss Stick Up Her Ass—if anyone could have a stick up their ass, it would be a tree spirit—he at last nodded. “Stay here. I mean it. I’m already wanting to wear your ass out for the danger you put yourself in.”

“Because only you’re allowed to risk yourself?” Though his penetrating look made it difficult, she held his gaze.

“Stay. Here.” He pivoted and followed his commander.

“Though I’m not opposed to spankings in general,” Ramona called after him. “If it will make you feel better.”

Three Reapers looked her way. Silas came to a stop, his shoulders tightening. He sent her a glare over one, but she also saw a slight easing of that stonelike expression, a firming of his lips as if suppressing a faint smile.

Chaos magic could do that, too. Know when an off-the-wall or seemingly ill-timed comment was actually spot-on, sticking a spoke in the wheel of a mind going in a bad direction. For her part, it told her he had a durable sense of humor. Kind of a miracle, given not only the situation, but what he did for a living. Maybe that was why he had one. She knew it was why she did. Battlefield humor couldn’t save a body, but it could salvage a soul struggling against bad odds.

Surrounded by death, souls in peril of something unnatural after them, Silas being “corrupted.” That was when Chaos gamely stepped in and refused to let it become overwhelming.

If she could give him that gift, even at her own expense, she would. Honora had her worried. Ramona didn’t know if the female Reaper was in Silas’s corner or not, so she wasn’t letting Silas out of her sight.

* * *

Honora had returned to the knoll that offered the best vantage point of the field. When Silas joined her, she inclined her head toward the fallen. “I sense your strong compulsion to help, but it is best not to attempt a Reaping until this is resolved.”

“I know.” She wasn’t dictating to him. As the leader of their Wake, she had the right to do so, but it was rarely necessary. Protecting and guiding souls held sway over ego, pride or individual desires.

Even so, it was hard to tell her what Ramona had just shared. But he did. “While it called the Soul Collector, I don’t sense that is the mark’s ultimate purpose,” he added. “As she suggested, it seemed more of a test, of how easily it could command my ability to call a soul.” Ramona had disrupted it before it could find out.

“We should have been able to see it, sense it, and we did not. But the Chaos witch saw it clearly.”

“I believe so, yes.”

Her gaze slid to Ramona, back to him. “Tell me what you did not include in your message. I will share all of it with the others as you tell me.”

Through a mind link not currently available to him. He put that aside and made his report. He felt tension increase on the field as the information was relayed, a warrior reaction to a threat they didn’t yet know how to fight.

Even so, many turned his way, meeting his gaze, giving him a slight bow. He had their support, their loyalty. Their aid, in whatever way he needed it. Reapers were mostly solitary, for personal and professional reasons, but the ties between them were strong.

The knowledge helped. He was angry in several different directions. A cold block of rage was lodged against the mark within him, and what it had tried to do to the boy’s soul had only increased its density. He was also angry with himself, because he still carried pointless guilt about how it had gotten there.

On top of that, a lethal fury was ready to take over if he gave any more thought to how Ramona had risked herself. She’d tangled with a Soul Collector all on her own.

And handled herself damn well.

He didn’t enjoy feeling helpless, but he wasn’t going to deny it merely because his manhood was getting kicked like a rosin bag by his current state. He had underestimated her abilities.

Because Reapers were his family, when he concluded the report, he made the rare decision to pose a personal question. “Honora, can you see the witch’s death?”

Surprise flickered in her gray-green gaze, but she moved her attention to Ramona.

Ramona kept looking toward him, so at the Wake commander’s regard, she shifted her gaze to Honora. In intimate moments, or when he was imposing his will upon her, Ramona responded to the Master in him, sometimes averting or lowering her gaze. But now Silas saw an obvious challenge in the witch’s eyes, one that Honora registered with a faint smile.

“She is protective of you.”

Then the smile died away as Honora’s regard intensified. Her grip constricted on her scythe handle as she probed for the information Silas sought.

Ramona looked at Silas, a question in her eyes. He held up his hand, a silent reinforcement that he needed her to remain where she was. He combined it with a reassuring look, though the sadness in his chest was like a wet towel being twisted to drip water on a barren concrete floor.

The strength of the reaction surprised him, but he turned toward Honora and spoke calmly, before she offered the obvious. “You can’t see it.”

“No. I cannot. I assume you asked because you cannot, either. I have sent out a request to the others on the field to confirm if it is the same for them.”

He appreciated her thoroughness, but knew the results would be the same, since he and Honora were the strongest Reapers present.

“What explanation do you have for this?” she asked.

“I believe it’s because she is a Chaos witch. What’s predictable for others is not for her. The Dark Guardian warned me of it.”

No surprise, Honora had picked up on his mixed reaction to the news. “You thought she might be your soulmate.” She studied him. “It is a rare occurrence. Many Reapers never cross a soulmate’s path, or feel its lack. Our lives are full.”

“They are.”

Regardless of the reason, he acknowledged it was a comfort not to see the information about Ramona’s mortality. His connection to her, whatever its root, made his feelings too strong to easily bear the knowledge.

She’d taken a seat against a large tree on the flanking forest’s edge. Its leaves were scorched from homemade firebombs, the bark patterned by missing chunks, dislodged by gunfire. She’d drawn her knees up, was gripping the faded denim covering her legs, narrow backside pressed to the ground among the roots.

He wanted her to move to the other side of the tree, where she would face the woods instead of the battlefield. He knew the damage viewing such a scene could do to anyone, let alone someone with her heart.

“You are very drawn to this woman. As she is not a soulmate, we should perhaps question the timing. You met her right before the encounter with the Soul Collector. Could she be connected to its arrival?”

Honora’s cool tone and fixed expression drew his attention back to her. “I haven’t sensed that from her. If she is part of this, I believe it is to help, not harm.”

“After you escaped The Pit and delivered the soul, you went to her first. Can you be sure your judgment is not impaired by the Dark Soul mark?”

He controlled a spark of temper. As Wake commander, Honora had the right to ask the difficult questions.

“No, I can’t.” Even though he believed he could, he couldn’t deny the possibility of compromised judgment. “I will escort her home and then go into seclusion.”

Honora had been regarding him closely when he answered. Now her expression cleared, and she made a noncommittal noise. He frowned. “You disagree?”

“I’m inclined to trust your instincts about her. You are a strong Reaper, Silas. It is why you will take over this Wake when I ascend higher in our Cast.”

“Though I wish for your leadership skills to be honored, I am in no hurry for that to happen.”

Honora made a dismissive gesture. “Your witch is detecting activity from the mark we cannot, and has provided you healing and opportunities to acquire a deeper understanding of its nature. I would advise remaining in her company while we investigate other avenues. The two of you may make further discoveries.”

His witch. Whether true or not, it only strengthened the responsibility he felt toward her. Some of those “opportunities” had put her at risk.

Correctly reading his expression, Honora met his gaze with an unflinching one of her own. “She has proven she is a power in her own right. We are protectors, Silas, but it is best to know when that is useful and when it is a hindrance. Particularly when you are subject to stronger emotions than most Reapers experience at your age.”

No censure in her tone, though he knew she found it both a puzzling and a worrisome thing. Yet he knew her worry was driven by her personal regard for him, not a doubt of his abilities. As she’d said, all Reapers were protectors. Every person he met, he knew their soul might at some point be under his care. He didn’t relinquish that responsibility until they stepped through The Gate and into the keeping of a different power.

“She may not wish to put up with my company for much longer.” A statement much along the same lines as what he’d told Mikhael, and intended to protect Ramona’s options. He wouldn’t impose himself upon her.

Honora’s gaze swept over him. “I’m sure you can offer pleasures that make it worthwhile. Witches are sensual creatures, connected to primal energies.”

The frank comment was also startlingly similar to Mikhael’s response, but it was the grimly teasing tone that surprised Silas the most. It was rare Honora showed that side of herself anymore, though having been with her Wake for some time, he knew it existed.

Then she returned to her usual impassive self. “I will seek out the Dark Guardian and we will work together to research what is happening. Would you recommend anything else?”

“Talk to Reapers who’ve run into trouble lately. An encounter with a Soul Collector, or anything unusual. Since I don’t remember the mark being inflicted upon me, others may have suffered the same.”

“Agreed. I’ll spread the word to other Wake commanders, and the Cast leadership. I will find you when I learn anything new.” She paused. “The others on the field confirm they cannot see the witch’s death. As you said, it must be her unique make-up. Chaos witches are rare. She is only the third I have met in my life span.”

As she turned away, the silver blue light on her scythe flickered from the sunlight. A beautiful day, even as the heat had started baking the field of corpses.

She glanced back at him. “It has saddened you, knowing she is not your soulmate. I’m sorry. I did not anticipate that you desired that bonding.”

“I don’t think I did. Until I thought I’d found it.” And then a bitter poignancy had gripped him at learning he hadn’t.

“Perhaps it is best. Chaos witches rarely have long life spans.” At his sharpened gaze, Honora added, “Managing their magic is difficult and isolating, and often expands beyond their ability to manage it. Though she seems to have a far better relationship with it than the other two I met.”

No surprise to him. Since the moment he’d met her, the woman had proven herself extraordinary. Unfortunately, his inability to see her death was not.

“All is as the Fates will it,” he said. Falling back on a Reaper mantra seemed his best option to deal with everything going on inside him. Truth, they had enough on their plate right now.

Plus, soulmate or not, Ramona needed him. Now.

* * *

Just as he feared, things were escalating. Sometimes the worst thing about a battle of any size was what happened in the aftermath. The fighting force that had prevailed had brought reinforcements to the field to retrieve their own dead and wounded. Plus make sure their enemies were dispatched. He was halfway across the field when one such combatant found a fallen man who was still alive, and aimed her rifle at his face.

Silas quickened his pace as Ramona bolted to her feet, her power gathering to intervene. He blocked the attempt, and was in front of her by the time the rifle discharged. He had his hands on her when she flinched.

“They can’t see you,” he reminded her. She clutched his arms, pushing against him, but it was an act of frustration, not trying to get away. As he kept a firm hold on her, Silas turned his head to see the shot man’s assigned Reaper, Ishaaq, standing beside the body. The soul struggled from its mortal coil, falling forward on its hands and knees as the woman who’d killed him knelt to rummage through the corpse’s pockets. The Reaper dropped to a knee next to the soul and spoke, drawing his attention.

Silas had kept himself planted in front of Ramona, blocking her view. When he turned his attention back to her, her hands were flexing against his biceps. She was bringing her reaction under control, but he could feel her body revolting against what was bludgeoning her senses here.

“The soul, he can’t touch the person who shot him. His hands pass right through their body,” she said tonelessly. “And yet, when he drops to his hands and knees, the earth holds him. Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“It makes a lot of sense,” he told her. He knew he needed to get her out of here. But even if he couldn’t help the others, he couldn’t bring himself to quit the field, not when such a labor-intensive Reaping was taking place. So he guided her away, a few steps into the forest. He pulled her down with him into a sitting position against another mature tree. He angled himself so he could still glance over his shoulder and see what was happening, but the wide trunk would mostly screen her view of it.

“Remember what I said about changing clothes? To the earth, the elements, there’s no real difference between a living person or a soul,” he explained. “The earth exists on multiple planes of existence, whereas a mortal form exists only on the one.”

He touched her face, stroked the troubled expression. Tending her held his attention better than he’d expected.

“Oh.” Her gaze rested on the scythe. Unless he gave it specific guidance, it chose the most needed form. Right now it was the shepherd’s crook. It rested against his bent knee. “Is it okay to touch it?”

“It is.”

Her fingertips slid over the smooth wood. “It’s ash.”

“In this form, yes.”

“A tree considered a bridge between earth and the heavens.” An attempt at a smile quivered on her lips, then died. “How do you…I mean, this is bad enough. What about major wars? There must be a lot of Reapers.”

“There’s a goodly number of us. But when you visit a place where a large number of people died at once, and you feel that lingering sense of it, it’s because there weren’t enough of us to take every soul on time. We had to keep coming back, gathering up more. Plus there will always be stragglers.”

He slid a hand along her upper arm, thumb rubbing over the freckled skin. “The confusion of those delayed souls, it’s an imprint that can remain on a place. Sometimes we do have to be more like shepherds, taking a group of souls, rather than one at a time. Reapers who handle slaughterhouses deal with souls more used to operating as a flock or herd. Human souls are harder to keep together.”

She swallowed. “Thanks for making me glad I’m a vegetarian. Are you okay?”

Her face was pale, her eyes big, but she asked it of him from that calm center that he’d not yet felt falter in her. “Yes, thanks to you. You kept the mark from causing harm.”

His power might eclipse hers in many ways, but Honora was right. She’d covered a vital blind spot for him and his fellow Reapers.

“No…I mean…you looked a little sad, leaving your boss.”

“My boss?” A grim flit of humor at the modern characterization for Honora. “Yes, I guess I am. I’m relieved of duty for now. A wise decision. But not being able to do my work is difficult. I’m connected to the souls to be Reaped, particularly the ones that are my specific responsibility. To see another step in to take over for me is difficult.”

Mentally conjuring from the cache where he kept his belongings, he produced his journal, lifted it for her inspection. The flicker of interest he saw would hopefully dilute the horror trying to drag her down.

“The Reaping schedule is something embedded in my mind, updated without conscious act. We are connected to the Fates’ Loom. I know who I will be Reaping several full moon cycles in advance, though it’s a fluid schedule. Like now. The names I would have been Reaping have been removed from my mind.”

Though he couldn’t keep himself from grimacing at the words, he lifted the book. “But they are still here. I like transcribing the names into a book, adding notes. How I anticipate they’ll react to their deaths, how I can ease that transition and the journey to The Gate.”

She flinched at another shot. He put his hand to her face. “Ramona, you suffer needlessly.”

“No. You feel like you still need to be here, and I want to understand. Your talking helps. That boy, his Reaper appeared as his mother. Does your research help with that?”

“Yes. The choice of our form is driven by the soul. But behind her body and voice, Etienne is still himself, so it helps if he knows more of her personality, to help the soul let go of memory to grasp truth.”

She reached toward the journal. He assumed she wanted to hold it, but she touched his wrist instead, slipped her hand down to rest on top of his. “I expect it’s hard to let someone else Reap a soul you’ve gotten to know.”

“I have confidence in my brethren.” Yet there was an undeniable sense of connection, of loss.

The tree they rested against was close enough to the edge of the wood that the sun could penetrate its canopy, grow dandelions and long grasses. Those plants were weaving together, as if trying to create an organic buffer wall between them and the battlefield. He’d been aware of the creaking of the tree, and now several branches had bent low enough to enter his field of vision. They were doming over them, touching the tops of the grasses.

He didn’t know if she did it consciously or not. She’d shifted so she sat against his bent knee, their bodies canted toward one another, another cocoon. She kept her gaze on him as if the earth would crumble if she looked away.

He would honor her strength of will, but he added to her natural cocoon weaving, reinforcing it so their spot was further buffered from the bloodshed. When her shoulders eased, he could tell the additional screening helped.

“Do a lot of your souls ask the same kinds of things? ‘Where are we going? Is it nice? Will I see loved ones? Is there chocolate?’”

Her hand still rested on his on the journal, fingers between his, so he squeezed them. “Yes. They also talk about the life they have left behind, thoughts they have had. What they were doing on that last day, what they regret or are happy about. It’s a library of information on the nature of a soul, what it feels, thinks, accomplishes. It’s a part of my job I enjoy very much. I like my conversations with them.”

“You’ll get back to it soon, I know it,” she said staunchly. “Mikhael is one of the best trackers in the Guardian world.” She paused. “So did your boss say what you should do while you were off duty?”

“She said I should…spend time with you.”

Ramona gave him a shrewd look. “Her advice is to fuck like rabbits until they figure out something?” The corner of her lip curled in an almost impish way, making him think of her blatant offer to be spanked. Just like then, her comment startled a smile out of him, when he would have thought nothing could.

“Simply being with you, having a conversation, is such a pleasure, it would be greedy to ask for more.”

With the battle scene so close, she couldn’t hold a smile for long, either, but his words did make her lips soften, her fingers curving under his to create a full lock.

“You have a very old world way about you sometimes. I like it.” She moistened her lips. “But I also like it when you…want more.”

“You were about to say something else.” He met her gaze. “Tell me.”

“I like it when you…demand more.” She drew in a breath.

“It seemed so much a part of you, even in that brief time we were together, I think it made it impossible for me to imagine it any other way between us. For a while, I thought I...exaggerated it in my memory, but then you came back.”

“And you confirmed it?” He caressed her wrist, the script rippling under his touch, making her draw in a breath.

“Yes. The reality confirmed my imaginings. And made me want more.”

That message went straight to his groin, pulling his mind away from its obsessive litany of you have a demon force inside you trying to destroy souls. It dampened the near agonizing desire to cut the damn mark out of him, even if he had to dig a hole to his spine.

“While Honora didn’t phrase things the same way you did, she did remind me of the earthy side of witches, your matter-of-fact attitude about things of the flesh.”

Gripping her braid, he pulled it forward over her shoulder. “It is in my mind right now, a desire to put you on your hands and knees under a tree like this. Remove all your clothes. Unbraid your hair.” He slid his finger in between the twisted strands, tugged. “I’d spread it over your shoulders, and kiss my way down your spine to your lovely buttocks. Mark them with my teeth.”

He’d leaned in to whisper the last comments, and she turned her face toward him. He wanted to pull in her desires, use them to draw her away from the darkness he hadn’t wanted her to see here. But even as he felt her body answer his, something shifted, her eyes getting a pained look, cloaked by shadows.

“Silas, what I feel from your mark is…a waiting. That thing on your shoulders was something different. Like a hungry leopard in a cage, watching a herd of antelope. There’s a master of the leopard, wanting to release it to some purpose.”

“The leopard only desires to hunt and kill its prey.” He nodded. “That’s an accurate description of a Soul Collector.”

She shivered. “A leopard hunts as a natural part of things. There’s nothing natural about this.” Her gaze strayed back to the field. “Or maybe we just tell ourselves that.”

Mikhael had warned him.

Wild energy surged outward from her, as unexpected as that leopard leaping out from a camouflaged lair. A swipe of its talons shredded their combined buffer screen. The full weight of the hatred, death and grief on the field rolled in, an avalanche that covered them in the space of a breath.

She had scrambled to her feet, and stumbled from the impact. Though he was up in time to catch her, he saw her eyes become stark as she absorbed the shock of it. The tree groaned, the branches snapping upward to their original positions. The trunk shuddered.

Drops of blood struck her face. It was raining blood through the tree limbs. He pulled her close, shedding his robe to wrap it around her. His crook became a staff as he projected a shield from it like an umbrella.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. Chagrin and panic were in her voice. She gripped his shirt, her pupils large and dark. “You were right. Doing nothing while it’s happening is terrible. After is even worse.” Her gaze flitted over his shoulder, then pulled back to him again. “Though I guess the ones who shot the wounded were better than those who preferred throat slitting or stabbing. Oh, Goddess, I need to get out of here. I can’t do it anymore, Silas. I’m sorry.”

He’d sensed her reaction all along, but he’d woefully misjudged how deeply it ran. She’d effectively locked it down, until they started being playful. He suspected the sexual teasing had loosened her lock on whatever she’d been doing to hold it together.

It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. He had so much to learn of her. Perhaps his ability to channel her magic during intimacy, keep it intertwined with his, was because it was what the unpredictable and wild magic within her wanted, too. One focus, one intent. When other things were happening, his ability to shield her was just as susceptible to disruption as the Guardians’ magic.

He should have gone with his gut instinct, not brought her here. But what would have happened to the soul the darkness within him had been hellbent on letting the Collector take? That no one but her had been able to see.

He didn’t have good answers to any of it, but there was one thing he could do, better late than never. He needed to care for her more than he needed to be here. There was a bitterness to the thought, but the day had possessed enough kicks in the teeth.

Keeping the other arm around her, he guided her hand to his chest. When he laid her palm there, he felt an anchoring feeling, a centering. “We’re going,” he said.

* * *

She should be relieved her reaction had been confined to a light shower, versus a full deluge that would make them look like they’d attended a prom in a Stephen King book. Ramona was also glad Silas had recovered swiftly enough to provide an umbrella-style shield for them.

Even so, she still wanted a shower. She wanted to scour away the oily coating of despair that battlefield had layered over her soul.

After she wiped away the few droplets that had stained her face, she decided on a calming tea blend instead. They’d come back to her store, and she’d directed Silas to the spot by the side alley window where she provided refreshments for her customers. The coffee corner he’d noted.

He’d had a crappy day himself, and she knew he felt he should have brought her back far sooner. Yet instead of brooding over it and requiring her to expend emotional energy to reassure him, he offered to make the tea for her. When she shook her head, he stood by her as she made it, his hand on her lower back, letting her lean against him as they watched the brew steep.

It was a unique experience, to be with a male mature enough to offer a quiet, encouraging presence as she found her balance. What she really needed, rather than trying to impose his idea of how to fix it.

You’ve always been with boys, Ramona. You’ve never had the pleasure of a grown-up man.

She hadn’t understood what Raina meant. But she was getting a promising hint of it.

She still wore his robe. It was too long for her, the sleeves covering her hands, but she held it close. The threads were a resilient fiber she didn’t recognize, but the fabric was soft, smelled like him, and lay upon her with the same reassurance the shelter of his body had provided.

“May I ask another question?”

“You can ask me anything,” he replied.

She nodded to one of the two small table and chair sets she kept in this corner, and he moved to take a chair there. The cargo trousers stretched over his thighs as he sat down. His black shirt made the most of his jeweled green eyes. While the way he moved made her think of a wolf, the eyes made her imagine a dragon. How he’d swirled the cloak off his body to cover hers had added to it, the folds rippling like a dragon’s wings.

Being fanciful helped. So did looking at him. But she couldn’t help needing to know the answer to her question, even if it raised darker issues again.

“Does it make it easier to watch, knowing you’re about to take the soul away from whatever has happened?”

“Watching someone suffer is never easy,” he said. “But yes, it helps to know that it’s a moment in time, even if some moments are far longer than we could wish.”

She thought of the way the Reapers had stood there. Honoring what was happening, silent witnesses. She hadn’t sensed detachment. They didn’t stand apart from it.

When she made that observation, he nodded. “The soul senses our presence, and finds a comfort in that connection, but they can lose that awareness during great stress. However, if our grip on it is steady, it will be there, ready when they let go of their life.”

She brought the tea to the table. After she put a mug in front of him, she slid her palm along his and gripped. “Now I know why your hands are so strong.”

She stared at their linked fingers. “Not everyone goes to good places, do they?”

“Redemption is a necessary path for most souls to strengthen and heal themselves for the next life. But the degrees of it are different.” He shrugged. “Mikhael would be the best source for that information. My role ends at The Gate.”

“Do you ever wonder about the day you’ll cross it, what you’ll find?”

His gaze didn’t falter. “Reapers don’t cross The Gate. When our time is over, we are like the angels. The knowledge we carry, what we are, it makes more sense to disperse that to the energy of All rather than keep it contained in one body, one soul. It serves future Reapers, Guardians, others who serve the Lord and Lady. The energy finds its way to those who need it.”

She looked back down at their hands. “So after you’re gone, I would never see you again.”

He touched her face, drew her gaze to him. “I would be the breath you draw into your lungs, the sun on your face, a deep sleep with good dreams. If you were a bird, I’d be the endless sky, the wind that carries you, the tree that beckons you to take a moment of rest in its arms.”

He captured a lock of her hair, let it slide through his roughened knuckles. “See? Here are your feathers.”

He tipped her chin up with the other hand, closing the distance between their bodies to put his lips on hers. She tasted the heat of the water, the flavorful tea. As her eyes fluttered closed, relief and pleasure spilled from her heart, into the waiting pool of strength he offered.

When he eased back, she slid out of the chair. She sank down between his knees, laid her head on his thigh. The thick carpet in this section cushioned her knees, but so did the folds of his robe beneath her.

In the weighted silence, his hand settled on her shoulder, the exposed point of her neck where her hair parted and fell forward. More things eased inside her. Through his touch, he communicated his awareness of how fragile she was, that he would give her what she needed.

In her fantasies, submission to a Master was about more than sex; it was also about trust and care, hence the involved aftercare imaginings.

With a little sigh, she closed her eyes, willed her vibrating body to settle.

“You know what I think?” she said at length. “Gina said they were doing a role-playing fashion show at Raina’s. We need to go. They did it yesterday, but they’ll have zero problem doing it again and coming up with new ideas.”

At his quizzical look, she added, “Raina runs the local bordello. Her employees are all succubi and incubi.”

He appeared to take that in stride. “Bordello is an old term. Not an escort service?”

She shook her head. “Because of their energy, they have to offer their services in a place where she can protect the clients from a lethal dose of it.” She managed a smile. “Raina also sometimes uses the term bawdy house. She likes that one.”

“I’m sorry I kept you from attending the fashion show.”

“Yeah, well. It was a bummer, but at the time I felt tending the Reaper who’d had his skin tortured off of him took priority.”

He’d lifted a lock of her hair, long enough to press his lips to it, brush it against his cheek to feel the texture. The kindness, the simple pleasure, choked a sob from her. When she would have drawn away, he brought her up into his lap, cradling her in arms as strong as his hands.

“It’s okay,” she told him. She kept her face pressed to his chest, her tears wetting his shirt. “I have to cry after seeing something like that. I think everyone does, even if it’s only inside. I can tell you feel it that deeply, too. But it’s your job, so you have to keep it tamped down.”

“I would have spared you the pain.” His voice rumbled against her cheek, his knuckles curving to trace her cheek, take away the tears.

“Little good ever comes from that, if the pain leads to where we’re meant to go. That said, we both could use a distraction. Are you good with the fashion show idea? How about, when we head that way, we stop at Boris’s and get that grilled cheese I told you about, back on the day we met. Do you remember?”

Before he could answer, she shook her head, drew back enough to knuckle at her eyes. “‘Of course. While the skin was peeled from my hot body and I was dedicating every ounce of my considerable strength to protecting a soul, Ramona, I was thinking about what I’d choose off the menu of that fabulous café you recommended.’”

She loved his smile. It was a gift, because though he might be the calmest person she’d ever met, she felt so much from him. As he proved with his next words.

“Do you remember what I told you, witch?” Silas met her gaze. “I recall every word of that conversation. The smell of your hair, your expressions, the way you moved, how your clothes lay upon your hot body. The taste of your lips. Nothing keeps a man company in dire times like a memorable woman.”

His words made her still, a hand curling into the neckline of his shirt. He covered that hand, squeezed it before he passed his fingertips over the tracks of new tears. He cupped her skull, fingertips kneading her nape. “You let your emotions show so easily.”

“Emotions are the root of Chaos energy.” It took her a moment to recover and answer him, but he waited for her, seeming to register everything she was doing to pull herself together. She also wasn’t used to a man paying such close attention to her. She didn’t hate it.

“If I try to hide the stronger ones, it interprets it as a form of deception and gets riled. The only time it seems to be okay with that is if I’m doing it to spare someone’s feelings.” She took a breath. “Okay, then. We’ll do it as a to-go order, bring some for everyone. Matilda, Raina’s cook, will give me the stink-eye, but that’s just for form’s sake. They have pizza party nights all the time because they like to flirt with the pizza delivery folks.”

Before he could respond to her nervous prattling, the copper bell chime over her front door went off, its haunting note echoing through the store. Ramona twisted around to see a young woman had opened the door a small crack.

“Oh, sorry. Hi. Are you open?”

A young man stood with her, their hands linked. Even as she asked the question, the girl was peering around the store with avid shopper eyes.

She should have locked the door. Regardless, Ramona rose from Silas’s lap and gestured them in. “Not technically, but we’re here, so come on in and look around.”

As they complied, attention already captured by the display nearest them, she turned back to Silas. “Sorry,” she murmured. “We can go as soon as they’ve looked.”

“No.” He rose, laying a brief hand on her shoulder before going to turn the sign to Open, surprising her. “Doing what you might normally do this time of day would be helpful, wouldn’t it? I’d like to watch you run your store.”

He was right. It would help restore balance to her fractured psyche. She felt a different, better kind of imbalance when he leaned down to brush his lips over her mouth. He lingered there, his green eyes close.

“But I better still get fabulous grilled cheese and a sex demon fashion show,” he said.

* * *

Silas shifted to a stool behind one of the display cases. There were some boxes stored there, but enough room for him to brace his legs, lean his back against a shelf. He was out of the way, but still where he could watch her.

He wanted to learn small things about her as well as larger ones. Or more intimate ones. And observing her run her store kept his impatience for news from Mikhael and Honora manageable. He’d already noted that dwelling on the mark like a damn bomb ticking down to some unknown catastrophe made it feel even more embedded inside him. If positive emotions and experiences ended up loosening its hold, it would be one more thing he’d know about it. And be one step closer to getting it the fuck out of his body.

Another set of customers came in behind the young couple, a group of women who showed every sign of being there for a while. No surprise, due to her extensive inventory, the artfully arranged clutter.

She was speaking to them, telling them about her store offerings. Lord and Lady, her voice. It held everything that made life a painting, one held forever in the mind, even when death’s curtain was drawn over its window.

She sent his mind in a different direction when she mentioned a discount on her Grim Reaper collection. As she sent him a sultry wink, he remembered her voice when she was gasping her pleasure or pleading with a thready undercurrent, wanting more of what he could give her.

He’d known what she needed when she’d knelt at his feet, her hands on his thigh, her head resting there, the nape of her neck exposed to him. Being offered a submissive’s gift of trust in his care had restored a vital part of him that felt battered by all the other things the day had revealed.

But watching her send him secret smiles and move around her shop, win over every customer with her open spirit and soul-deep beauty, it was impossible to quell the urge to move from giving to taking. She’d shed his robe, carefully folded it over a chair. The fit of the T-shirt and jeans she wore innocently molded every curve. He was fascinated by the triangle of flesh revealed by the neckline of her shirt, the freckles scattered over her arms.

When she’d knelt at his feet, he’d inhaled every nuance of her scent, including the faint perspiration from the stress of the field, the arousal of her body that his kiss had invoked.

One of the women looked his way, and he offered a courteous nod. Cancer. Four hundred forty-two million, seven hundred sixteen thousand heartbeats…

Or fourteen years, two weeks, three days, five hours, twelve minutes and sixteen seconds. Fifteen seconds, fourteen seconds…

He shifted his attention away from her. He could cloak himself, become invisible to mortals, but often preferred to blend among them. However, because he knew his direct gaze was unsettling to them, even if they didn’t understand why, he didn’t hold it longer than necessary.

The woman gave him a female appraisal, then a knowing smile. She said something low to one of her fellow shoppers, nodding toward Ramona. They chuckled as they moved toward the top hat display.

“He looks ready to devour her. Let’s clear the path.”

Ramona had picked up on the comment, her startled gaze shifting to him. He didn’t bother to disguise where his thoughts had gone, interested in her reaction. She didn’t disappoint. Her lavender gaze got deeper, her lips parting. She absently pushed back her hair, gave him a little smile.

His bird. He wanted to send her soaring again.

One of the women emerged from Ramona’s potions and spellcraft aisle, a wax heart in the palm of her hand. “Melt to soften the heart of a loved one,” she read the card to her friends. She cocked a dubious though amiable look at Ramona. “So that’s all you need to do?”

Ramona chuckled. “Your intent matters as well. You’re committing to an act that softens your own, opens your eyes to what might be keeping the other person’s heart hard and closed.”

Her gaze slid to Silas. “It’s rarely a straight line, what we need and desire.”

Truer words.