Chapter 10: Amri

I'm back in the Reaper's bedroom. Vincent's bedroom. I walk over to the paintings hanging on the wall that I noticed my first time here. Vincent's initials sit in the bottom corner of each painting. He must have done these. I'm honestly impressed. Art has always been a fascinating subject to me, and there's not a doubt in my mind that Vincent could be one of the greats if he really wanted to.

The colors look so much more vibrant than the ones we have on Earth, his brush strokes are precise, straight and narrow when needed but thicker in others. The landscapes in the painting are so lifelike that it feels like I'm looking at a photo rather than a painting.

As I'm marveling at the detail and talent in the paintings in front of me, I feel his presence behind me. I continue to look at the paintings, not a word being spoken between us, until my eyes once again find the initials at the bottom.

"What's your middle name?" My voice comes out steady, despite the hours of raging and crying I did before sleep finally took me.

"Tobias." I hear from behind me. I feel him take a step closer and brace myself for his touch, but it doesn't come. Instead, I turn around, finding him staring at me in curiosity. His bare chest greets my eyes and I can't help but to roam over the many, many tattoos decorating his pale chest.

God, he's beautiful.

No. I can't be thinking like that right now.

"You aren't having the reaction I expected you to have."

"What did you expect?"

"To be honest, I fully expected you to attack me again."

"And why is that?"

I need to hear it out of his mouth. I need to hear him tell me I was just a game to him, someone to fill his time when his boyfriend wasn't around. I spent hours tonight, crying until I couldn't cry anymore, asking myself what I did to deserve this. Why couldn't I have my chance at happiness? Until I realized, life fucking sucks. Life isn't fair and it doesn't do anyone any favors, especially someone like me. And it hit me. Why was I relying on a man to bring me happiness? Why couldn't I make myself happy? Ever since I was a child, everything I did was to please someone else. Get good grades, dress nice and use my manners to please my parents. Cook dinner, clean the house, and put out whenever he wanted to please my ex-fiancé.

Well, not anymore. Tonight, I decided to start living for myself. Who cares if people thing I'm ‘crazy' or unhinged? I am. And I love myself even more for it. I'll continue to love myself and embrace who I am. Humans weren't created to be perfect.

He takes a step toward me, and I surprise myself by holding my ground. No longer will I feel small.

"I know you met Zain. I know what he told you." His whisper sweeps through me, urging me to step closer and accept him, but my brain overrides any emotional reaction and makes me laugh.

"Oh, you mean how he told me that he fucks you?" I ask. "It took you months to say more than three words to me, or to kiss me, but you're fucking him. It's okay, really." The sarcasm drips out of my mouth, landing on him with a splatter that makes him recoil away from me.

"Amri, it's not like that."

"So, you aren't in a relationship with him?" I raise my eyebrows, waiting on his answer and sighing when he stays silent for a beat too long. "You know what, don't bother responding. I've done a lot of thinking tonight and I've realized that I don't want to be anyone's plaything. I don't want to be anyone's second choice. In fact, if you would go ahead and hop right out of my dream, that would be great."

"You aren't a second choice, Amri."

"It sure as hell feels like it."

He reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it in his when I try to pull away. "Please, siren, let me explain."

I take a few seconds to think. Do I want him to forget about me? No. Do I owe it to him to hear him out? No. Do I care about the explanation in my current mental and emotional state? That's up for debate.

Making my decision, I shake my head. "No, Reaper. Thanks, but no thanks." I turn and start walking back to the mirror, ready to leave and never see his face ever again. Or at least I think I am. I don't get three steps before he appears in front of me, blocking my path and making me jump in surprise. I didn't know he could do that.

"I'll ask nicely one more time, siren, let me explain."

I smirk at him. "What? No please this time? "

He growls and steps toward me, wrapping his arms around my body and lifting me up to throw me over his shoulder. My stomach lands against him causing me to cough when I lose my air.

"Put me down!" I punch his back, groaning in aggravation when it doesn't even make him flinch. "Put me down you...you animal!"

He chuckles and my body goes flying before it lands on the bed, bouncing once for good measure before I widen my eyes and watch as Vincent climbs on the bed and over me. He grabs my wrists in one hand and pins them to the bed above my head.

"Now. You will let me explain." He's breathing heavily, his bare chest pressing into mine and his body heat surrounding me.

I wiggle my body, trying to wrench my hands from his grasp, but it makes him hold me tighter. He lets me try to escape for a minute or two before he shoves my wrists further down into the bed.

He leans down, breath tickling my ear as he whispers, "You won't escape me, my little siren. You never will."

His words make me shiver and bite my bottom lip as I look up at him. I'm a strong woman, yes, but he melts that hard shell exterior. His words make me want to fully submit to him, and the way he says them has goosebumps rising on my skin as I realize how true his words really are. I wouldn't ever escape him. He can invade my dreams, appear to me at will when no one else can see him, and when I die, he will be the one to come and collect my soul. That realization has me relaxing in his grip, but still he doesn't let go.

"Good girl." He smiles down at me and places a soft kiss on my forehead, his touch so different from the harsh words he spoke moments before. "Now. Yes, what Zain told you was truthful. I am in a relationship with him."

I scoff.

"Let me finish, siren. I may be in a relationship with him but that doesn't make what I have with you any less meaningful. Reapers always take more than one mate. You, Zain, and Callyx are mine."

My eyes narrow in confusion and anger until I remember that Callyx is Zain. It's his other personality. "How does that work?" I ask.

"I told you before, it takes strength to own a Reaper's soul. A Reaper's soul is so wild that it often takes more than one human soul to control us."

"Control you?"

He nods. "It's dangerous for a mature Reaper to be unbonded. The bonds work as filters for the negative energy and without the bonds, that negative energy starts to consume us, making us go insane. The more bonds you have, the stronger your bonds are, the less likely it is for you to lose your mind."

"So, you expect me, Zain and Callyx to be your…bonded? Your mates?"

"Yes."

"All of us would be together?"

"Yes."

"And what do they think of this?"

"Callyx is more than on board. I'm pretty sure he's already obsessed with you. Zain…he's on board but it took some time. Which is why I haven't told you any of this yet."

Different questions filter through my mind, each one more important than the last. Callyx is obsessed with me? I technically haven't even met him yet. And Zain… I couldn't imagine being in a relationship with the prick I met earlier. Being in a relationship with multiple men, though…I can't say that thought hasn't ever crossed my mind. To be touched and loved by multiple people, to be loved so fully and so strongly that it's almost smothering. I can't say I never craved that, either.

"I want the full story. I have too many questions and I still don't understand anything. You obviously sent Callyx and Zain to look for me, I want to know why."

Vincent looks down at me, a million thoughts flying through those dark eyes of his. "Do you promise to behave?"

I nod, waiting until his hands release mine and he leans back. I sit up, wiggling my fingers and rolling my wrists around to get the feeling back in them. There's a red mark where his hand was, and a part of me loves that he's left his mark on my body.

He sits back on his legs, watching me and I see him smirk out the corner of my eye when he sees me eyeing my wrists.

"I'm afraid the full story isn't that interesting, siren. I'm a Reaper, through and through. Having multiple mates is normal for my kind. In fact, my dad has five. Reapers are only males, and we can only father males, which is why we look to humans for mating. Occasionally, a Reaper will mate with a demon as well but it's not very common, demons are almost as hard to tame as a Reaper. Most Reapers take two to three mates, you, Callyx, and Zain count as my three."

"How do they count as two separate people?" My curiosity doesn't allow me to listen without asking any questions, and this one doesn't make any sense to me.

"Zain and Callyx may be in the same body, but there are two souls living in them. When I come to collect those souls, each of them will gain their own body."

My eyes widen. "How?"

He shrugs, "It's the magic of the Underworld. When you die, your soul gets set free from its Earthly cage and is finally able to breathe. If a person has multiple souls, each soul gets a body. If you're plagued with an illness, it immaculately heals."

I open my mouth to ask a question, but he beats me to it. "Yes, even mental illnesses are healed."

My mind reels from that revelation. When he finally accepts my soul and brings it with him to the Underworld, I'll be free. No more depression bringing me down and making me unable to function. No more mood swings making life near unbearable. I can't remember a time when I ever felt as free as what he was offering to me.

"You said a Reaper finds their mate when they mature. What does that mean? How old are you and when did you find Zain?" He only found me about six months ago. Does that mean he's only eighteen? I'm twenty-four so the age difference would be a little weird, and Zain has to be in his early thirties.

"For argument's sake, I'll use Earth years because I feel like if I explained to you in Underworld time…" He shakes his head, softly laughing. "Never mind. I reached maturity about nine months ago, and I found Zain and Callyx a month after that. Two months later, I found you."

"How old are you, Vincent?"

He smiles when I say his name, and I realize it's the first time I've said it aloud to him.

"I'm two hundred and two."

I am stunned in silence by the number that came out of his mouth. "No, Vincent, be serious."

"I am serious. It takes about two hundred years for a Reaper to mature, give or take a few years. I reached maturity on my two hundred and second birthday."

"How do you know when you reach maturity?"

"When you get your Reaper form. It's when you can officially start collecting souls and travel to Earth."

"And before that?"

"Before that, you go to school. Much like you do on Earth. We learn about the rules of magic, portals, and teleportation, the laws of the Underworld and of the Reapers. We go to school when we hit about fifty years old and go until you're a hundred, sometimes a hundred and fifty if you want to further your education in something specific."

I laugh again. "So, you're in school for fifty to a hundred years and then you go to hell college?"

"Technically, but time moves differently down here. A year on Earth is about two and a half years in the Underworld. And there's a lot to learn."

I quickly do the math in my head and look up at him in confusion when I realize how long he knew about me before I knew something about him.

"So, even though I've known you for six months…you've known me for…almost two years?"

He nods. "I know, it's a lot to wrap your head around, and it took me some time to learn how to jump in and out of Earth to match up with your timeline, but that's what the schooling does. Since I'm a Reaper, I also did the," he chuckles, "hell college, to focus on law. "

"Law?" I ask, my mind completely fucked trying to piece together timelines and why it would be important for a Reaper to know the law. "Are you some kind of lawyer for the Underworld?"

"Something like that."

I nod, unable to voice any words that would reflect how I feel at the moment, or what I'm thinking.

"I knew when I first met Zain and Callyx that they were meant to be my mates, it's a connection a Reaper can immediately feel when a soul calls to theirs. I knew when you did it, too. I remember you were sitting in your shower, crying, and you had a razor pressed to your wrist. You were thinking so hard about joining me. But it was too early. I couldn't let you do it. Just like I couldn't let Zain when he tried. Just like I couldn't let you at the bridge."

I remember that day. Timothy and I had gotten into a huge fight because I didn't feel like having sex with him. He called me every name in the book but the one that hit the hardest was worthless. I was worthless to him. I didn't have a good job to provide for the family, I didn't have the best education. I wasn't the prettiest. I was disposable to him. And he showed me that a few months later when he kicked me out onto the street.

I was so close to ending my life. But…the sink faucet turned on. It scared me, for a moment, because I knew I was home alone. I was so scared wondering how that could have happened that I completely forgot about my plan to slit my wrists and instead got out of the shower to investigate.

"That was you." My whisper comes out thick with emotion, and I feel the tears that were dried up minutes before clogging my eyes .

"It was. I knew you were meant to be mine and as much as I wanted you to join me, it was clear you had some things you needed to work on before I took you. You couldn't see me then, because I hadn't claimed you at the time. But it only took a few days for you before I did, and you started to see me. To me, though, those few days were a few months of thinking of you, obsessing over you and dreaming of you. I knew I had to help you in some way so that you could join me."

"And that's why you sent me Zain and Callyx."

He nods.

"But what are they supposed to do? How are they going to prepare me?"

"In one way, he's already started. I can't tell you, though, because I have a feeling you wouldn't agree to it, or you would insist you're already ready for me."

"Are they?"

"Are they what?"

"Are they ready for you? Am I holding them back by not being ready?"

Vincent inhales a deep breath, "Technically, yes, but if I know the two of them, and I do, they don't mind. I already told you that Callyx is obsessed with you, maybe more obsessed than I am, and that's saying something."

I sit in silence for a few minutes, taking everything in and drying my tears from before.

"So," he says, breaking the thick silence between us, "Is this something you can handle? Staying with Zain and Callyx until you're ready, and then being with all of us?"

I start to nod but stop when I remember the one man that Vincent hasn't mentioned.

"Damion." I look up to Vincent to find him staring at me with hard, narrowed eyes.

"What about Damion ?" He seethes. His teeth are clenched in his mouth, and I see flickers of his Reaper form come in and out of view. "Do you mean how you have a relationship with him? Or how he had Callyx locked up in solitary?"

I move my head back in surprise. "He had Callyx locked up in solitary? Why?"

"Probably because Callyx almost killed him until I stopped him and explained how that wouldn't make you like him very much."

"Callyx what?" I yell, getting off of the bed and beginning to pace back and forth as I start to think of all the ways I'm going to hurt that two-faced man whenever I see him next. He wanted to get all pissy when I even moved to attack him – I can't wait to see what he does when I actually do. "That piece of shit! Why did he do that?"

"Why do you care?"

I hear a throat clear from behind me and turn to find Callyx standing in front of the mirror, smirking as he looks from me to Vincent.

"Looks like I got here right in time."