Chapter Twenty-Five

August

Harvest never came, nor did his dragons. His silence was unnerving. An hour had passed since we lost our powers, and we were still mortal. That was the longest it had been. Dad could barely keep his eyes open as Mom tended to him in the library.

Since we were restless and on edge, Maureen offered to make food. So, we left our parents alone and went to the kitchen. Maureen made snacks, but Kitty and Nova were the only ones who ate.

My mechanical arm was heavy as it hung by my side. I tapped my sword against the floor as my siblings talked in hushed whispers.

Kitty attempted to entertain Nova with jokes, but my mate didn’t understand most of them . Nova’s brows furrowed in the middle when Kitty offered a Slim Jim for her to try. My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. Kitty had a hard time sharing food. Of course, my mate liked it. After a lifetime of starving, I believed she would appreciate anything. It was a reminder of how much I needed to spoil her. I couldn’t fail Nova again.

There was a giant knot in my throat and my skin felt like it wanted to crawl right off my bones. I couldn’t sit still, anxiously waiting. Something bad was going to happen. If Harvest didn’t attack, Derrick would come for my mate. His obsession with her had thinned my patience. I desired payback and to make an example of him. My plan was to torture him and then send his soul to the pits of Hell.

In the end, it wasn’t me who should punish him, though I wanted to. Nova deserved retribution. I just wished he’d stop hiding and attack us so she could have it.

I wasn’t afraid to face Derrick as a mortal. My body could withstand any of his attacks if it meant I could grab hold of his fucking body and pulverize him. I hadn’t realized I still tapped my blade across the concrete until Nova placed her hand on the hilt.

“I’m thirsty,” she said.

Maybe she sensed the tension within me. Or maybe she truly wanted something to drink. I craved a direction, anything that meant providing for her. I wanted to take care of her—do everything for her. It soothed the thoughts of failing her for so long.

Standing, I grabbed a glass out of the cabinets and poured her some water from the fridge. Upon my arrival, she swiftly grabbed the glass and gulped down half of its contents. She placed her hand in my lap, with her palm up afterwards. I took it, slipping my fingers through hers.

My body felt like a worn bow seconds from snapping in half, and I honestly didn’t know to how to behave around her. She had all the control. She had all the control. I kept telling myself. But what if I lost my composure and sought to touch her? What if I scared her when I showed her how much I wanted to consume her? I was no longer confident I knew how to conduct yourself. When I saw her for the first time again, my body burst to life. I could have taken her right then and there. When I thought of Derrick trying to kidnap her, I wanted to claim her so that the filthy warlock would smell me on her.

Nova had been through enough with people trying to claim her or her power. I wished my cock would fucking remember that.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Are you okay with touching me?”

The one thing I couldn’t keep protecting her from was me.

She said nothing as she slid her thumb over mine. The room was full of my family’s chatter, but all I saw was Nova. The air felt warmer, and my body felt electric from her touches. No matter how innocent the contact was, the fire in the pit of my stomach grew.

I inhaled her scent, purposely blowing toward her ear before whispering, “Does that mean I can touch you?”

As her arousal grew, her fragrance intensified and enveloped us.

“You don’t fear me because you know I’m at your mercy,” I added, brushing my lips across her ear. She shuddered before pulling away and touching the spot.

I leaned back, giving her space and letting her cool down.

“Gwendolyn!” Barron’s panicked screech had me bolting off the stool.

“Why is Gwen a ghost?” Kitty asked.

What… happening? A translucent Gwendolyn stood in the middle of the kitchen. Gwendolyn had been wearing a black cloak over jeans and a T-shirt, but the clothes transformed right before my eyes. She brought her hands up to her face and flexed them. She wore a hospital gown, and a giant hole opened in her chest. Blood soaked through the fabric. Seconds later, Gwendolyn appeared dead. Wait. Gwendolyn had died before Barron had gotten to her back then. The fool tried sending her to Heaven, but the gate threw her out. Without our powers, was she reverting to a ghost? But why ?

My stomach quivered.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, biting her lower lip as she peered at Barron.

Prudence tried reaching out for Gwendolyn and her fingers slipped through. “How is she a ghost?”

“ Why is the better question?” Maureen crossed her arms.

Barron turned paler and paler by the second.

“This is what I died in…” Gwendolyn pressed her hand over the wound in her chest. “This is how I looked before Barron shoved me into the portal to Heaven and it spat me back out.”

“Yeah, but why are you this way again when you’re a Reaper?” I asked.

My scalp and back prickled with unease. Something changed about our predicament again.

Joy stepped into the circle around Gwendolyn. “This is the longest we’ve been without our powers. What if Heaven is behaving as if she’s no longer Barron’s mate?”

“What?” A growl ripped from Barron’s chest.

“Without your power and mark, she’s a ghost, Barron,” Joy tried to tell him. “And… You sent her to them once. Maybe…”

Barron reached for Gwendolyn, and his fingers slipped through her. The muscles in his neck ticked. “She’s my mate, regardless. When our powers come back, she will be a Reaper again.”

“What if this is it?” Kitty blinked at the uneaten Slim Jim in her hand. “What if we’ve lost our powers for good?”

“We didn’t!” Barron yelled. “Fuck! I thought I was the pessimistic one! Our powers will come back, and Gwendolyn will be fine. I fucked up when I tried to send my mate away, but it was the angels’ choice to give her back to me. Heaven doesn’t get to choose to take her back when things have gotten hard. We’ll pull through and this will be a story we’ll tell our grandkid one day.” Barron’s throat bobbed as he looked at his mate. “Right, Gwen?”

“Yes.” Tears raced down her cheeks.

The portal to Heaven opened two feet behind Gwendolyn.

“How did a gateway open?” Barron tried grabbing Gwendolyn again and slipped through her body. “Get away from it.”

“You idiot,” Maureen muttered at Barron. “It’s because you opened it for her once already.”

“Fuck.” Barron cursed.

“Don’t look at it,” I instructed Gwendolyn. “The pull to go inside will be harder if you do.”

“It’s already hard,” Gwendolyn cried. “Barron, I don’t want to leave.”

“Stay, okay?” Barron whispered. “Just hang on. Our powers will come back any minute.”

His words could be a lie for all we knew.

“Please, I don’t want to go!” Gwendolyn’s feet left the ground. “I’m scared.”

“Holy shit,” Payne said. “It’s going to pull her in.”

“I can’t shut it!” Nova yelled, lifting her hands toward it. “I’m trying to explode it or crush it, but nothing is working.”

Barron, Joy, Kitty, and Maureen kept trying to grab Gwendolyn, but without our powers, we couldn’t touch a ghost. Tears streaked down Barron’s face, and he was screaming unintelligible things.

My chest felt hollow as I watched it unfold. I didn’t want to see Barron lose Gwendolyn. I knew what kind of torture that was.

The flow of power and essence ripped through me. A collective gasp slipped through the room. Gwendolyn fell to the ground on her belly. Her black cloak replaced the hospital gown as the portal closed. Barron scooped her up, and I couldn’t make sense of what either of them said. We all fell to the ground with them.

As I reached out to pat Gwendolyn’s back, Nova scooted on her knees beside me and gripped my mechanical arm, which I could move again thanks to my returned powers.

While I was relieved Gwendolyn didn’t go through the vortex, I knew our powers would disappear again. And when they did, we would be helpless to stop Gwendolyn’s fate. As my brother crushed his mate to his chest, I believed he realized that too.