Dealing Fates

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Onyx

Regrets. As I walk down the dark road, my mind is filled with them. I should have been one of those people who treated their bodies better. More sleep, less late nights, and all the rest of that shit people nag you to do.

Instead, I’m gazing up at the starlit, inky sky contemplating the diagnosis from the doctor.

I had what I thought was a lymph node that wouldn’t drain, but when I went to get it checked out, the biopsy showed that the cells were malignant.

Even now, I touch the swollen spot underneath my arm with a hiss.

It’s a flaring reminder that life is fleeting.

It’s not fucking fair. I should have so many more years before I die.

Despite the doctor telling me there was time to do chemotherapy, to dig in and fight, I wish there was an easier path. Why can’t I have some kind of magic where I can simply snap my fingers and be better? I also find myself very angry with God, since He is the reason a disease so vile exists.

“I hope you’re happy!” I yell at the sky, scowling as I stomp into the graveyard.

If I’m on the way to dying, I may as well pay my respects to the dead. After all, it seems I’m going to be joining them soon. I’m only twenty-eight years old, I can’t believe this is happening.

My mood is bleak, my lip snarled as the breeze brushes along my messy dark hair. My body is strong, my skin crawling with tattoos because I craved the silence of the pain and the reward of art.

It would fucking figure that something like this would bring me down low.

“Stupid fucking cancer,” I growl, kicking gravel as I stalk forward. The wind seems angrier here as I prowl through the headstones with my hands in my pockets, the cliffs at the edge of the graveyard gray and stark next to the green fake grass they have in these places.

I believe… I’m having what they call a temper tantrum. I’ve always scoffed when I’ve seen grown men grumble and punch walls at the bar, but I’m woefully deep in a full blown conniption fit.

“Why can’t I have more time!” I yell into the wind, not expecting anyone to respond.

My voice cracks with emotion, my head tipped back as I voice my displeasure.

My black pants have the knees ripped out not because I bought them that way, but due to over use.

I wear things until they simply fall apart, which is what my body is currently doing.

I knew I was getting the results today, and wore my favorite band tee pulled across my stomach muscles for luck.

Ha! Luck doesn’t seem to exist for me today.

Just because I don’t work out every day, doesn’t mean I’m not still fit.

These are all the reasons why I’m so infuriated with the current writing on the wall.

I don’t want to puke into a bucket in a hospital, or become so frail I can’t get out of bed.

I have few friends, and I haven’t told anyone because I don’t want to see pity fill their eyes.

Weakness isn’t favored in this town, especially when you need your body to work even a nine-to-five job. Gazing at how healthy I appear, I feel even more betrayed by my body.

I also don’t want to leave my mom and little brother to fend for themselves. They’re the reason I work so hard, often laying awake at night worrying about how we’re going to be able to pay for the costs of her medications since they aren’t covered by her insurance.

I just need more time to make sure everyone is okay. Is that so wrong?

“You’re very loud,” a man’s teasing voice says. “Don’t you know that the dead are resting?”

Pushing my glasses up, I glance at the person speaking, but his face is shadowed by a hood. He’s tall and hulking, the muscles apparent even underneath the hooded cloak he wears. He looks out of place, like he doesn’t belong. Yet, the attire he’s dressed in tells me otherwise.

Like a grim reaper. I laugh inwardly at the thought.

It would be just my luck if someone was here to claim my soul.

But those are only in fairy tales and this is real life.

I don’t know who he is, but my body responds to him.

Part of what I feel is fear, sure, but there’s also an intense feeling of arousal.

I know that if I were to see his face, he’d be hotter than sin.

“Who are you?” I breathe, swallowing hard. I wasn’t quite in my right mind when I decided to start walking down here to purge my feelings.

The truth is the news is throwing me into a spiral from the uncertainty of what could happen to me. And now… I’m face to face with someone who may actually be more dangerous than my temper.

“I’m a man, what else would I be?” he asks, his hood dropping back slightly so I can see the wicked curve of his lips. There’s facial hair around them that makes me see he’s even more attractive than I thought. “Who I am doesn’t really matter for now.”

Of all the times to have sex on my mind, now shouldn’t be that time. Yet, as I stand here admiring the stranger before me, I can’t help but be filled with arousal.

I have a thing for men who can dominate me. It doesn’t happen often, but fuck if it isn’t hot as hell when it does. And this man, I think I’d let him do just about anything to me.

I’m dying. So why the fuck not?

It makes me wish I wasn’t so picky about the guys I fucked. I should have had a hoe phase.

I was just always too busy for it. Too many responsibilities will do that to you.

“Huh,” I say, lips pursed. “Do you normally walk around graveyards alone? It’s giving off serial killer vibes.”

“I quite like it here,” the man says, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t call myself a killer per se.

But I do take the souls of the people on my list, the ones who call to me.

Yours I wasn’t expecting so soon. I didn’t expect you to make it so easy for me to find you.

You don’t look like you’re bleeding or sick. Did you come here to kill yourself?”

“I… no. I mean, I don’t think so? I don’t really want to die,” I confess.

This man is crazy, clearly. Talking about taking souls and shit? Is he on something?

He cocks his head to the side, watching me.

His intense stare from his dark eyes makes me shiver.

In fear or arousal, I have no clue right now.

Feeling uncomfortable from the silence, I keep rambling.

“I came to yell and feel sorry for myself. I don’t think I’d have the guts to jump from the cliff over there. ”

“Why not?” he asks, smirking as he stalks forward. My cock is very fucking interested right now.

“It wouldn’t make much sense for me to rant that I’m going to die, only to kill myself,” I grit out angrily.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he says snidely. “Nothing you humans do makes sense.”

“Humans…” I say, struggling to wrap my brain around it. “You talk as if you're not one.”

“I’m not.” he says matter of fact.

I snort out a laugh. “Alright, I’ll humor you. What are you then?”

“A reaper.” He stops a few feet in front of me.

“A reaper? As in the paranormal thing from stories that comes and takes your soul when it's time to die?” Yeah, this guy is clearly on something.

Although, the more I look at him, he doesn’t seem like a man on drugs. Sure, his eyes are nearly black, giving off these unearthly vibes. They have to be contacts.

I’ve read that you should play into crazy people's delusions so they don’t become agitated and erratic. “So as a nonhuman, do you have a name, or should I keep calling you ‘Reaper’ in my head?”

“Aw, the human is already calling me pet names, how sweet,” the reaper croons sarcastically.

I wonder if his lips are softer than they look from here. Every word feels like a whip over my senses. Except, instead of flaying my skin open, it makes me want more. Unbidden, my foot takes a step forward.

What are you doing Onyx, you should be stepping away from the crazy man, not towards. No matter how sexy he is or how much he makes your cock hard.

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” I murmur, smirking. “It’s more curiosity and manners. My mother taught me to respect my elders.”

“Elders…Fuck me, boy. I’m several thousands of years old, but being called your elder feels very wrong,” he grumbles. His gaze feels as if it’s penetrating my body, and I find that I can’t breathe as I wait. “My name is Bane.”

“I’m Onyx,” I say, shrugging as he looks surprised. “It’s my real name. My mother has a very interesting sense of humor, what can I say?”

“Well, Onyx, why are you yelling at God? You know He doesn’t give a shit about you, right? The man upstairs sees you all as tiny ants overrunning the world,” Bane says.

“You kind of suck at pep talks,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll continue my walk.”

Turning away, I force my feet to move away from him, even though I can feel how magnetic he is.

He’s not someone that I should want to be near, and I certainly don’t want a hug.

He makes me want to do all the dirty things I stroke my cock to when I’m alone in my apartment, the things I’m afraid to ask for.

He’s a killer, I’m almost positive of that. And I’m a man on death row because of this cancer inside of me. But I’m not sure if this man is the one I’d want to take me out.

There could be worse ways to go then having a man kill me while I’m cumming on his cock.

Fucking hell. What kind of thoughts are these? Has the cancer spread to my brain or some shit?

Reality is, I’m dying. It may not be today, but it will happen. I supposed there’s nothing to be done.

“Succumbing so soon?” Bane asks, his long strides eating up the space between us effortlessly.

“I’m not dead yet, which means you can’t take me to wherever you’re supposed to. Isn’t that right?” I ask curiously, playing into his delusions for a way out.

“There are very few rules I play by,” he rumbles. “I could kill you now and drag you down to hell kicking and screaming if I wanted to. Maybe try a little less sass with me, huh?”

Swallowing hard as I gaze at his powerful and wide stance as he walks beside me, I find that I’m both scared shitless and still interested in this man who calls himself a reaper. God, what’s wrong with me?

Did the news of my mortality twist my mind? I need to get it together

“I’d rather not go to Hell,” I say, my voice cracking. “Impossible choices probably aren’t the best to be posed to a walking dead man anyway.”

Bane’s eyes soften for a second, but I’m convinced that the starlight’s fucking with me when I see a calculating glint in his eye.

“What if I had the power to save you?” he asks.

“That’s not funny,” I groan, turning to face him. I don’t need talks of false hope right now.

“Interrupt me again, and I’ll take your tongue,” Bane scowls, pulling a wicked looking long blade out of thin air. “I only need your words to agree, and they can be written in blood.”

“Shit,” I whisper, my eyes on the blade.

Where the fuck did he pull that from? It’s a lot bigger than he is, no way he could hide that under his cloak.

It’s curved and on a long handle. That blade looks a little bit too real for my liking and I bet he could swipe it like a baseball bat and kill me with it.

If I wasn’t convinced this man was a killer, I am now.

Yet, some fucked up part of me knows I shouldn’t want to push him, but thoughts of testing him, seeing what he’ll do next fills my mind. I’ve always been a brat.

“I’d prefer you not,” Bane snorts. “I hate when humans shit when they see me. It’s enough to give me a complex.”

I blink, taken aback by his response. For a crazy person, he has a sense of humor. I don’t know how to respond to that.

My foot slides back as if to run, my eyes wide and scared, no longer wanting to play into his messed up game.

“How do you feel about striking a deal, Onyx?” he asks, his discerning gaze on me. He must know my nerves are frayed. It’s written all over my shaking hands and wheezing breaths.

The way he drifts closer to me, as if he’s walking on air has my heart racing, my body breaking out into a sweat.

Black inky clouds swirl around him and there’s a part in the back of my mind that's telling me that this isn’t just the rambling of a crazy man.

As bizarre as it might be, maybe what he’s saying is real.

Or maybe I’m hallucinating and this is all in my head.

“Tell me more,” I find myself speaking, cursing myself for refusing to play it safe. Why am I doing this? I should be running away.

Except, I can’t. Fuck. It’s like my body is rooted in place, my feet unable to move.

“So eager,” Bane teases. “There’s nothing that says that you can’t give me your soul.”

Give him my soul? You know what, fuck it. What else do I have to lose? I want to hear the rest of this offer. “But does that mean I’ll be saved from cancer?” I ask worriedly. “Just like that? I give you my soul and you what, own me?”

“As a reaper, I need to collect souls to fulfill my quota. Normally, that process doesn’t happen until the souls are ready to leave the body, then the humans' lives are done and they’re no longer able to stay on this earth.

Lucifer has a specific amount he requires or we’re out of a job.

Hell is rough, what can I say.” He winks, making my gut twist in ways I’m not sure about.

“But, if someone were to make a deal with me, to willingly offer me their soul, I have the power to let you live longer knowing when you do meet your demise, your soul is mine. No other reaper can claim you. A soul willingly given is the equivalent of a hundred souls that pass on their own. I can take you now and be done with you. If you promise to give me your soul, I’ll promise to remove the cancer in your body,” he says.

“Just be aware, when you die, you become mine. I will own you in any way I please.”

The idea of being his is intriguing to me, and I bite my lip at the thought.

“What’s the catch?” I ask. “We covered that you’re not doing this because you saw me screaming into what I thought was the void.

How do we solidify this? Do you need me to open my veins and sign my life away in blood?

” There’s this burning hope inside me that this is real, that everything he speaks of is the truth.

I’m a desperate dying man. I really have nothing left to lose.

“You watch too many movies,” Bane says with an amused huff.

I don’t know what to think or feel when it comes down to the wire. Standing across from me, he’s almost too close with his pants stretched across his thighs as his cloak billows around him. I can see his tattoos littered over his skin. It makes me desperate to see more.

He says he’s lived hundreds of years more than me. How many more deals has he made like this before? How do I know I’m not just another notch on his scythe? And why the hell do I care so much?