Chapter Twenty-Seven
~Kalo~
Darkness pressed in on all sides.
It had no shape and no edges, only a suffocating absence of light that seemed to swallow all directions at once. Each breath burned in my chest, as though the air itself resisted me.
Behind me, something moved. A whisper dragged across the dark, accompanied by a cold presence that slithered along the back of my neck.
“You’ll never be free.”
The voice was the same as always: soft and hollow, a strange echo of my own voice, and unmistakably close. Too close.
Run, every instinct inside me screamed. Run before it touches you. Run before it catches you.
But even though my heart hammered and every muscle screamed at me to move, I forced myself to stay still.
Leo and I had a plan to capture the reaper, to speak to it, but maybe we could cut out a step if I could speak to it there, in that repeating nightmare.
Drawing a shallow breath, I turned around.
The darkness shifted and thickened into a taller shadow within the void. The hooded figure stood only a few paces away, its shape barely distinguishable from the blackness surrounding it, but identical to the being I’d seen on Brendan’s driveway.
Just like it had then, it raised a hand and pointed its shadowy finger at me.
“You’ll never be free.”
The words slid through my bones, but I lifted my chin and refused to back away.
“What do you want?”
My words sounded small in the vast darkness, and the figure didn’t move.
“You’re following me,” I continued. “Appearing in my dreams, standing in forests and outside houses. Why?”
Another few beats of silence followed, before it repeated the low, sinister warning. “You’ll never be free.”
“I understand that part already,” I muttered, frowning into the blackness. “But why?
The shadow loomed closer, its hood dipping forward as if it were studying me. My skin prickled with unease as I endured the silent inspection, waiting for a response that would help me make sense of all of this.
When it spoke again, however, it was only to repeat itself. “You’ll never be free.”
A spike of irritation cut through my fear. “Is that all you can say?”
No answer came, and my frown deepened.
“Are you even the real reaper, or just a figment of my subconscious?”
Again, nothing, so I continued thinking aloud.
“If you’re part of my mind, that would explain why you can’t answer my questions. They’re questions I don’t know the answers to.”
The whisper started again, softer and less sure than before. “You’ll never…”
“I get it,” I interrupted, my patience wearing thin. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
For the first time, rather than advancing, the figure shifted backwards. Slowly at first, then faster, receding into the surrounding void and dissolving into the darkness until nothing remained. Even the cold air that had enveloped me seemed to warm.
The soft crackle of burning wood replaced the suffocating hush of the nightmare, and I became aware of a solid arm wrapped around my waist, holding me securely against an equally solid chest.
Leo.
I exhaled slowly as my waking consciousness fully took over and a smile slowly spread across my lips. My body ached pleasantly from what we’d done together, and his pomegranate scent surrounded me like a cocoon.
For a blissful second, everything felt utterly peaceful… until I opened my eyes.
The reaper stood silently in the corner of the room.
The hooded figure was unmistakable against the firelight, tall and still beside the wooden wall, and I jerked violently, unintentionally slamming my elbow into Leo’s ribs as I recoiled.
Behind me, my mate woke instantly, years of training snapping him into alertness in the space of a heartbeat. I could feel the exact moment he spotted our uninvited guest from the way his body tensed against me.
The reaper didn’t move.
“What do we do?” I whispered, but Leo didn’t seem to have an answer. For once, the ever-prepared Gamma of the Crimsontooth pack seemed just as uncertain as I was.
“Get behind me,” he finally whispered, slowly moving to his knees.
It wouldn’t make any difference, and he knew that as well as I did, but I obediently shifted behind him anyway.
The reaper simply stood there, indifferent to our clumsy attempts at defence. When it appeared outside Brendan’s house, its cloak had rippled in the wind, but inside the cabin, it remained utterly, inhumanly still.
Before either of us could decide what to do next, a knock sounded on the cabin door. Out of instinct, we both looked towards the sound, and when my eyes flicked back a second later, the reaper had vanished.
“What the fuck?” I breathed as Leo pulled us both up to our feet, letting out a heavy breath of his own.
“Who is it?” he called towards the door.
“Evalina,” came the soft voice from outside. “Leo, is that you?”
Leo hesitated for only a moment before answering. “Yes. Give me a minute.”
He reached for his backpack, passing me the clothes he’d so neatly folded when we changed into the wetsuits, what must have been hours earlier. Neither of us spoke as we dressed, both of us continuing to steal glances at the empty corner where the reaper had stood.
When Leo finally opened the door, Evalina stood on the small porch with a woven basket hooked over her arm.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said apologetically, her eyes flicking between the two of us. “I was gathering berries nearby and saw the smoke from the chimney. Felix told me there shouldn’t be anyone out here, so I thought I should check everything was okay. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re not intruding. We went swimming in the lake and came here to warm up. That’s all.”
That was far from all, but he obviously didn’t want to announce the loss of his virginity publicly. Besides, we had other worries at the moment.
“The reaper was just here,” I told her.
Evalina’s delicate brows lifted in surprise. “Here? In the cabin?”
I nodded. “And in my dream. At least, I think so.”
Leo invited her in and we all sat around the wooden table as I told them both about the dream I’d had and the questions I’d tried to ask, to no avail.
Leo’s fingers fidgeted as he listened, the furrow between his brows growing deeper with each word. “The sooner we trap it and get some real answers, the better.”
“I hope you don’t have to harm it,” Evalina commented, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. “From what Felix has told me, it sounds like it’s only doing what it’s been ordered to do. It doesn’t have any ill will.”
“It’s been ordered to kill him,” Leo pointed out, obviously not sharing the fairy’s empathy for my stalker.
“Not to kill me,” I corrected gently. “To collect me. At least, that’s what we think. Maybe there’s more to it, but Leo’s right: we need to get some answers.”
“Let’s head back to the pack house,” Leo suggested. “Maybe there’s been an update about that iron from the Ravenstone pack.”
Evalina agreed to accompany us back, and it seemed my day of freedom was over.
It truly had been a day of freedom, I realized with a start. A day of choosing exactly what we did, with someone determined to make my wishes a reality, and he had more than succeeded.
Maybe freedom didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Maybe it could be found even in smaller moments, like an afternoon at the lake or in front of the fire in a cabin.
“Kalo?” Leo frowned down at me, and I suddenly noticed that both he and Evalina had stood up while I’d been lost in thought. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” I assured him. “Thank you for today. No matter what happens next, I’m glad we had this day.”
His gaze immediately softened, a smile that was half-pleased and half-shy spreading across his handsome face. “I am too.”
Leo put out the fire, and together, the three of us headed out of the cabin into the dimming evening light.