33. Chapter Thirty-Three
~Kalo~
The light swallowed everything. For a single, disorienting instant, there was no room, no walls, and no floor beneath my feet, only a blinding, endless white that pressed against my closed eyelids and burned through them anyway.
I threw my arms up, instinctively shielding my face, my heart hammering as I awaited whatever death would bring.
But nothing like that happened. Instead, the brightness began to recede, slowly at first, then in a great rush, like a curtain being torn away.
The shapes of the room bled back into existence in fragments of wood grain and shadows, and I blinked hard to drag myself fully back into the world just as the door burst open.
Vaughan and Darius rushed in, both of them moving with restrained urgency. Their eyes swept the room in an instant, assessing the threat and calculating their response, but as soon as their gazes landed on the figure in the middle of the room, they froze in place.
When I turned my head back to face her, I could immediately see why.
The reaper no longer wore her dark, heavy cloak. It had disappeared, revealing a figure that was nothing like what I had expected.
The first thing I noticed was her height, well over six feet with a straight and unyielding posture.
The absence of the cloak did nothing to diminish her imposing presence.
Long, pale blonde hair fell over her shoulders in loose waves, catching the flickering light, and her features were sharp-edged and defined.
Her ears tapered to delicate points, unmistakable in their shape, and her eyes…
Well, her eyes glowed, not with warmth or life, but with a cold, steady white light.
No one spoke, all of us too stunned to form any kind of coherent statement, until footsteps pounded down the hall and Leo burst into the room.
He crossed the distance between us in seconds, placing a hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”
My gaze hadn’t left the woman. “I’m fine, I think.”
Felix and Calista followed close behind him, both of them pulling up short at the sight before them, and a heartbeat later, Evalina slipped in as well, her smaller form weaving through the others until she had a clear view.
“Oh,” she breathed, her voice encapsulating the same surprise we all felt. “She’s an elf.”
Elf. I knew the word, but only from stories, the same way werewolves and fairies hadn’t been real to me until very recently.
The reaper turned her head towards Evalina with slow, deliberate precision, until those odd, glowing eyes faced her directly. “You’re far from home, fairy.”
“So are you,” Evalina replied.
Some kind of ancient tension seemed to pass between them before Leo’s voice cut through it.
“What happened?” he demanded, glancing between me and the woman. “Why does she look like that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, still trying to piece it together myself. “But I think… I think this was her form before she became a reaper.”
A strangled sound came from the doorway, and we all turned to find Darius staring at the woman as though the ground had dropped out from under him.
Felix frowned over at him. “What’s the matter with you?”
Darius swallowed hard. “I think… I think she’s my mate.”
“No.”
Vaughan’s growled response came out with so much authority, all the werewolves in the room lowered their heads. Even I felt chastised, though it had nothing to do with me.
The Alpha ran a hand over his face as if he could make the situation in front of him disappear. “No more mates from different realms or different species. This is getting ridiculous. This pack isn’t a sanctuary for every supernatural complication we stumble across.”
Pain flickered across Darius’ face, and in it, I could almost imagine I saw what Leo’s reaction must have been when he first realized his fate bound him to me. It made no sense, but it didn’t change the fact that our bond existed. Nobody could deny it, least of all me.
“Everyone out,” Vaughan ordered. “Now.”
No one argued. Even Leo obeyed, though he clearly wanted to stay, his hand tightening briefly on my arm before he moved towards the door.
I lingered for a moment longer, turning back to the reaper… or the elf, I supposed. “I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation.”
Her glowing gaze shifted to me, just as unreadable as it had been when she was hidden beneath the cloak, but she said nothing.
With one last nod of acknowledgement, I followed the others out into the hallway, letting the door close behind us.
“No one goes in or out of that room,” Vaughan instructed the guards stationed nearby. “The door doesn’t open without my approval. Is that understood?”
A chorus of affirmations were his reply.
“Good. Leadership team, with me.”
We moved as a group down the hall and into the kitchen, the space feeling strangely normal after what we had just witnessed. Chairs scraped softly against the floor as we took our seats around the large island.
For a few seconds, no one spoke, none of us quite knowing where to begin, but Leo eventually broke the ice.
“How does an elf become a reaper?”
Calista leaned forward, her expression thoughtful but troubled. “As far as I know, no one understands the origin of reapers. There are theories, but nothing concrete. If she was something else before, that would be a significant discovery. I’d love to know more.”
“She didn’t seem eager to talk about herself,” I warned.
Leo’s gaze shifted to me immediately. “What exactly did you say to her?”
I hesitated, replaying the conversation in my mind.
“I asked her about choice, and specifically about whether she had any say over what she does. Whether she’d ever had any.”
The memory of her responses lingered, subtle shifts in tone that I hadn’t fully understood at the time.
“I told her about being a genie,” I continued. “About being bound to something I couldn’t refuse and what that did to me.”
“And that triggered her transformation?” Felix asked.
“Apparently, though I couldn’t tell you why. Something I said must have struck a chord.”
Evalina’s attention had shifted to Darius, who was uncharacteristically pale and quiet. “Are you alright?”
He let out a low, humourless breath. “Not really, no. My mate is a reaper who might be forced to do things against her will, and apparently, I’m not allowed to claim her.”
He shot a pained look at Vaughan, who let out a heavy sigh. “I’m not forbidding it, but we need to think this through. All of this is unprecedented.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Felix muttered.
“Can a reaper even be claimed?” Vaughan went on. “Does she have the ability to choose? Or is she bound the same way Kalo was?”
No one had an answer.
“We should go back up there and ask her,” Felix suggested. “Now that she’s revealed herself, maybe we can get some answers.”
Vaughan shut that down immediately. “No. Not tonight.”
“Why not?” Darius asked.
“She’s trapped,” Vaughan replied, his tone shifting from frustration into something more logical and strategic. “That gives us leverage. We don’t want to rush in and start asking questions that might upset her. Better to let her sit with her situation for a little while and see how she reacts.”
Calista’s brows drew together. “She’s a reaper, Vaughan. She has the power to kill any of us with a touch. I’m not sure antagonizing her is the best approach.”
“I’m not suggesting we antagonize her, I’m simply saying we don’t need to give her control of the situation. We have the advantage right now, and it doesn’t hurt for her to recognize that.”
My mate didn’t argue. In fact, he even nodded in agreement.
“We’ll all think better in the morning with clear heads.” He turned to me and lowered his voice as the others continued to discuss interrogation strategies. “It looks like your room is off-limits. Do you want me to arrange another guest room for you?”
I had an idea what he would prefer, but I asked him to spell it out for me anyway. “What are my other options?”
He dropped his gaze so I couldn’t see the hope in his eyes. “Well, you could stay in my room tonight.”
I still hadn’t even seen his room. He’d been so concerned with my comfort and my need to retain some feeling of control over my situation that he’d never even suggested it before.
“I’d like to stay with you.”
Vaughan wrapped up the impromptu meeting, telling everyone to reconvene in the boardroom at eight o’clock the next morning, and Leo took my hand as we left the kitchen together.
We’d been granted at least one more night together, and I had a feeling not all of it would be spent sleeping.