Chapter Twenty-One
Kieran’s good intentions abandoned him the second he saw Georgia sprawled on the floor with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth and David kneeling over her, his hands around her slender throat.
He grabbed the human by the back of the neck and flung him away.
He slammed into the wall but didn’t stay down, rolling back to his feet.
“Come to play hero, have you? I don’t mind.” He drew a knife from the sheath at his side and brandished it in front of him.
It was almost laughable. Kieran had trained on every weapon known to mankind. Alex slid into the room and closed the door. “You can’t kill him,” his brother reminded him.
When he hesitated, David took advantage of the momentary distraction and lunged, but Kieran hadn’t for one second lost sight of where his opponent was. He sidestepped and shot his hand out, his palm driving into David’s forearm and knocking it aside. David danced back.
“What’s your move? You can’t take all three of us with a knife,” Kieran said calmly. While he kept his opponent busy, Alex slipped his arms under Georgia’s shoulders and pulled her to relative safety, positioning himself in front of her.
David had clearly lost his grip on reality. Or he was extremely desperate, which often amounted to the same thing.
“You’re right.” He reached around to the small of his back and withdrew a gun.
Shit! Georgia was human, and so was Alex. Come to think of it, he wasn’t in much better shape. David could shoot them all. Only he didn’t think the man would shoot Georgia, not until he’d gotten what he came for.
David chuckled, and his smile grew. “Guess I have the advantage after all. I knew you were a loser the first time I laid eyes on you.”
It’s her time to die. Kieran knew he was no hero. He wasn’t even human. It was his job to step aside and let events unfold. “Walk away, Petras.”
“No.” He raised the gun and turned toward Alex.
Visions of his brother smiling at Cilla, the woman who’d captured his heart, flashed through Kieran’s mind. As David sighted down the barrel, he dove in front of him.
The bullet slammed into his shoulder and sent him sprawling. Pain radiated down his arm, and blood spurted from the wound. Georgia screamed his name. Gritting his teeth, he sprang to his feet and charged. “Get her out of here,” he yelled at his brother, praying Alex would listen.
The gun went off again. Pain exploding in his side, Kieran rammed into his adversary, taking them both to the floor. It was too late for him. By interfering, he’d sealed his fate, but there was a chance for Georgia and his brothers.
He heard her pleading with Alex to help, knew his brother was keeping her from intervening. Why didn’t he take her out of there?
Fate can’t be changed. The insidious whisper ran through his brain over and over. If he forfeited his life, it wouldn’t matter. The Grim Reaper would not allow a glitch in the timeline. He would personally come and fix his son’s screw up.
None of that mattered. He fought on, struggling with David for control of the weapon.
The outcome might be predestined, but not his role in it.
If he stepped aside and did nothing, he might as well be dead.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself, the emotional wound too deep to ever heal.
This was no longer about what his father wanted.
It was about who he was and the man he wanted to be.
His entire existence, he’d believed it his duty to carry on his father’s legacy, to uphold the family honor.
And he’d done it without complaint to the best of his ability for thousands upon thousands of years.
But always, there’d been a void inside him, a darkness that threatened to swallow him whole, a dissatisfaction at his belief that there should be more, followed by overwhelming guilt at thinking such a thing.
For the first time, that emptiness had vanished, filled with something richer and more powerful—love, or at least the promise of it. That one emotion he hadn’t believed in, had scoffed at, was the thing he’d been missing.
He had no idea what Georgia thought of him, especially in light of their last conversation, but in the end, it didn’t matter.
His love for her burned hotter than the sun.
It banished the shadows and solidified into unbreakable resolve.
His reason for existing had nothing to do with his father or reaping.
Every moment he’d lived had been training for this—to save Georgia.
She was his purpose, his reason for being. Whatever consequences he had to pay, he would pay them, gladly.
His opponent proved he was no stranger to fighting when he jammed his fist into Kieran’s wounded shoulder.
The sharp teeth of pain bit into him like a living, breathing beast. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed David’s gun hand and smashed it against the floor.
The weapon skidded out of his hold and into the corner.
Kieran pulled back his arm and slammed it into David’s face. Howling, he retaliated by punching the wound in Kieran’s side. The air left his lungs in a rush, and his vision blurred. Between pain and blood loss, he was close to passing out. He had to end this now.
Using his larger size to his advantage, he wrestled his opponent beneath him and wrapped his hands around his throat.
Don’t kill him. The urgent reminder snapped him back to sanity.
He couldn’t upset the timeline, and an unscheduled death would do just that.
There was enough reaper, enough Blackwell in him to understand the implications.
With a roar of frustration, he drove his fist into David’s face. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he went still beneath him. Shoving off him, Kieran landed on his back and stared at the ceiling, his lungs furiously pulling in air.
“Kieran.” Georgia stumbled to his side and pressed her hands over the wound in his side. “Where’s your phone? I need to call for help.”
He shook his head. “No.” The last thing they needed was the cops. Things were enough of a mess.
Leaning close, she whispered in his ear. “I won’t tell anyone about what you said earlier. I promise.” In a louder voice, she said, “Alex, call the police and get me some clean dishtowels from the drawer.”
Kieran closed his eyes and swallowed heavily. Involving the authorities was the least of his worries. This was a family matter. “He can’t. I wasn’t supposed to interfere.”
“No, you weren’t.” The deep voice echoed with power. The light in the room was sucked into the portal his father stepped out of.
Georgia’s mouth fell open, and all the color drained from her face.
His father was well and truly pissed. In a black cloak covering him from head to toe and holding his eight-foot scythe, he was the personification of the Grim Reaper, Death himself. Malaki sat on his shoulder, his beady eyes taking in everything.
Weaker than he’d ever been, Kieran struggled into a seated position, his hand pressed against his side. There was no way he could stand. Pain and blood loss were making him lightheaded, but he refused to give in. “It’s not her fault.”
“I’m well aware of that.” His father tapped David’s inert body with the base of his scythe. “At least you didn’t kill him.” He pointed at Georgia with the tip of his curved blade. “But she’s still alive. That’s a problem.”
“Ohmygod.” Georgia’s words all ran together. “It’s true.” Her breath was coming in harsh gasps. “Everything you said earlier. It’s true.”
His father threw back the hood of his cloak and glared.
“You told her? The two most sacred rules of reapers are that humans must never know what you are and that you must never interfere with their destiny. You’ve broken both.
You’ve forfeited your right to either eternal banishment or a human life.
” He extended the great scythe until the razor-sharp blade nudged Kieran’s neck. “Why?”
On her knees beside him, Georgia sucked in a breath but didn’t interfere. She had to be in shock and total disbelief. He wanted to hug her, to reassure her everything would be okay, but everything was a shitstorm about to explode.
He dared not swallow. If the blade dug into him, his soul would perish. “For thousands of years, I’ve lived by those rules, more ghost than anything.”
His father frowned.
“We’re not like other reapers. They’re content to pass through this world mostly unseen, untouched by what they witness.
They’re happy to spend time together in Shadowland.
” He pointed at Alex. The door opened, and Sam slipped inside to stand alongside him, staring hard at their father.
“We, your sons, have always been different.”
How could he make their father understand?
“The others don’t accept us. They avoid us whenever they can.
At best, they’re indifferent. We don’t fit in this world either.
We’re always on the outside looking in. Millennium after millennium, the darkness inside me grew, practically consuming me. Still, I did the job, never shirking.”
“Until now.” The coldness in his father’s tone warned him there would be no quarter. The weapon never wavered. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Do you know what it’s like to live in cold and darkness and be offered a glimpse of warmth and light? It’s both heaven and hell. Hell because you can never have it. Heaven because, for a few brief moments, you’re whole for the first time.”
He took a risk and eased his head back enough to take a deep breath.
If he was going to die, he was going to do it with the truth on his lips.
Maybe she’d remember him in another lifetime, like a dream of someone she used to know.
Maybe all memory of him would vanish, but for this moment, this time, she would know the truth. “I love her.”
…