20. Raven
Winter cut and slashed at my clothing, ripping the coverings away from my wounds in order to access and treat my injuries. Each tug and tear jostled my body, sending rockets of agony through my system.
I gritted my teeth and tried not to shriek, but I wanted to scream.
He was stripping me naked, and I didn’t even care.
The fires of hell pressed into my side, and I wished to lurch away, only Winter held me firm, and I had no strength left with which to fight. His female friend jabbed something thin and sharp into my side, not once but twice. She clearly meant to torture me. I could grasp no other explanation.
My vision blurred further, darkened, turned red, then blinded me with unfathomable light. My sight shifted into constant, inconsistent change.
“Aldine,” I muttered. “I should have searched for Valen instead…instead…instead of what I did.”
“Why Valen?” Winter asked, his voice soft yet curious and ebbing with concern.
The question shook me a smidgen closer to awareness. I lay on my side, and I couldn’t see Winter’s face because he stood at my back, addressing my more prominent wounds. Although, I wasn’t sure I’d have seen him much better if he stood directly in front of me.
“To help Aldine.” I closed my eyes.
The torment dulled, and something heavy dragged my consciousness downward. My shallow, ragged breaths began to smooth into a rhythm.
The work Winter and his friend did continued to jar my body, but I no longer cared. Or felt. I found myself falling—falling away from the moment. Slipping freely into a much-desired peace. Away from myself.
And then serenity shattered.
Searing pain cut across the inside of my arm, jerking me back to mild awareness. Whatever Winter gave me to kill the pain had no effect on my reaper’s call to action. The sting of an assigned target raced unmistakably across my skin—a “hey, look at me; you’ve got things to do.”
Only I had become far too weak to respond.
My arm spasmed, and I hissed, “No.”
Making no attempt to seek the name of the soul delegated to me, I allowed myself to start falling into darkness once more.
“Did we hurt you?” Winter’s question jerked me back to the surface.
Had he mistaken my response to my reaper assignment as a reaction to something they’d done?
“No,” I hissed again, not bothering to open my eyes.
My heavy head wanted nothing to do with conversation. Or thought. Or anything.
The warmth of a tiny hand wrapped around mine.
A touch from someone unknown, as I could feel the press of Winter’s hands upon my body elsewhere, holding me steady.
I could also feel the tug of my skin where the woman continued to stitch closed the hole in my waist…
much as one would sew together a pillow.
More warmth. Another touch. My other hand.
Giving in to curiosity as to who else loomed in the room with us, I cracked open my eyes. Chace stood in front of me, staring at me. Judging me like he always did.
I jerked away.
“No, no, no.” I pushed away from the side of the bed, my emotions rocketing into a frenzy. “He can’t see me like this.”
The woman growled a complaint and temporarily ceased mending my skin.
Winter’s clamp upon me tightened, and his breath warmed my ear. “Calm down. Everything is all right. Nobody else is here. Your secret is safe. I promise.”
I didn’t believe him. Not when I looked directly at Chace. My coreaper stood before me, and now he knew.
“Chace is here. He’s right there,” I said, my voice hoarse and torn.
Winter shushed me as he would a child, brushing his fingers lightly along the edge of my hair and the line of my cheek. “Chace isn’t here. Camilla’s girls are standing in front of you. They’re holding your hands to give you strength through the mending.”
“Children?” The idea that I saw Chace where two girls stood was absurd.
I blinked. Blinked again rapidly. The vision of Chace vanished, and two young girls, sharing similar coloring and features as their mother, appeared in his place. Winter hadn’t lied.
But how, then…
Confused? Or seeing things? Given my current condition, I didn’t know which was worse.
Two girls—twins—gazed down at me, their faces absent of any expression. I curled my fingers, motioning them closer, and they complied. Unlike their mom, their ears raised in a short point, similar to Aoes’s.
A trait inherited from their father?
“Thank you for lending me your strength,” I murmured.
One of the girls allowed her lips to curve ever so slightly, although the expression didn’t last. The second girl appeared sickly, possibly afflicted, and merely stared back.
With a gentle sigh, I closed my eyes and mumbled, “No Chace.”
The last thing I wanted was to appear weak in front of him.
I fell, fast and hard, into the abyss of nothingness.
I had no idea how long I’d slept. I opened my heavy eyes to a blurry vision of Winter and Camilla, their arms waving in wild gestures, and Camilla’s face flushed. My gut suggested they bickered because of me, and I knew I should care on some level, but…
I closed my eyes. Fell asleep again.
At some point later, I awoke to an empty room, but I couldn’t hold my eyes open and slept more.
Tripped headfirst into a tangled nightmare.
I stood in the upper hallway of Aoes’s pub, just outside the open door to Aldine’s room. My elder lay on his bed, and someone tall and laden in a heavy cloak hovered in the dark shadows beside the bed.
“Aldine,” I called out. “Who do you have visiting?”
Aldine’s head swiveled to meet my gaze, his face white, his mouth and eyes wide. He appeared to choke on his words…on his breath.
“Aldine?” Panic spiked my tone.
I lurched for the doorway. Whatever currently transpired, I needed to put a stop to it. I needed to help Aldine. Ease his suffering, make him better.
Before I could bound into the room and take on the role of hero and friend, the overbearing cloaked figure moved from Aldine’s bedside to the doorway, preventing my entrance.
He bent his head toward mine. The shadows of his cloak hid his features in a well of undiluted night. I wanted to look away, yet I couldn’t force myself to do so.
The darkness upon which I stared pulled and tugged at my reaper soul like a portal. Whatever dwelled within the shadowed hood was tasting me—devouring me—bit by tiny bit.
He hissed and pressed closer. “You cannot stop that which is written. This reaper’s time will soon come. And when I am done with him…I shall return for you, Raven of the Gunn family.”
I tried to back away, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t move.
Aldine made a strangled sound, and the cloaked figure returned to the elder’s bedside once more. The change happened as quick as a blink.
I sucked in a breath, understanding flooding me from the top of my head all the way to the tips of my toes.
Aldine’s body began to convulse, the bedsprings squeaking beneath the thrashing.
I wanted to dash to his side, but my feet refused to move, so I did the only thing I could do. I screamed his name.
The…the thing…in the overly large cloak raised one pointed finger to the space where his lips should have been.
Silence, he told me, without uttering a word.
“Are you the Killian?” I asked.
I sensed rather than saw the cloaked figure’s reaction. I discerned no eyes, and yet I felt his gaze snap on me, harsh and intense.
The world around me crashed with the thunder of a collapsing cathedral. Everything about me hurt, and I couldn’t breathe. Darkness fell over me, all around me.
Swept inside of me.
I jerked with a heavy gasp, sucking air deep into my lungs. Fighting for light, I opened my eyes to find myself someplace…someplace….
What is this place? Where am I?
My heart hammered in my chest. I tried to sit and…ouch…collapsed flat.
The memory of what had transpired crept back into place.
Winter had taken me to his friend’s home. A woman named Camilla.
My chest heaved with relief. The experience—Aldine’s suffering death—had been nothing more than a nightmare.
The shadows within the room shifted, and an arm stretched from the darkness. A heavy hand fell upon my chest and pressed with the weight of millions of souls.
The hooded figure with darkness for a face stood over me, shoving me deeper and deeper into the mattress.
I’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.
The Killian was here.
And he was killing me.