Chapter 2
Death was silent. It came in shallow breaths, in little sounds like the slice of a knife across a trembling neck.
Sometimes, it could be dramatic—a fire in a warehouse, a gunfight in the park—yet I rarely deigned to attend to those.
I preferred the hush afterward, the fragile moments when my ears rang with the buzz of a fresh kill, and my demons became silent.
Tonight, I was not as lucky.
The man begged and pleaded, voice raw from hours of screaming for mercy. As if my family were known for such a weak thing. The Drakovs were dark dragons, and dragons did not shy from their nature.
Besides, any tenderness I may have once had died years ago, replaced by a cool persona that gave me my nickname.
The Reaper.
I held the pistol to the back of the man’s head. And the man looked at me before whispering brokenly, “You are Death.”
And then, like Death, I slaughtered him.
The sound of the bullet echoed from the warehouse, the stone floors hungering for the warm blood now spilling from his temple.
Normally, I might have relished the kill, yet today, I only frowned. I wasn’t sure why. This was not the first body I would put into the ground, nor would it be the last.
But the man’s words rang in my head even after he was gone. You are Death.
I snapped at my men to remove the corpse while my second-in-command—my cousin, Nikolai—walked over with a bunch of papers in his hand.
“That was the last of the Vallen scum who took our shipments, boss. But we’ll keep an eye out for anyone else who might be interested in trying to take more.
And we’ve replaced most of the commodities, though the weapons are taking longer than… ”
My mind wandered away from my cousin, listening only to three words.
You are Death.
“Are you even listening to me?” Nikolai asked as I scrubbed my fingers of any blood splatters before drying them with a decorative towel that had my mother’s tastes written all over it. I watched as the last bits of blood flowed down the drain, all evidence of what transpired now gone.
You are Death.
“Aleksandr! Pay attention!” Nikolai snapped his fingers several times while I glared at him.
How the two of us were related, I had no idea.
Our blood was the only thing we shared. That, and our violent…
proclivities. His dirty blond hair and bright sky-colored eyes were a contrast to my dark locks and midnight blue irises, and his pale skin was unlike the dark olive tone I’d inherited from my mother’s side.
His shirts were always falling off his body, and they were usually stained with dark liquor, unlike my pristine black suits.
Nikolai’s constant, shit-eating grin looked odd compared to my cold scowl. But maybe that was because he was the most passionate man I knew, while I couldn’t remember the last time I cared about anything.
“Have you heard anything I’ve said?”
“Was any of it important?”
“Yes, I was talking about the ballet—”
I held up a hand, and he wisely stopped talking. A rarity, unfortunately. “So, no. I don’t care about a fucking dance.”
Nikolai waggled his eyebrows. “But the dance is full of women in short skirts and tights. And men with even tighter ones.”
“I don’t care.”
My cousin scoffed. “You like a pretty woman, cousin. Admit it.”
“No.”
Because while Nikolai consumed sex like it was air, I regarded it like paperwork.
It was a means to an end, another box to tick so I could move on with my life.
A sense of control that helped hold the demons back until they raged at me again.
My only experiences were with the women who worked in my clubs, the ones who knew I was leaving as soon as my dick was empty.
I didn’t need anyone thinking I would get attached.
You are Death.
My cousin scoffed. “You’re extra grumpy tonight.”
“I am. Because I could have been creating new plans to infiltrate the Vallens tonight, but instead, I had to clean up after someone else when they failed to account for some inventory.”
“You mess up a few numbers, and suddenly it's all ‘Niko doesn’t know how to do his job!’” he exclaimed, throwing up his arms dramatically. “But let me tell you the numbers for the City Ballet. I think it’s a wise investment if you—”
“Enough,” I muttered, waving Nikolai off with a sharp gesture, dismissing whatever sexy ballerina nonsense my cousin was about to tell me.
He grumbled something under his breath, probably about my lack of decency or manners, which was true.
But the Vallens were my family’s greatest enemy, and because of my idiot relative, any plans I created to get an advantage over them now had to be redone.
Soon, I told the darkness that had resided within me ever since I was twelve. We will get our vengeance soon.
The delay was fine. I wouldn’t stop until that entire family was destroyed, no matter how long it took.
I dressed for the frigid temperatures, turning to Nikolai. “Do not follow me,” I said to him before slamming the door behind me.
Despite my gruff—all right, grumpy—personality and my anger, I did actually like Nikolai. But tonight, I needed this walk to clear my mind in peace and quiet—and if he was there, it was sure to be anything but.
My feet led me to the city park, which was decorated for the holiday season. I fucking hated this time of year. It reminded me of when I lost Liza, my sister, on another cold December night like this one.
I fell into an easy stride, my guards flanking me a few steps behind.
Close enough to act if anyone tried to attack me, but far enough to give me the illusion of privacy.
It wasn’t as if I truly needed them. I had two small guns concealed on me—one tucked into my waistband, the other in a holster on my ankle.
And if neither of those somehow worked, I kept a switchblade in my pocket for emergencies.
Or for fun.
But tonight, the only other people in the park were several feet away, a trio that was screaming, laughing, and generally interrupting my brooding.
You are Death.
I must have been too stuck in my head because, without warning, something collided into me, soft but solid, knocking me off balance and onto the ground.
The thick snow softened my fall, cold and wet as it soaked through my coat and gloves.
I hissed through clenched teeth at the sudden impact, holding whatever was on top of me with a tight grip, ready to destroy it.
“What the—” But my words froze in my throat, buried underneath my surprise.
It was the most beautiful fucking woman I’d ever seen.
Her soft, flushed cheeks, sprinkled with freckles, combined with her heart-stopping smile, sucked all the air from my lungs.
Then, my eyes went to her brown hair. Snow dotted it like tiny stars, clinging to her fluttering lashes.
The street caught her in a halo of gold, making her look even more like something that didn’t belong anywhere near a man like me.
“Ow…” she moaned, rubbing at her forehead, where a white scar traveled along her hairline. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t watching—”
Behind me, the crunch of boots in the snow told me the guards were approaching, ready to intervene and throw this random woman off of me.
Normally, I would have let them come and sort out any threat.
But then she opened her eyes for a fraction of a second, allowing me a glimpse of chocolate-brown eyes that were so warm and unguarded, it made me pause.
My world had never been full of anything but darkness, yet these were bright.
Happy, even. So stunning that my mouth parted, and my hand came up to hold back my guards.
“Are you hurt?”
“My pride? Yes. My head? It’s nothing a little makeup won’t fix.”
Despite the soft giggles beneath her words, I touched it anyway, memorizing the place I’d made contact with her.
There would be a bump there in the morning.
The thought of her with even the smallest of injuries stoked something dark inside of me.
For the first time, my hunger changed shape, twisting, wanting not just to kill, but to hurt. To own.
To make her mine.
I craved the way she looked at me, her eyes wide and trusting, lips parted as if she, too, was mesmerized by what she saw. I wanted to claim that look, for her to whimper my name under her breath in her nightingale voice, for her to belong to me and only me.
You are Death.
Yes, I thought, finally shoving the voice away from my mind. I am Death. I have tasted Life. And I want more.
No matter what it took.
“Let me help you stand.” I looked away because I knew that if I saw her lips looking so damn kissable, I would slam her to the snow and find out what those brown eyes looked like when they rolled into the back of her head.
Sliding my arms around her and helping her up, I studied her a moment longer than was polite, committing every facet of her to memory. I had memorized building plans faster than this, cataloged men’s faces in seconds before ending their lives. But her, I took my time with.
There was something about her that was familiar, some part of her that tugged at the edges of my memory. But I pushed the feeling aside, because hers was a face I would not forget.
“Are you cold?” I asked, frowning at her thin coat and reddened cheeks.
She shook her head, though the slight tremble in her body suggested otherwise. Without a second thought, I slipped off my cream-colored scarf and wrapped it around her neck. I wondered what her pale skin would look like covered in bite marks and bruises. Evidence that I owned her.
The woman’s eyes widened. “I can’t accept this.”
“Of course you can. It matches your outfit perfectly.”
She beamed, spinning for me. My cock hardened at the sight of it, her performing for me. “It does, doesn’t it?” she giggled. “Though I promise I’ll return it.”