Chapter 2
TWO
GEMMA
“Off limits…I don’t see a tattoo on her.” HSOG’s eyes glittered at me through a slit in the wall of muscle. “The Reaper really hasn’t claimed this girl?”
“The Reaper has no girl,” Grim said. “Will never have one.”
He was too close. All he had to do was take a step and his breath would be on my neck.
“It’s true.” I beamed at the mystery guy. “You can kill me, fuck me, do both at the same time, nothing’s gonna happen but a good time.”
HSOG laughed, tilting his head with a smile. “That so?”
Grim moved closer to me, his heat soaking into my back. A hot, menacing shadow taunting me to turn around.
“Off fucking limits.” Grim’s voice took on a smoky quality, one I only ever heard when he was about to go off the edge. My gut tightened.
A flash of something like fury clouded HSOG’s eyes. “Unmarked, unclaimed, not off limits. You’d do well to remember that.”
And then he left.
“You forget who owns you?” Grim’s lips barely grazed my ear and I jumped, immediately hating that I’d given him that response.
“You don’t have any say in who I fuck,” I gritted out, still refusing to turn around.
“I don’t give a shit what you put in your cunt.” Grim’s voice got lower, smokier. “This is business.”
My ears perked. Business? The two Horsemen in front of me turned around—Hemlock and Raze.
“Funny, she doesn’t look dead,” Lock mused, voice light.
If all Horsemen were named after the four of the Apocalypse, Hemlock, named after the beautiful but deadly flower, would have been Conquest—but he practiced a different kind than the myth. A cruel playboy with a deadly charm, too many had fallen into his trap.
There was a reason girls went wild over the Horsemen, even if they were all soulless.
“Only good reason I can think of for why she’s missed two check-ins and is late to the third,” Raze added.
Raze was easily War, but he could have been a K-pop idol—if not for the tattoos, and the whole look at me the wrong way and I might fucking cut you vibe. He had the luscious lips, the perfect dewy skin. Messy hair that fell over apathetic eyes.
I looked to the side. “I was busy.”
Grim’s unamused, cold laugh pressed against my back.
The last was missing—but I know he was around somewhere, watching.
There was a reason he was called Wraith.
He was only ever seen shortly before your death.
Some said he didn’t even exist. But that was a lie.
Wraith served a very special, very cruel function within the Horsemen, and smart people feared him more than Grim.
Like the Horseman Wraith must wear on his back, he decimated lives and left nothing but waste behind. You’d have to be truly insane to take a contract from him.
Only Grim was named after the Horseman inked on his back.
“There isn’t anything to tell you. Nothing to check in about. Have you heard the saying, this coulda been an email?”
“You don’t get it, Rich Girl.” A soft touch—Grim’s palm—landed on my exposed shoulder, and I instantly regretted wearing a strapless dress. Traitorous goose bumps followed his hand.
Grim’s fingertips traveled the expanse of my shoulder to my collarbone, until we were face-to-face. Thumbs slowly slid into place on either side of my neck. The air soft and heavy with our breathing.
Bored.
He looked so fucking bored.
That always twisted me up. Like I was nothing. The world looked at me like I was precious; Grim looked at me like I was dirt.
“I own you. I own the blood that beats outta your heart. I own the thoughts you think. I own those hot breaths you take when I get too close. The ones you think I don’t notice.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, hating that he noticed.
Hating that I gave him that.
His hand slid around my neck, to the nape.
“Or what?” I leaned in. “You gonna kill me?”
A slight smile.
A dangerous smile.
That gentle touch at the back of my neck turned vicious, bruising. His eyes dark, cold.
“I think you know what, Gemma.”
He stepped back, wiping his hands on his jeans like I was dirty.
When you’re indebted to the Horsemen, you sign your life away until the contract is fulfilled.
Each contract was different, tailored to the person, but one thing remained the same: you did whatever they demanded, laws and morals be damned, until your term was up.
If you didn’t? Death was the least of your problems.
But five years ago I didn’t get that choice.
I didn’t sign shit. I didn’t choose shit.
The Reaper decided he wanted me, so he took me.
Grim pulled my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to meet his black stare. “What’s the deal, Rich Girl?”
I had every intention of pushing him off, but then that thing happened, that Grim thing. Where I couldn’t breathe. All I saw was the gleam in his eyes, like he could see the skip in my heartbeat as if he’d thrown the stone that put it there.
“My life belongs to you…my death is yours to take.”