The Reaper Prince

CHAPTER 15| The Cursed Voice

The nightmare doesn't start with St. Catherine's.

It doesn't start with the basement or the boys or the pain that rewired my entire nervous system.

It starts with Michael.

I'm seven years old again, small and powerless, standing in our foster home's kitchen with its peeling linoleum and broken refrigerator.

Michael is making me breakfast—scrambled eggs that are slightly burned because he's only twelve and still learning how to cook but he tries so hard, always tries so hard to take care of me.

"Morning, squirt," he says, and his smile is the only warm thing in that entire house. "Eat up. We've got school."

But then the dream shifts, the way nightmares do, and suddenly I'm standing in front of the police station. Detective Morrison is crouched down to my level, his face kind, his voice gentle.

"It's okay, sweetheart. You're being very brave. Just tell me what you saw."

And I do. I tell him about the man in the blue house. About the screaming I heard through the walls. About the woman with bruises who stopped coming outside.

I use my voice. I speak up. I do what you're supposed to do when you see something wrong.

The dream fractures again. Spinning. Accelerating.

Michael walking me home from school. His hand warm in mine. His backpack heavy on his shoulders because he carries both our homework so mine isn't too heavy.

"Did you talk to the police today?" he asks. "Mrs. Henderson said you missed class."

"I told them about the bad man," I say, proud. Because telling the truth is good. Because speaking up is brave. Because using your voice to help people is what heroes do.

Michael stops walking. His face goes pale.

"Leah," he says, and his voice is scared. "Leah, you can't—you shouldn't have—"

The dream goes dark. Violent. The images blur and speed up and I'm trying to scream but no sound comes out, just like in real life, just like it's been for five years, my voice trapped behind the knowledge of what happened next.

Michael on the ground. Blood spreading. The man from the blue house standing over him with something metal in his hand.

"Your little sister talks too much," the man says, and his voice is flat and empty and exactly like—

I jolt awake with a strangled gasp, my body thrashing against the sheets, my chest constricting so tight I can't breathe. My throat is burning. My hands are clawing at my neck like I'm trying to physically pull air into lungs that have forgotten how to work.

I'm suffocating. Drowning. Dying.

The nightmare is still wrapped around me like a shroud, and I can't tell what's real—the bed beneath me or the blood-soaked pavement from eleven years ago, the silk sheets tangling around my legs or Michael's hand going cold in mine.

Light floods the room. Dim. Warm. Enough to cut through the darkness.

A hand touches mine. Gentle. Deliberate. Not grabbing. Just tapping. Once. Twice. Three times.

Drawing my attention. Anchoring me.

I force my eyes to focus.

Nikolai.

He's sitting up beside me, one hand on the lamp, the other tapping my hand where it's frozen in a claw against my throat. His emerald eyes are alert, focused entirely on me, no trace of sleep in them despite the fact that it's—I glance at the clock—3:47 AM.

His lips move, slow and clear: "Tu es en sécurité, mon papillon. Regarde-moi. Je suis ici." You are safe, my butterfly. Look at me. I am here.

The French washes over me. Familiar now after weeks of hearing it in my sleep, conditioning me to associate the sound with safety. My body responds before my mind fully catches up—the panic receding slightly, the constriction in my chest loosening just enough that I can pull in a shallow breath.

"Respire avec moi," he continues, and I can read his lips clearly in the lamplight. "Lentement. Tu n'es pas là-bas. Tu es ici. Avec moi. Dans notre lit. En sécurité." Breathe with me. Slowly. You are not there. You are here. With me. In our bed. Safe.

Our bed. He called it our bed.

The possessive should probably bother me. Right now it just helps. It grounds me. Reminds me where I am—not in the past, not on a blood-soaked pavement, but in a penthouse twenty-three stories above the city with a monster who burns down buildings to keep me safe.

I focus on his breathing. Watch his chest rise and fall. Try to match the rhythm even though my lungs are still hitching and my throat is still burning.

In. Out. In. Out.

Slowly, painfully, the panic attack releases its grip.

My hands unclench from my throat. My breathing evens out to something almost normal. The edges of my vision clear.

I'm still shaking. Still crying—when did I start crying? Silent tears streaming down my face the way they always do because I learned young that making sound when you're upset just draws attention you don't want.

Nikolai hasn't moved. Hasn't tried to grab me or hold me down or restrict my movements. He's just sitting there, patient and still, one hand still resting lightly on mine, maintaining that single point of contact that says I'm here, you're safe, I'm not leaving.

His eyes are studying my face with that terrible intensity. Cataloging every detail. Every tear. Every tremor. Filing it all away in whatever part of his brain stores information about me.

"Better?" he asks, his lips forming the word clearly.

I nod. It's a lie—I'm not better, I'm destroyed—but I'm functional. I can breathe. I can see. I can differentiate between past and present.

That's as good as better gets.

Nikolai reaches for the nightstand and pulls out my hearing aids—the expensive new ones he bought to replace the ones I broke during my panic attack. He hands them to me carefully, giving me the choice of whether to put them in.

I do. Because I need to hear him. Need the full sensory experience of his presence to fully convince my nervous system that I'm actually safe.

The hearing aids come online with a soft beep. Suddenly I can hear the climate control humming. The distant sound of traffic far below. Nikolai's steady breathing.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, his voice quiet and measured.

My hands move instinctively to sign no, but they freeze halfway through the gesture.

Because something is different tonight. Something about the nightmare—about Michael, about my voice, about the direct line between speaking up and someone dying—has cracked open the last sealed vault in my mind.

The one I've kept locked for eleven years.

The one that holds the real reason I stopped speaking.

And suddenly I can't keep it locked anymore. Can't keep carrying it alone. Can't keep pretending that my silence is just about trauma when it's about so much more than that.

Nikolai is watching me with that patient, predatory focus. Not pushing. Just waiting. Always waiting for me to come to him.

My hands start moving before I've consciously decided to sign. Shaking. Trembling. Barely able to form coherent shapes.

When I was seven, I sign, and my hands are shaking so badly I have to try three times before the gesture is clear enough.

Nikolai doesn't interrupt. Doesn't rush me. Just watches my hands with absolute attention.

I was in a foster home, I continue. With my foster brother Michael. He was twelve. He took care of me.

The signs are getting easier now that I've started. Like once the first seal broke, the rest are following.

There was a man. In the neighborhood. Bad man. I heard screaming from his house. Saw a woman with bruises.

Nikolai's expression doesn't change, but something flickers in his eyes. Something dark and dangerous.

I told the police, I sign. I used my voice. I spoke up. I thought I was being brave.

My hands pause. This is the hard part. The part I've never told anyone. The part that lives in the vault.

The man found out it was me who reported him, I sign, and tears are streaming down my face now. He found Michael walking me home from school. He—

My hands freeze. I can't form the signs. Can't make my fingers shape the words that describe what happened next.

But Nikolai understands anyway.

"He killed your brother," Nikolai says quietly. Not a question. A statement.

I nod, my whole body shaking now.

"As punishment," Nikolai continues, his voice still that same quiet, measured tone. "For you using your voice."

Another nod. My throat is so tight I couldn't speak even if my vocal cords worked properly.

My hands move again, finishing the story: Michael died because I spoke. Because I used my voice to tell the truth. My voice got him killed.

I sign it again, harder, more emphatic: My voice kills people.

The tears are coming faster now. Silent sobs that shake my whole body. Eleven years of guilt pouring out through my hands.

That's why I stopped speaking, I sign. Not just because of St. Catherine's. Because every time I use my voice, someone dies. First Michael. Then at St. Catherine's when I screamed, they hurt me worse. My voice is cursed. It's poison. It destroys everything.

I expect... I don't know what I expect. Comfort maybe. Pity. The kind of soft reassurance that people give when you tell them about childhood trauma.

That's not what I get.

Nikolai's entire expression changes. Not softening. Hardening. His emerald eyes go almost black—pupils dilating until there's barely any green left. His jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists where they're resting on his thighs.

He looks... hungry. Obsessed. Like I just told him something precious instead of something horrifying.

"Say that again," he says, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that makes my stomach flip.

I don't understand. My hands move hesitantly: Say what?

"That your voice kills people," he says, and there's something almost worshipful in his tone. "Sign it again."

I stare at him, completely confused. This isn't the response I expected. Not even close.

But I sign it anyway, because his intensity is overwhelming and I don't know what else to do: My voice is poison. It gets people killed.

Nikolai moves then. Fast. Fluid. He shifts positions until he's kneeling on the bed directly in front of me, close enough that I can see every detail of his face in the lamplight.

Then he raises both hands and cups my face between his palms.

Gentle. Careful. His touch warm and real and grounding.

"Listen to me very carefully, Butterfly," he says, his voice soft but absolutely certain. "Your voice is not a curse."

I try to shake my head but his hands hold me still. Not forcefully. Just... steady.

"Your voice is a weapon," he continues, and his eyes are boring into mine with terrifying intensity. "The most powerful weapon you possess. And from this moment forward, it belongs exclusively to me."

What? My hands try to move but they're trapped between our bodies.

"You stopped speaking because you learned that your voice has consequences," he says. "That when you speak, people die. That's not a curse, mon papillon. That's power."

His thumbs brush away the tears on my cheeks.

"Michael died because an evil man chose violence," he continues.

"Not because you spoke. The man at St. Catherine's hurt you because he was a predator.

Not because you screamed. The problem was never your voice.

The problem was that you were using it to ask for help from people who couldn't or wouldn't protect you. "

He leans forward slightly, close enough that I can feel his breath on my face.

"But I'm not those people," he says quietly. "I don't ignore. I don't fail to protect. I don't let threats continue to exist after they've revealed themselves."

One of his hands moves from my face to my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, his palm warm against the place where my voice lives trapped behind years of silence.

"So here's what's going to happen," he says, his voice taking on that commanding edge that makes my entire body respond. "You're going to stop thinking of your voice as something dangerous. Instead, you're going to understand it for what it really is—a trigger. My trigger."

I don't understand, I manage to sign with one shaking hand.

"Your voice will never be used for normal things," he explains, his eyes never leaving mine. "Not for ordering coffee or answering questions or making small talk. Those things are beneath what you are. Beneath what we are."

His hand presses slightly more firmly against my throat.

"Your voice will be reserved for one purpose only," he continues.

"To command me to destroy. When someone threatens you, when someone hurts you, when someone exists in a way that makes you uncomfortable—you will whisper their name to me.

Just like you whispered mine when Carter was hurting you. And I will make them disappear."

Oh god.

"Your voice is my weapon," he says, and there's something almost reverent in his tone. "The most beautiful, most powerful weapon I possess. When you speak, people die—not because you're cursed, but because I make sure of it. Because that's what I do. That's what I am."

He leans even closer, his forehead almost touching mine.

"So stop calling it a curse," he murmurs. "Stop thinking of it as something to be afraid of. Your voice is a crown, Butterfly. And you're going to learn to wear it."

I'm trembling for entirely different reasons now. Not panic. Something else. Something that feels like fear and arousal and recognition all twisted together.

He's not trying to comfort me. He's not trying to fix my trauma or convince me that my voice is safe or that I should start speaking normally.

He's taking my deepest shame—the thing I've been most afraid of for eleven years—and transforming it into something powerful. Something deliberate. Something mine.

He's turning my curse into a weapon.

And making himself the target.

"Do you understand, mon papillon?" he asks, his voice still that soft murmur that goes straight to my nervous system. "Do you understand what I'm offering you?"

My hands move shakily: You want me to... to use my voice to tell you who to hurt.

"Not hurt," he corrects. "Destroy. Completely. Permanently. The way I destroyed everyone at St. Catherine's. The way I destroyed Carter's ability to ever hurt someone again. The way I will destroy anyone who even looks at you wrong if you whisper their name to me."

His hand moves from my throat to my lips, his fingers tracing them gently.

"This mouth," he says quietly, "is going to learn that it holds absolute power over me. When you speak my name, I move. When you whisper what you want, I execute. When you give voice to your desires—for safety, for revenge, for anything—I make it reality."

I'm breathing too fast again. But not from panic this time. From something else entirely.

"So stop being afraid of your voice," he continues. "Start understanding that it's the most lethal thing you possess. And I'm the monster you've aimed it at."

Poison you? I sign, my hands barely steady enough to form the words. That's what you want, isn't it? For me to poison you with my voice?

Nikolai's smile is absolutely feral.

"Oui," he says. Yes. "Poison me, Butterfly. Whisper their names to me. Tell me who threatens you. Use your beautiful, broken voice to command me to destroy. That's what it's for. That's what I'm for."

He releases my face and sits back slightly, giving me space to breathe, to process, to understand what he's offering.

"You've been treating your voice like a curse for eleven years," he says. "Keeping it locked away. Refusing to use it because you're afraid of the consequences. But the consequences are only terrible when you're asking the wrong people for help."

His eyes lock onto mine with terrible intensity.

"I'm not the wrong person, Leah. I'm exactly the right person. Because I don't flinch at violence. I don't hesitate to destroy threats. I don't fail to protect what's mine. Your voice is safe with me because I'm the monster who makes sure its power is directed at the right targets."

He reaches out and takes both my hands in his, holding them firmly.

"From now on," he says, "when you speak—those rare, precious moments when you use your voice—it will be to command me.

To direct my violence. To point me at threats and watch me eliminate them.

That's what your voice is for now. Not ordering coffee.

Not making small talk. Not wasting itself on mundane things. "

His grip tightens slightly.

"Your voice is a weapon," he repeats. "And I'm teaching you to aim it."

I should be horrified. Should be pulling away. Should be recognizing this for what it is—psychological manipulation, taking my trauma and twisting it into something that serves his obsession.

But I'm not horrified.

I'm... relieved.

Because he's right. Every time I've used my voice in my life, something terrible has happened. Michael died. I was raped. Carter grabbed me and would have done worse if Nikolai hadn't intervened.

My voice is dangerous. That's just objective fact.

But Nikolai is offering me something I've never had: control over that danger. Direction for that power. Instead of my voice being something that randomly causes destruction, it becomes something I wield deliberately.

Instead of being afraid of what might happen if I speak, I become certain of what will happen.

Someone will die.

But only the people who deserve it.

Only the people I choose.

My hands move slowly, testing this new understanding: So if I whisper a name to you...

"They stop existing," Nikolai confirms. "Quickly. Permanently. Completely. The way Daniel Mercer stopped existing. The way Carter Morrison's athletic career stopped existing. The way anyone who threatens you will stop existing."

And I'm supposed to... to just accept that? Accept that my voice is a murder weapon?

"Your voice was always a murder weapon," he corrects. "You've known that since you were seven. I'm just making sure it's aimed at the right people instead of rebounding on you."

He releases one of my hands to cup my face again.

"You're not cursed, mon papillon," he says softly. "You're powerful. And power needs direction. I'm offering to be that direction. Your personal monster. Your executioner. Your reaper."

His thumb traces my cheekbone.

"All you have to do is speak."

I stare at him for a long moment. At this beautiful, empty-eyed monster who just took my deepest trauma and turned it into a crown. Who looked at the thing I'm most ashamed of and called it power.

Who wants me to use my voice—the voice I've been terrified of for eleven years—to command him to kill.

It's sick. Twisted. Absolutely fucked up.

And God help me, it makes sense.

Because he's right. I've been treating my voice like something dangerous that needs to be locked away. But locking it away hasn't made me safer. It's just made me silent while the world continued to hurt me.

Maybe it's time to stop being silent.

Maybe it's time to start using the weapon I've been carrying all along.

Maybe it's time to poison the monster who's been begging me to.

My hands move, signing slowly: What if I don't want anyone dead right now? What if there's no threat?

Nikolai's smile is gentle. "Then you don't speak. You stay silent like you have been. Your voice is reserved for when you need me to destroy something. When you're ready to watch me eliminate a threat. When you want to exercise the power you've been afraid of."

He strokes my hair back from my face.

"I'm not asking you to speak more, Butterfly. I'm asking you to understand what it means when you do speak. To stop being afraid of the consequences and start directing them. Your silence is still yours. Your voice is still yours. I'm just teaching you what to do with it when you choose to use it."

The tears have stopped now. I'm just... processing. Trying to integrate this new understanding of something that's defined my entire existence for over a decade.

My voice isn't a curse. It's a weapon. And Nikolai is volunteering to be the blade I wield.

"Come here," he says softly, tugging me forward.

I go without resistance, letting him pull me against his chest. His arms wrap around me—secure but not restrictive, protective but not controlling. One hand strokes my hair in slow, steady movements.

"You're safe," he murmurs. "The nightmare can't touch you here. Michael's death wasn't your fault. Your voice didn't kill him—an evil man did. And that man is dead now, isn't he?"

My hands still, then sign against his chest: How do you know?

"Because I looked into your history the moment you told me about the police report," he says calmly.

"Found the case file. Found the man. Found that he died in prison six years ago—stabbed by another inmate.

So he already paid for what he did to Michael.

You don't need to carry guilt for his crime. "

He didn't have to do that. Didn't have to research my past or track down what happened to a man who hurt me over a decade ago.

But he did. Because that's what he does. He finds threats and eliminates them, even historical ones.

"Sleep now," he says, his hand still stroking my hair. "No more nightmares tonight. I'm here. I'm always here. And your voice is safe with me."

I nod against his chest, feeling the tension drain out of my body. The nightmare is fading. Michael's ghost is quieting.

And in its place is something new. Something that feels like power wrapped in violence wrapped in protection.

My voice is a weapon.

And I'm holding it to the throat of the most dangerous man I've ever met.

But instead of being afraid, I feel safe.

Because he wants me to pull the trigger.

He's begging me to poison him.

And maybe—just maybe—that's exactly what I need.

A monster who turns my curse into a crown and asks me to wear it.

I close my eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart against my ear, feeling his arms solid and warm around me.

And for the first time since I was seven years old, I don't hate my voice.

I don't fear it.

I just... own it.

My weapon. My power. My trigger aimed at the Reaper Prince who's waiting patiently for me to pull it.

Sleep comes easier after that. Deep and dreamless and safe.

Because the monster holding me just convinced me that I'm the dangerous one.

And somehow, that makes everything better.