Authors: J.L. Weil
“Just breathe,” he whispered, rubbing my back.
The touch of his hand was comforting. “I’m okay. Keep going. I want to know more.” Screw the ignorance blinders. I wanted to be able to protect myself. Protect my family. “You said you train.”
He nodded. “All reapers have particular skills.”
“What are yours?”
“I’m deadly and precise. I’m never sick and I heal. But my specialty is I can manipulate shadows, blend with them, use them, control them.”
“Can
you
die?”
“Yes, I’m not immortal, but I resist most injuries. I would have to be gravely hurt, so close to death that my body wouldn’t be able to heal.”
That sounded gruesome.
Restless, I shot up and started pacing the room. This can’t be real. Reapers. Hallows. Spirits. Millions of notions swarmed my head with each step. Ideas I never thought of before. My mom. Her murder. Was this connected? Had one of these so-called reapers taken her from me?
“Piper, slow down.” He placed a hand on my cheek. I hadn’t even seen him move. “Look at me,” he demanded. “I know what you are thinking, and I don’t know the answer.”
My eyes lifted on their own accord, powerless to stop it. “Zane, everything you’re telling me, I know in my gut that it’s connected to my mom.” There was nothing he could say that would convince me otherwise. My emotions clogged any rational explanation at this point.
His eyes darkened. “There’s more.”
I shut my eyes. More? Could I handle more? The grip on my control was held by a thread, but I was too strong to fall apart now, had been through too much. My lashes fluttered open. He was so close I felt his minty breath on my face—tasted his scent. And for a minute I forgot that he had something more to tell me.
Nodding, I pressed a hand to his chest, letting him know I was ready. He looked into my eyes and—
The bedroom door swung open, and I gasped, jumping away from Zane like I had something to feel guilty about, which I didn’t. My eyes whipped to the doorway.
Joy
.
Just what I needed.
The look on Rose’s face was one of pure annoyance. A tremble of power seemed to vibrate through the room, but I couldn’t see it. Still, the hairs on my arms stood up, and I automatically rubbed my fingers up and down my shoulders.
“Zane, I think you’ve overstepped your welcome,” Rose barked, a glint of disapproval in her mossy eyes.
Hell-to-the-no. She was not going to kick him out, over my dead body. “You can’t just barge in here and demand he leaves.” If there was one thing I hated, it was adults telling me what I could and couldn’t do. They all thought they knew what was best for me, yet I was the only one who knew what I was feeling and what I needed.
Right now, I wanted Zane to stay. We weren’t finished. I had many, many more questions, and I couldn’t shake the hunch that Rose’s unseemly arrival wasn’t unseemly at all. How convenient. She showed up just in time to prevent Zane from revealing information about my family. I just knew it.
“Piper, I should go,” he said.
My hand shot out and suctioned cupped to his forearm. “Oh, no you’re not.” I turned to Rose, shooting daggers. “Are you spying on me?”
She gasped. Hell of an actress. “How could you think that?”
“I don’t know,” I said mockingly. “Maybe because this house has a security system more high tech than the White House. Because you’re a paranoid old lady. Or because there is a friggin’ intercom in my bedroom. Have you never heard of privacy?”
Her chin lifted. “I do not know what kind of rules your mother allowed in her house, but here, boys are not allowed behind closed doors.”
My expression turned sour. “You can choke on your rules.” I think Rose and I were about to have our first fight, over Zane nonetheless.
In my room now, Rose took up the whole space. “I will not be disrespected in my home.” It could have been my rage, but Rose was glowing, a whitish aura surrounded her outline like a halo.
WTF?
Unsure, I took step closer to Zane. “It wasn’t my choice to be here, remember? Maybe it’s best I leave.” With that bold statement, I whirled around, intending to grab both Zane and my car keys, except…
My eyes did a quick scan of the room, just catching a flash of dark hair slip out the terrace. Zane had bailed on me and was bolting down the stairs.
Coward
.
“Zane!” I yelled, running out the double doors after him. Standing on the balcony, I watched the rain pepper down on the grass. Then he faded away like a chalk portrait, washed away by the storm. “Dammit,” I muttered. Oh, he was going to pay for leaving me.
Drenched, cold, and fuming, the rain literally sizzled off my skin. I retuned inside where it was dry and faced Rose with an accusatory glare. I huffed and puffed, ready to blow the house down. “How could you treat him like that? Like he was pond scum?”
Her posture straightened, the ivory material of her dress covering her feet. “I did no such thing. The Hunters are personal friends of mine.”
“I just bet. You don’t have friends. They are all peons beneath your station. Puppets for you to string about,” I said, going in for the kill.
She softened her eyes, reaching out to touch my cheek. I jerked away. Her hand fell slowly to her side. “Whether you believe it or not, I am looking out for your best interest, Piper. Zane is not the kind of guy your mother would want to see her daughter with.”
Low blow.
Laser beams shot from my eyeballs. “You don’t know anything about my mom.”
Her sigh was quite audible. “But I do know Zane a whole lot better than you. He is reckless, dangerous, and unstable. Not someone I want alone with my only granddaughter.”
I snorted. “Sounds like you don’t know him at all. He saved me.”
She lifted one perfectly groomed brow.
There. That shut her up. “Yeah, you heard me. Two guys came looking for me. I don’t know why, but Zane wouldn’t let them near me. They fought, and if it weren’t for Zane, I would probably be in a ditch somewhere, my picture splashed on the local newspaper. Is that what you want?”
A sharp intake of breath sounded in the room. Rose was stunned. “Interesting.”
My mouth hit the floor. “I tell you that two guys attacked me, and you think the fact that Zane came to my defense is just interesting? I think that says something about his character, and even more about yours.”
“Regardless, I am not surprised that he was able to properly hold his own. He was always a scrapper.” The last word rolled off her tongue in a censuring tone.
I bit my lip. What I wanted to say was…
He fought so well because he isn’t human, Grams. He’s a trained weapon, a death reaper, born from the blood and flesh of the Grim Reaper. Wrap your silver head around that.
But I was pretty sure this was a secret I needed to keep, for Zane’s protection and my own. So instead I said, “You’re a joke.”
She matched my pitch. “You are not to leave this house. Is that understood?”
“Crystal.” Not that I actually planned to abide by her rules, but I couldn’t have her breathing down my neck.
Not only was I frustrated and angry at Rose, but at Zane as well. What a dick move to leave me to deal with Queen Snob on my own. He could have stayed, or I would have left with him. At least then I might have gotten to hear what else he had to say.
The door slammed shut, and I was left to stew.
~*~*~
“What’s the story with you and python arms?” TJ asked, sinking into the mahogany leather couch beside me. His hair was slightly greasy like he hadn’t showered in a day or two. Boys. At TJ’s age they were just gross.
I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “It’s a short story called mind your own business.”
TJ’s lips lifted in a smirk he tried to resist. “You’re my sister. It’s my biz-wax.”
I sat forward. “You don’t really want to know the details of my love life.”
He snatched the remote off the couch where I had tossed it an hour ago. “He sounds like a douche, just your type.”
“I take it you heard Rose and me?”
Kicking back, he placed his bare feet on the coffee table, linking his hands behind his head. “The whole island heard you.”
I groaned. “Fabulous.” Reclining, I lay my head back, turning toward TJ. “He’s not as bad as she makes him out to be.” Twice in one day I found myself jumping to Zane’s defense, and I didn’t really know why.
What gives?
I didn’t know how I felt anymore. I hated him. I wanted him. My feelings were day and night, ranging from one extreme to the next in a blink. Finding out he was a supernatural destroyer of souls should have skewed my emotions one way or the other. It hadn’t. I still found Zane provoking, mysterious, but underneath his moody, cockiness was a primal protectiveness I found sexy. He captivated me.
“Of course
you
would say that. You want to jump his bones,” TJ said.
I smacked him on the back of the head. “Watch your language.”
His shoulders tensed. “Please. Stop trying to be Mom.”
Ouch. That stung. It was an offhanded comment, but my first reaction was to tie his arm behind his back and smash his face into the ground until he screamed “uncle.” Brothers sucked. “Someone has to remind you to put the toilet seat down.”
Something flickered across TJ’s face—worry. “Are you going to see
him
again?”
It took a few seconds to respond. “You know that saying, there is more than meets the eye?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”
I pressed my hands to my knees. “Well, it perfectly defines Zane. No matter what you heard, he is not dangerous.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t ask questions I can’t answer. If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” I teased. Logical explanations had gone out the window the moment I learned that Zane was other than human—a death weapon.
“You are so lame.” He twiddled with a frayed piece of string hanging from the end of his shorts. “I don’t like it when you fight. You’re going to get us sent home.”
I huffed a little, my nerves shot. “And that would be so bad?”
“I like it here.” There was just the teensiest whine in his voice.
“You like being waited on hand and foot,” I said. “Don’t you miss your friends? Your room?”
He shrugged.
And I got it. Here, there were no reminders of what we had lost. It was easier to forget the pain, forget the sorrow. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to be happy. At home my father moped around. I had left every chance I’d gotten for those same reasons, to drown my agony at the clubs with Parker. But TJ…he had been stuck.
For TJ, I’d try. And by try I meant, I would try harder to not get caught doing things that ruffled Her Majesty’s feathers. “Want to watch a movie on Netflix and have the kitchen make us popcorn?” I asked.
“
Zombieland
?” we both said simultaneously.
Snatching the remote control before TJ, I sprawled out on the couch with a smile on my lips. I needed a serious distraction—what better than a zombie movie with my kid brother? He needed it, too.
When the movie ended, TJ was snoring logs on the couch. I grabbed one of the knitted blankets and lay it over him. A piece of popcorn tumbled from my hair, hitting the carpet, and I smiled. TJ and I had spent the first half of the movie inconspicuously pelting each other with popcorn bombs.
My hair was a buttery, salty mess. Not exactly a hair treatment my hairdresser would approve of. I had waited until TJ had dozed off before breaking out my cell phone. Zane was on my hit list.
Waste of time. He ignored my texts, including my pleas to meet up tonight.
Asshole.
Screw Rose’s rules. I needed to know what else he had to tell me. The unknown was eating me up inside. My finger hovered over his name, and just as I was about to call, my phone dinged.
It was Parker.
Hey. You fall off the planet?
I wasn’t sure Raven Hallow was even in the same universe.
Something like that
,
I texted him back.
Everything okay?
Rolling over on my back, I thought about his question. I was far from okay, but doing my best to pretend otherwise. The thing with Parker, I didn’t have to pretend.
No. But what else is new?
Miss you.
Ditto.
I watched the screen drain to black. Texting Parker brought back memories of us in high school. The two of us staying up late, scrambling to finish assignments I had put off until the very last second. Procrastination was my middle name. Parker was the smartest guy I knew. He was like the Einstein of Phillips Academy High School. Being miles away from him made me realize how much I had depended on Parker.
The phone flashed again.
Wanna talk about it?
Normally, he was the only person I could talk to, and Parker might idolize Marvel superheroes, but there was no way I would ever get him to believe that Raven Hallow was filled with supernaturals. Anyway, the person I needed to talk to didn’t have the decency to respond.
Not tonight. Rain check?
On standby.
’Nite.
I set the phone aside and just lay there, concocting a variety of harebrained schemes. I had a pretty vivid imagination, and without Zane to fill in the blanks, my mind did a colorful job, all of which led down a dark, troublesome path. Good thing I liked trouble.