Calling on the Reaper (The Reapers #1)

by Haley Tyler

I took a small step forward, but Raven’s hand tightened again on my wrist. Her hand was a collar, her arm a leash, keeping me in check.

I found myself staring up at the starless void wishing I was with her instead. It wasn’t her I wanted—not her vessel. It was her soul. Her entire being. It was her. It was fucking ridiculous.

I should be totally invisible to her. Then why did I feel stripped bare with her eyes on mine?

Then, a warmth I didn’t fully understand and didn’t want to examine too closely bloomed through my chest. She knew I’d come back for her, that I hadn’t left her.

I could barely see the ground from where I was. The cars and trees looked like toys, and the people looked like ants. I was so high, I could’ve reached up and ran my fingers through Heaven.

We were supposed to go out tonight to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday. Instead, I was here, about to fall to my death to meet Death again. Would she hate me? I’d hate me if I was her. I was going to miss her more than anything else, but if I didn’t do this, I knew I’d miss him more.

He had to think of me daily, just as I’d thought of him. He had to dream about me, get off to me, live his life just so he could see me again.

It was beautiful, but I mostly chose it because it reminded me of his cloak. I wanted to match him. I wanted to look like him. I wanted to show him that I was his.

The rooftop seemed so small when he was there with me. The world seemed so small when I was next to him. Now, I felt lost and cold in this big city, in the even bigger world, in the infinite universe, without him.

“That wasn’t the question,” I growled. “I’m fucking you in your bed. I want you to think about me every night when you’re lying in it, trying to fall asleep.”

“Do I know you?” she whispered. “I swear—” She shook her head. “Never mind.” “No, you don’t know me,” I said. Another half-lie. She didn’t know Mason. “But tonight, you will. Tonight, you’ll know me better than anyone else ever has, and I’m going to know you.”

Maybe if he hadn’t left immediately afterward, it wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe if he would’ve helped me figure out what to do, or let me go with him, or…if he just wouldn’t have abandoned me that night, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.

Could Grim even be considered a man as a Reaper? He was definitely masculine, but did that mean he was a man? He certainly had the audacity of one.

It should’ve scared me. He should’ve scared me, but there was something in his eyes that kept me grounded. There was a promise of safety in them I didn’t understand.

He was deathly still, barely breathing, and it gave me an odd sense of power to know I was having this effect on him. He was helpless to do anything but watch me.

Black hoodie, black jeans, black sneakers. No one dressed like that. Well, I did, but he was a creep, and when a creepy guy wore all black, it usually meant he was up to no good, right?

But this is what she needed, and I found myself wanting to give her any and everything. Even if I had to give something up in return.

I didn’t care about having a soul if she wasn’t my mate.

I’ve been with you every day for the last six months. I know you, Raven. I fucking know you. The only thing you need to know about me is that I’m fucking obsessed with you. I live and breathe to be around you. I survive to be with you. I haven’t found a way to end my fucking existence because of you, because you’re my fucking soul. The little shreds of it I have left,” he rubbed his chest, “they’re yours. My sole reason to exist is you.”

The gentle way he was looking at me made my heart stutter.

Why did he feel more like home than anywhere I’d ever been before?

“For the record, even if we’re not soulmates, you’re still mine. You’ll always be mine,”

We stared at each other, and I felt like I was falling into his depthless black eyes. It was the same way I’d felt the first time our eyes had met before he’d killed my stepfather. I’d felt it when I met his gaze across the club when he was just Mason. He always held me captive—Mason or Grim, it didn’t matter. It was still him.

She pretended to not care, to be heartless, like nothing bothered her, but she felt everything.

“That’s it, baby. Fight me. You know it turns me on.”

“Let me go,” she cried. That was it. Those three words were enough to make me want to burn the fucking planet.

“I think I fell in love with you the moment you killed my stepfather,” I said honestly. “I fell in love with you when I saw you ride your dildo while you choked yourself with a scarf,” he said seriously. My mouth fell open, then I threw my head back and laughed. “What the fuck? You saw that?” I shook my head. “That can’t be the moment. Choose a different one.” “Nope,” he said, grinning. “That’s the moment. I saw you make yourself come, and I thought, ‘yeah, that’s the girl I’m going to marry one day.”

“I told you, I’d looked for you since the night you killed him,” I said quietly. “I knew what that meant. I knew finding you meant I would die. I accepted it when I was ten years old, Mason. I don’t need to mourn my mortal life. I already did that.”

It made me bristle, the way he seemed to be looking down on Grim. On us both. I knew I wasn’t good enough to be here, good enough to be with him, but this asshole had no right to look at my Grim like he was nothing.

I couldn’t imagine ever letting her go. In that moment, with her in my arms, everything calmed. Everything, all the bullshit of my eight-hundred years, the last fifteen years, all of it, was worth it for this exact moment.