Reaper's Dark Kiss

by Ryssa Edwards

  There were no torches here. Shadow Worlders could almost see in the dark. Flickering torches below would be disorienting as they navigated the narrow way down.

  “Big crypt,” Sky said, looking around as if she could see. “Lots of night in here.”

  Harli was off to their left, barely visible, even to Julian’s eyes. “Az—” For Harli to slip like that, Marek had ripped into him badly. Harli’s tight panicked voice broke off, and he started again. “I tried to wait for you but —”

  “You know better,” Julian said. “An hour before dawn, you go for cover.”

  “I wanted to know you were okay.” Harli ducked his head. He was acting the way he always did when Marek lashed out at him. “Do you have your phone?”

  “I turned it off,” Julian said. “What does Marek want?”

  “He’s been asking where you were. You missed your day check-in. He’s—” Julian saw Harli’s glance cut to Sky. “He’s waiting for you.”

  That brought Julian up short. “Marek’s here?” he asked.

  “He flew,” Harli said.

  And he didn’t mean on a plane, Julian knew. Marek flying to New York under his own power meant only one thing. He was heading off a crisis.

  “Is the council in session?” Julian didn’t think it was possible.

  “They’re all here,” Harli said.

  “Something wrong?” Sky asked.

  Julian cut the raw edge that had roughened his voice. “No,” he said to Sky, then spoke to Harli. “Tell him Sky’s with me. And I—”

  “He said for me to call him when your feet touched dirt.” Harli looked down, the color fading from his cheeks in shame. “I have to, Julian.”

  The burns on Julian’s face were eating into him, and Sky was anxious beside him, but he couldn’t leave Harli like this. He rested a calming hand on the back of Harli’s thick neck and said, “You do what Marek tells you.” He waited for Harli to look up at him. “No trouble between you and me over what he orders you to do. Understand?”

  A quick smile came and went on Harli’s young face. “I’ll wait awhile till I call. Signal can be bad down here.”

  Julian squeezed his neck before he let go, took Sky’s hand, and guided her into the sun hotel. Over his shoulder he said, “Harli?”

  “Yeah, Julian?”

  “Get that stud out of your ear before Marek comes after me about it.”

  * * * *

  Not going to lose it, Sky promised herself. Going to stay calm.

  She couldn’t escape the feeling she was in a giant, heavy-lidded coffin. The low-burning torches they passed were as powerless against the gloom as a four-watt flashlight in a blackout. Julian navigated the inky islands of black between torches as if he were walking down a city street in broad daylight.

  “You have to check in?” Sky asked, mostly to push back the eerie silence.

  “My brother worries a lot,” Julian said.

  He was slipping into his habit of ducking questions. Part of Sky wanted to press for answers. But she remembered the look on Julian’s face when he’d said, “No more lies.” In that moment, if Sky had demanded all the answers, Julian would have given her chapter and verse, down to the letter, even if he’d been on fire like a torch by the last word. She could wait.

  As if he’d remembered his promise, Julian said, “At sunrise, someone in the Creed has to report to my brother where I am.”

  Before Sky could ask about the Creed, Julian stopped moving. Something heavy scraped along the ground in front of them, stone on stone. Candles sprang to life, revealing a room that could have been in any ten-thousand-dollar-a-night hotel except for one thing. There were no windows.

  Julian beckoned Sky in, then nodded at the wall behind her. A section of it closed, making the scraping sound Sky had heard, sealing them in.

  “You can move things without touching them?”

  “If I’m close enough.”

  Her eyes on the candles that were still coming to life, Sky said, “And make fire?”

  “Not exactly,” Julian said, slipping out of his leather duster and throwing it over a chair to the low sound of clattering steel. “I make the wicks hot. They burn.”

  He touched his face and winced. Sky went to Julian and saw marks across his cheek, as if an animal had clawed at him. No. Not an animal. She remembered the tiny rays of sunlight on the way down. “Why didn’t you fly us down faster?” She ran her fingers over his face, avoiding the burns.

  “I didn’t want you scared.”

  Maybe Sky could have ducked the warm feeling she got when Julian was near. Maybe she could have ignored the growing need to feel his lips against hers. But an undeniable truth was rising in her: for the first time in her life, she was thinking about letting go…and just falling. And he didn’t even throw a shadow in moonlight. “You’re pretty amazing,” she said.

  Turning his face away like a boy who couldn’t bear a compliment, Julian said, “It’s a hotel for mortals up top. I can order food if you’re hungry.”

  Questions flooded in on Sky. Who was Marek? What was the Creed? And why wasn’t Julian returning the messages he was scrolling through on his phone? But she held out against the story trying to take shape in her mind. Sky wanted to get to know Julian and his world, not turn this into an exclusive interview.

  She turned in a full circle, taking in the room. It was luxury from another age. The crimson carpet was soft under her leather boots, plush. Candles in niches splashed shallow pools of light over unfinished gray stone walls. A tall wardrobe made of deeply stained pine stood guard in a corner. Wooden chairs carved from teak with emerald-green cushions were tall and elegant against the walls. A mahogany desk about half the size of a formal dining table crowded one corner. Scrolls of parchments littered the scratched top. A working desk, the writer in Sky noted.

  The four-poster bed was wide enough to sleep seven. Round black marble pillars dented the carpet and went up for at least eight feet. Torches capped the pillars. Wavering firelight encircled the bed. The sheets were folded back. Plump pillows in tasseled black velvet pillowcases lay neatly against the mahogany headboard. Someone had turned down the bed.

  The curved purple marble canopy made Sky catch her breath. Was that the last thing Julian saw before he fell asleep? A single ruby eye glimmered from a gold skull. Its mouth gaped in a scream. An ivory-handled silver dagger was thrust through the left eye, which jetted a stream of tiny glittering rubies.

  “Who’s your decorator?” Sky asked, unnerved by the reminder of what Julian had done in the alley. “Screams 4 You?”

  “I’ll get it changed if you don’t like it,” Julian said absently from behind her.

  Okay, then. Alvina was right. Tonight in that alley, my whole life changed.

  Julian’s phone gave a soft double beep. He answered it as he walked over to Sky. “Yeah,” he said, “she’s with me.”

  As soon as Sky recognized CJ’s voice on the other end, she panicked. She’d forgotten to text.

  Sky watched Julian’s face. He wasn’t surprised at CJ’s call. Not at all. What the hell? Had CJ broken his promise about spying on Julian? Her panic turned to resentment, then anger. She was bone tired of her brother’s interfering ways. When was CJ going to stop targeting his sights on her goddamn life? She launched herself at Julian and grabbed for the phone, but he held her back, one-handed, talking calmly into the phone. “She won’t text for a while,” he said, ducking Sky’s fingers. “She’ll be with me.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Sky said. “Give me the phone.”

  “She says to tell you she’s okay,” Julian said, staying beyond Sky’s reaching grip. “Yeah. I’ll let her know.”

  After he ended the call, Sky glared at him. “When did you talk to him before?”

  Instead of answering, Julian retreated and said, “He says to tell you ‘Love you, little sister.’”

  “You said you’d tell me everything.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Julian said.


  “You said no more lies.”

  “I haven’t lied.”

  “Don’t do this, Julian.”

  “Your brother’s a warrior, Sky. He’s honorable. All he wants is for you to be safe. I told him you were with me.”

  “And that’s it? He just said, ‘Great. Sky’s with some guy with no last name who I don’t know. Fine. Talk to you soon.’”

  Julian broke into one of his heart-stopping smiles and said, “I’m good like that.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Not right now. You’re too angry.”

  Sky didn’t know how to get out of Night Crypt, and she couldn’t just storm out of Julian’s room, because she couldn’t open the door. But she could make him open it. He was already looking like he was thinking up peace offerings. Then she thought about it. Because of CJ, Sky could stand up to anyone in her life. He’d given her plenty of practice. But when it came to him, he always won. But not tonight. For the first time in Sky’s life, someone had stopped CJ butting into her life. She decided that for now, she’d let that be good enough.

  “Don’t think I’ll forget to ask you about it.”

  “I know you won’t.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What’s all over your desk?” Sky hoped her voice sounded casual, not like she was giving in.

  “You get e-mail. I get scroll mail,” Julian said. He turned to the stone slab as if someone were standing there. “What?” he said.

  Sky didn’t hear anything, but after a second Julian said, “Yes,” and the stone slab slid aside. The one Julian had called Harli was there. He was young-looking and bulked up like a college jock.

  He was a couple of inches shorter than Julian, and he didn’t have what Sky thought of as a kill streak. If Julian was forced to, he’d kill and worry about it later. Harli looked like he might beat a guy to a pulp, but he’d leave him alive. “Marek says for you to come now. And to bring—” Harli hesitated, as if he’d forgotten something. “And to bring the female.”

  “SkyLynne,” Julian said.

  “Sorry,” Harli said. “What’s your brother mad about this time?”

  “Maybe the sun came up too early,” Julian said. He turned to Sky. “Ready to meet the family?”

  She went along with the light tone Julian tried for and said, “As long as I’m not for dinner.”

  In the uneven glow of the torches they passed, Julian’s body was tense. He was so lost in his thoughts, his eyes were half-glazed over.

  “How long’s Night Crypt been here?” Sky asked, trying to draw him out.

  He flicked his eyes her way but said nothing.

  “What is it?” Sky asked softly.

  “Family secret.” Julian stopped and turned to her, pulling Sky close. “And family secrets have a price.” He leaned in and kissed her, rubbing his lips tenderly against hers. Sky gave herself to his kiss, sensing a pent-up need in Julian that made her hot to be with him, naked, anywhere. Now.

  “Was that a down payment?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. He kissed her cheek, ran his gaze down her body in a slow way that made Sky sure he was seeing way past her clothes. “I’ll collect the balance later.”

  Sky’s nipples went stiff. She cleared her throat. “So…a long time?”

  “Night Crypt’s been around since the time the underground trains started,” Julian said but didn’t offer any more.

  They were walking again, and even though Sky’s body was all but throbbing with desire, she knew Julian had sidetracked her. “What does your brother want?” she asked softly.

  “I’m not losing you, Sky,” he said, his voice slow, deliberate. “Doesn’t matter what my brother says. Remember that.”

  She squeezed his hand tight a moment, then let go. They rounded a curve that ended in a tall wooden door. Beside her, Sky felt Julian grow even tenser as the door opened on soundless hinges.

  Julian said to Harli, “Stay out here.” Then he took Sky’s hand.

  As they entered, candles came to light. Once they were inside, the man behind the desk looked up, and the door shut behind them. “I’m Marek,” he said, coming to his feet and extending a hand, “ruler of the Western Shadow World Empire.”

  His handshake was self-assured without being arrogant. Marek wore a black mock turtleneck sweater and tailored gray wool trousers. His black hair was pulled back into a ponytail held by a leather ring at his nape. He was tall, well-muscled, and he moved with the honed grace of a fighting man. He had the same kill streak as his brother. Maybe it ran in the family.

  They were in a roughly circular cavern with a ceiling not more than eight feet high. The walls and floor were black stone. Candles stood in cast-iron candelabras on outcroppings that jutted from the walls. The desk was made of cherrywood planks, weathered with age.

  “Please,” Marek said, indicating one of two straight-backed wooden chairs in front of his desk.

  With a quick look at Julian, who remained standing, Sky sat on the edge of a cushioned seat. Julian moved behind the chair, slightly to Sky’s left.

  “Welcome to our family, SkyLynne.” Marek’s voice was smooth with the ease of years of talking and getting his way. “I regret our first meeting is under such difficult circumstances.” He turned his gaze on Julian. “Kraeyl was here.”

  Julian shifted closer to Sky, who had the strange feeling he’d somehow grown bigger, harder, unimaginably stronger. “I saw Vandar tonight. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

  “No, brother,” Marek said, taking a seat behind his desk. “It is my good fortune that he will live to see another moonrise.”

  Sky saw the obvious effort it took for Julian to hold his temper in check. “Sky isn’t part of the contract.”

  “What contract?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Julian said. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “You’re familiar with the old Roman Empire?” Marek asked Sky, his deep hazel- eyed gaze settling on her.

  “Enough not to sound like an idiot,” Sky said. “CCR—conquer, colonize, rule.”

  An approving smile crossed Marek’s face. “Well said. The Shadow World Empire is similar. We have quadrants. Perhaps you could say we are CCS—conquer, colonize, subdivide.”

  Thoughts filled Sky’s mind. The Shadow World Empire was like the Roman Empire. Revenants were Shades who had been mortal once. Remnants were Shades who had never been mortal. The Dominion was in rebellion against the Empire. And how did she suddenly know all that?

  “Stop,” Julian said. “You’re using Influence.”

  “Did you just put thoughts in my head?” Sky asked Marek.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Marek said. “I made it simple for you to use your knowledge of the Roman Empire to understand the Shadow World.”

  “The whole way you live is about to change.” Right. “There’s dissension,” Sky said, sifting through the new thoughts gathered in her head. “Not everybody wants the same agenda?”

  “Our ‘agenda’ as you call it is the Creed.” He pressed his palms to the desk and spread his fingers. “If all of the empire is my two hands, you may think of Dominion vampires as my smallest finger on my left hand.”

  “Connected, but not in line with what the hands want,” Sky said.

  “We give the Dominion contracts in a quadrant.” Sky knew from Julian’s voice that he’d lost patience with Marek’s history lecture. “After a century, the contract expires, and they can negotiate a new one.”

  “During the time of the contract,” Marek picked up smoothly, “they may claim mortals as blood slaves for a period of five years at a time.”

  “And Vandar’s leader of the Dominion?” Sky asked.

  “Yes,” Marek said. “He believes he has a better way of living in the Sun World.”

  “And he wants me because my blood is some kind of gold, right?”

  “I said you don’t have to worry about it.” Julian turned to his brother. “You said no. I’m sayi
ng no. Why are we still talking about it?”

  “I’ve signed the contract binder,” Marek said quietly.

  Julian flung himself into the other chair. Sky got that feeling again, as if something were just under his skin, something big and incredibly strong, the ultimate warrior. “How could you do that with the bodies stacking up in the park, Marek?”

  “We have no proof, brother.” Marek rose to his feet and slid his hands into his trousers pockets. He paced the narrow space between his desk and the wall behind it. “Kraeyl made poorly veiled threats before the council that the Dominion War would be repeated if the Moon Treaty that ended them was not honored. They approved the contract. I had to make a decision.”

  “The bodies in the park?” Sky said, struggling to keep up. “This Vandar guy is the Fang Killer?”

  “Correct,” Marek said and gave Sky a politician’s charming smile. “But as king, I must turn my efforts to avoiding a second Shadow World civil war.”

  “I don’t care what you signed,” Julian said. “Sky’s not going with Vandar.”

  “Unfortunately, brother,” Marek said, “I have no choice in the matter.”

  A terrifying sound came from Julian, a growl that made Sky think of an enraged wolf, ears laid back, looking for a soft place to sink in teeth and rip out flesh.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Julian?” Sky couldn’t get her voice much above a whisper. “You’re really scaring me.” She took a quick breath. “Plus, you’re not making me think you know a way to stop me going on the Vandar Gold Exchange.”

  In an instant, Julian was down on one knee, beside her, caressing her cheek, kissing her forehead. “You’re not going on any exchange,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

  This was why Sky was so in love with Julian. The look on his face said he’d go through the fires of hell before he let her go with Vandar. She stroked fingers gently through his hair, catching his gaze with hers, and oh God, didn’t she just want to melt when he was this close?

  “Take her where you will,” Marek said in a quiet voice. “Tomorrow, at noon, by the terms of the contract, SkyLynne must be turned over to Vandar, or we will be at war with the Dominion.”