by Zoey Woods
He thrust me aside. My back struck a metal column. Searing pain lanced through my spine.
After barely a glance at me, he turned back to the men. I couldn’t let him do this. Couldn’t let him take any of men. They were mine and I was theirs.
I forced myself up, bending over slightly as my back seized. “I accept the duty as the Moirae’s reaper. I am ready to serve.”
“You’re too late.” Chaos laughed.
Darkness pressed in around me. I felt hopeless and helpless. Like a Cat5 Hurricane was coming directly at me and there was no escape. No way to survive.
My heart trembled. I’d lost. Lost my weapon, my men, and soon even my undead life. Chaos would rule. No one could stop him. There wasn’t anything that could—wait. Even the gods were subject to Fate.
I hobbled forward to Patrick and Finn. This was a long shot, but it was the best chance we had.
The scythe swung in the air. I wasn’t going to reach them in time.
Suddenly, I was in front of them. I’d teleported!
A hiss of air broke my euphoria. The blade was coming down straight at Patrick and Finn. I straightened, ignoring the twinge in my back. I held up both hands then clamped them down on the blade.
The scythe kept coming, it’s tip pressed down into my sternum. I fell to my knees. My breaths shallow. Blackness darkening the edge of my vision.
Chapter 22
“No,” Chaos yelled.
The scythe sunk inside me, vanishing. Pain erupted. I crumpled into a ball. Every nerve, every cell screamed inside me. I was being gutted from the inside out.
Chaos snatched me up by my throat, shaking me. I clawed at his hand, but I was too weak with the scythe slicing through every one of my atoms to put up much of a fight.
“Let her go,” David growled from behind me.
I choked out a cough. He was alive! My heart soared.
“Or your future will be gone.” Finn stood.
“We will kill you now for touching her,” Patrick added.
Chaos squeezed harder before dropping me. “This pathetic human soul? She is nothing. No one.”
“Yet she bested you,” David smirked.
“No, I am still here. Nothing and no one can stop me.”
I rubbed my throat, trying to get the words out. “M-Measure him. Give the order.”
Isn’t that what the ancient books in the library had said that the Fates did?
David gave me a questioning look.
“E-Even the g-gods can’t escape Fate. Zeus fears.” I couldn’t say any more. My voice cracked and even breathing was painful.
Realization struck Patrick and he nodded. “I have found this mortal you reside in to be lacking. I’ve measured and found his time is up.”
“I give the order to cut the mortal’s thread.” Finn glanced at me. “Moirae’s reaper, do your duty.”
On wobbly legs, I stood. My hands out horizontal like the first time Patrick had worked with me to call the scythe. The weapon flashed into my palms. It was still freakishly heavy.
“You cannot use that against me,” Chaos roared, charging. “You can’t even lift it.”
I gritted my teeth to lift it. To reap him. But I couldn’t get the blade but an inch off the ground. I had to try. I had to do this, even though I knew it meant I would always be a reaper. I dove forward. The blade sliced Chaos across the ankles.
His laughter grated along my nerves. “Foolish, stupid, human.”
“Laugh all you want, your mortal is reaped.” I stood. The scythe suddenly light in my hands like the first time I held it.
“Wha—No!” Chaos screamed as the mortal body it had attached to crashed to the floor, dead.
Black streams of smoke shot up in every direction. David hauled me to the ground while Patrick and Finn gathered around us, taking the brunt of the attack.
Blow after blow rained down on me and my men until the darkness fled. I stood up with David, Finn and Patrick beside me. All of us were torn and bloody, but we had survived.
"We won?" I asked, rubbing my arms.
"Not exactly." David hauled me to his side. "There will always be chaos in the world."
Patrick, with blood streaking the side of his face, gave me a smile that melted my heart. "Thank you for choosing us, we know it wasn't an easy decision."
"Oh, I don't know." Finn tucked himself against my other side. "She has yet to have us all at once."
My entire body heated at his words and their nearness. But I had other unfinished business to do. "I've got to see Persephone first."
Both David and Finn tensed beside me. Patrick's expression darkened.
"Why?" Patrick asked. "You've already spoken with Emily."
"I promised a boon to Persephone and I don't like owing anyone anything."
"God, I hate going to Tartarus." Patrick's lower lip dipped into a pout.
"Then don't go," I suggested. There was no guarantee of what the goddess of spring and the underworld would ask of me. Plus she had frozen all three guys last time we were there. What would she do this time?
He lifted his chin with a stubborn glint in his eyes. "No, wherever you go--especially somewhere dangerous--we go."
"He's right." David squeezed my shoulder, giving me a sideways hug.
Finn's hand brushed across my lower back, finding a slip of my skin there and making goosebumps prickle along the path of his fingers. "Sure, we'll go and afterward, if we're still alive, we'll celebrate with clothes on Rebecca's bedroom floor."
"What--no," I yelped. My apartment was the size of a one-car garage. When was the last time I cleaned it? "My bed doubles as a sofa and is just as small. There would barely be enough room for two much less four of us."
"Let us worry about that later." David rocked back on his heels. "Ready to get this over and done?"
"Yes," I said even though my chest felt tight.
Patrick strode up to me, taking both my hands in his while David and Finn increased their hold on either side of me.
"Oh, let me try. The teleportation thing."
When the guys all gave me appalling looks, I shook my head. "I didn't it before when I saved you from Chaos severing your threads."
Patrick paled, but David nodded.
"Just imagine the throne room and Persephone as clearly as you can."
I closed my eyes, concentrating as hard as I could. There was no tugging inside me, no prickling along my arms. Nothing.
“It’s not working.” I opened my eyes.
“Try again,” Patrick encouraged.
This time, I focused on my three men. Their hearts and the way I felt about each of them. How I’d wanted to protect them from Chaos, but had been too far away. And how I wanted to get whatever Persephone wanted for as payment taken care of so we could go home and enjoy ourselves.
My vision blurred, fading to black, before the feeling I’d been on a rollercoaster at warp speed dumped me in the throne room at Persephone’s feet.
“Good to see you’ve learned how to bow better,” she smirked.
I rose up from my hands and knees, ignoring my stomach still rolling. This time it was only me and her. “Where are the Fates?”
“They are awaiting you at their home.” She pushed up from her throne. “Are you here to pay your debt to me?”
“Yes.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’ve reaped the twelve men and women who killed me and defeated Chaos.”
Her laugh sounded like birds chirruping during the spring. “Foolish girl, there is no stopping Chaos.”
I tensed. “He’s gone. Vanished into black nothingness. If he wasn’t defeated, he’d have remained fighting.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t wound him.” She smoothed her hands down her black dress, her golden hair glinting in the firelight. “But there will always be Chaos in the world, it is the balance to Order. Just like there cannot be light without shadow.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Really didn’t come here to find out I’d failed…so
rt of. “I’m here to pay what I owe you. So what do you want?”
“What do I want?” She tapped a red nail to her lips. “Freedom but you can’t grant me that.”
An uneasy feeling crawled up my spine.
“What is your contract with the Fates?” Her blue eye shone with interest.
Was she going to try and get me to leave them? Not happening. “Forever. It’s binding.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought it was a thousand souls.”
So she knew and was testing me. “That was the previous contract.” I straightened, calling my scythe to me that ripped off my forearm and sunk into my palm. “Now I will pay you in any way that I can, but I will not leave my men.”
“Even if I granted you reprieve from that? You would never have to be a reaper of souls again.”
My heart twisted. Ever since I’d woken up in the Underworld, I had wanted to go my own way. To not have to reap souls or slice through their life threads. But I couldn’t leave David, Finn, and Patrick. I’d fallen in love with them. And I was finally starting to get a handle on this reaper thing.
“Sorry, no. I’m the Fates’ Reaper and will remain so as long as they’ll have me.”
“What if I could offer you a better place in the Underworld?”
“No thanks.”
“You’ve not even heard my offer.” She offered her hand. “Walk with me.”
I kept my scythe in my left hand and took hers in my other. She guided me through the throne room to a balcony that looked out across the Underworld as far as I could see.
“All of this could be yours. Take my place as Queen of the Underworld and you will live in luxury and worship.”
“You mean fear and terror.” I turned to her. “The demons and devils here may give you honor and tribute, but the souls fear you.”
She snorted. “What do you know of the dead? You’ve only reaped a handful of souls. Have you taken an innocent one or a child’s?”
Bile surged in the back of my throat. I never wanted to hurt anyone except those who deserved it.
“Take my offer and you won’t have to reap anyone ever again.”
“And what about David, Finn, and Patrick?”
“They will have to get a new reaper.” She shrugged. “They can visit you here in the palace as often as you wish.”
There was a catch to this. Something she wasn’t telling me. “So your husband, Hades, won’t mind this arrangement?”
A quick pinch to the corner of her eyes told me everything. “Sorry, but I’ll pass. I’m not a divorce attorney or counselor.” I had a feeling if I took the offer, Hades wouldn’t be happy and would do whatever he could to make my eternity a living hell.
“You will change your mind.”
“Afraid not.” I shook my head. There wouldn’t be anything she could make me do that would jeopardize my life with the Fates.
“Very well.” She turned back to the throne room. “My payment is the same as your original contract with the Moirae. You will bring me a thousand souls.”
“How—?”
“I will send you the names every dark of the moon. You will have three days to complete the list and return it to me.”
My chest tightened. I’d accepted my destiny to stay with my loves and have to reap souls, but to also do them for Persephone?
“Either accept my offer as your repayment to me or I will choose for you and make you take my place as Queen of the Dead.”
“I accept being your reaper.” I bowed my head. “But our contract is over the day I bring you the one-thousandth soul.”
Chapter 23
“Do I have to do this now?” I didn’t care that I sounded like a whiny brat. Persephone had teleported me back to the Fates and they’d given me two names to have to reap before I could even take my boots off.
“Yes.” Finn clasped my hand. “It’s your first names that we’ve given you to reap.”
“But a mother and child?” I shuddered as revulsion sank in my stomach. “They are innocent. How can I take their lives?” Maybe I should’ve taken Persephone up on her offer as the new Queen of the Dead. Gotten her to take Hades out of the picture too.
“Come.” Finn tugged on my hand gently. “They’ve been waiting while we were battling Chaos, but they are ready now.”
I swallowed the lump swelling in my throat, letting him lead me across the mansion and suddenly we were in the hospital. Humans scurried right and left in fast-motion, and oblivious to me and Finn standing in the hallway.
“Now, slow down time,” he instructed.
My breathing was shallow. I concentrated on steadying it. Lengthening my breath. Focused on the sights and sounds of the living world, bringing them louder and brighter.
Then Finn and I were standing in an ICU room. A mother hooked up to machines and beeping monitors. Her toddler in a bed beside her, the machine filling her lungs with air and pushing the air back out.
Her thread was thin and warped.
“Why does it look like that?” The threads of the twelve I had reaped were thick and golden.
“Her time is up. But she doesn’t want to leave without her mother and vice versa. Both are hanging on.”
I turned to him, tears stinging the back of my eyes. “And there’s no hope for them?”
He shook his head. “They’ve been in pain since the car wreck.”
My scythe throbbed along my arm and I opened my palms to manifest it. I clenched the wood, my hands were sweaty. My entire body felt heavy as I walked over to the mother’s bed.
“Time to leave your mortal life.” I swung the blade hard and fast. Afraid that if I delayed, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Her soul shot out of her body, hitting the ceiling. Then she looked back at me, then her daughter. “Please.”
I nodded, my chest constricting so tight I’d thought I’d die again along with her. The child’s thread was shorter than her mother’s had been, but I sliced through it.
Her little soul let out a laugh and hugged her mother.
“Thank you,” the mother whispered to me before they both vanished.
Instead of hatred or grief, I felt an odd sense of happiness. Like this was meant to be.
I faced Finn. “Is it always going to be like this? Almost a euphoria?”
“I’d be lying if I said yes.” He looked away, then took my hand. “But these deaths buffer the pain of others. It is not an easy road you have chosen, Rebecca. You may come to regret not accepting Persephone’s offer.”
I tensed. “How did you know about that?”
“I’m the Fate of the Future, remember? It was one of several paths that you could’ve chosen.”
“D-Do you think I made the right choice?” I asked suddenly unsure.
He cupped my cheek, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. “I hope so, because I am willing to share you with my brothers, but I won’t ever let Hades touch you.”
My breath hitched. “Let’s go home. I want to see how well you do share with David and Patrick.”
Back at the mansion, my skin was hot and tight. I hadn’t had substance in food, drink, or my favorite — sex—since we fought Chaos, and I was famished.
"Let me show you to your room." Finn sauntered ahead of me.
Disappointment sunk in my chest. I'd thought I'd become their lover as well as their reaper. But now they were hiding me away in my own—my thoughts broke off as Finn opened the door to a huge room.
Dark purple curtains hung over what looked to be a bay window. Blackwood nightstands sat on either side of the bed that looked like five giants could lay in without touching each other. Books lined one wall, a black-iron vanity with a closet and a shoe rack on the other.
"Do you like it?" Patrick asked from a plush, violet Cleopatra-style chair.
"I love it! This is all mine?"
"Yeah," David scratched his nose as he came out of the closet, dust covering his shirt like he'd just finished installing the shoe rack or something. "We
were arguing on whose room you would stay when the idea of your own room came to us."
"This way, we come to you and you can kick us out if you get tired of us."
"Never. I want to be in your lives and you in mine." I turned and reached for Finn beside me with both of my hands. The stubble on his chin tickled my fingertips as I lifted up on my toes to kiss his mouth. His hands wrapped around my back and he hauled me into his chest. His erection pressed into my thigh. Our tongues tasting each other. Soon, another set of hands cupped my ass. But I can't see which Fate it is because Finn kissed me like his life depended on. Passion ignited every nerve in my body.
I let out a groan, ending the kiss. I gently against Finn's chest and leaned back into David's embrace. He thrust his hips into my ass and moved his hands to my breasts. Patrick is watching us from the chair. His eyes hooded and his lips slightly parted as he watched us.
Finn let out a growl and hefts me up onto him, carrying me to the bed. He sets me down on cool sheets.
"Guess we have to christen my new bed," I said huskily.
He laid beside me, tucking my hair behind my ear. David climbed in behind me while Patrick was naked in the chair and stroked himself.
"We'll be gentle for your first time with both of us." He traced kisses along the back of my neck and across one shoulder.
"Oh, I like it rough sometimes." My memory slid back to the first time I'd seen David in the bar and how he looked like a rebel, bad boy and biker all rolled into one. And Finn hadn't been gentle either. Not that I wanted either of them to be right now. I was burning up inside, needing and wanting them.
Finn snapped his fingers and my clothes vanished.
"You've got to teach me that," I said.
"Another time." His clothes were gone as well. "For now I have to sink into you as far as I can. Are you ready for me?"
Before I could respond, he crushed his lips to mine, his fingers brushed across my clit. Desire spiked. David grasped my breasts from behind, pinching and rolling my nipples until they hardened.
Then one of his hands let go of my breast and fisted my hair. I gasped in surprise and yearning. He yanked me back by my hair. His one hand massaged my breast harder. “Is this what you like?”