by Thomas Grave
He brushed her cheek softly with the back of his fingers.
“One hair,” he repeated. “If I were you, I would run. Run fast and don’t look back. I won’t stop with you either. If Hope so much as gets a hangnail, I’m coming after you first. And your masters will be next.”
Sebastian stood tall and reared back his scythe to strike.
“Oh, hell. Why wait?” he said. All of the candles went out, engulfing the room in complete darkness. His Reaper vision still functioned, though, giving him perfect sight. The moment the light was snuffed out, she disappeared. Somehow he’d missed her escape, but it didn’t matter. His point had gotten across.
Nice bluff. You even had me going there for a minute.
“Thanks.”
I’m still tracking her, but I don’t know for how much longer. Do you wish to proceed?
“No,” Sebastian answered. “I have a promise to keep.”
Sebastian promised her he would take care of things, but Hope couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. It had been three days since Jared had gone missing.
She knew he wasn’t at any of the hospitals or emergency centers. She had already called them all. She had even resorted to calling the local and county jails. She wouldn’t put it past Jared to get into a scrape with the police. He was a loose cannon at the best of times. But the jails had no record of him. She tried not to imagine him dead, lying in a ditch somewhere. So far she had managed to push that image to the edges of her mind, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep those horrible thoughts at bay.
As she sat at the kitchen table biting her nails and toying with a book she was supposed to be reading for school, she heard the front door open. Her father wouldn’t be home for several hours. Her breath hitched in her throat as she leapt off the chair and rushed out of the kitchen, a range of emotions roiling inside her. Anger, worry, hate, concern, apprehension.
“Jared?” she called out.
He stood in front of the open door and glanced at her, a half-smile on his face. He appeared perfectly fine, only the wear of fatigue on him. His muscle shirt was frayed and dirty, as though he’d been in a fight. Of course, he had, what other explanation was there?
“I’m home,” he said casually.
The mixture of emotions running through her cascaded into a waterfall of anger. She was beyond livid. She was totally pissed off.
“Where in the hell have you been?” she demanded, striding toward him. She registered the shocked look on his face, which upset her even more. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”
She balled up her fist, drew back, and punched him in the center of his face as hard as she could.
Jared staggered back and brought his hand up to his face. “Hope! What are you doing?”
He took his hand away from his face and inspected it for blood. Just a trickle.
“Three damn days, Jared,” she yelled, pushing him in the chest so he was forced to step back over the door’s threshold onto the front porch. She followed him outside, not caring whether the neighbors heard her or not. “I’m your sister, do you understand me? I don’t care where you are. You call me! Even if it’s Hell, you find a damn phone!”
Tears stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. Not until he got a piece of her mind. And more of her fists. She drew back her hand again, eager to turn that trickle of blood into a gushing river, when Jared wrapped his arm around her head and brought in her for a tight embrace, burying her face in his chest. Her arms flew around his back and tightened.
“I—I’m sorry,” he whispered to her as her body began to heave with sobs. “I was stupid. I’ll never do that to you again.”
He rubbed her back, feeling her soft shudders. He rested his chin on her hair and held her, relishing the familiar warmth of his sister, of the only constant in his life. He realized, as he held her in his arms that he’d almost lost her, almost been lost to her.
“You scared me,” she said through the tears.
A lump formed in his throat and his eyes welled with tears. They rocked back and forth together, their tears mixing, silently promising never to go through that experience again.
On a rooftop across the street, a dark figure watched the siblings embrace, a satisfied smile on his face. At one point, he’d thought he’d seen Hope’s gaze lock on him, but that had to be his imagination. The Elder masked his presence. He was invisible to the land of the living.
He gazed at Jared and Hope with something like envy, but also with satisfaction. He had fulfilled his promise to one of his best friends and that was all that mattered.
He looked down at his gloved hands, at the robes billowing around him as if they possessed a life of their own, and, of course, they did. He breathed in deeply and felt the power that had become so familiar to him course through his veins.
He wanted to stay for longer, to watch his friends, maybe even to join them, to hang out together as they always had. But he had changed. His life had changed. The Seals would be coming for their seventh member, for the final piece in their puzzle, and the Reaper promised himself he would be ready.
He nodded.
This was his life.
This was his Dark Destiny. . .
Why did Death warn Cole about not having children? What is so important about Cole’s daughter that he is willing to betray Sebastian in the process? Find out in the next installment of the series . . . Dark Days.
About the Author
Thomas Grave stepped straight off his yacht in a crisp, pink Ralph Lauren polo, pressed khakis (no pleats), and a pair of Sperry Topsiders that gleamed in the bright sun. He’d paid $12 for that shine. Surveying the treeline, he slid the Ray Bans down his nose, leaving them just at the bridge. He said, "I'm going to write a book about Death today." After sliding the Ray Bans back up, he nodded once, turned around, walked back up the ramp onto his luxury yacht, down the steps into his leather and mahogany study, and got to work.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
About the Author