Destined to Reap (Reaping Fate Book 3)

by Kinsley Burke

  The crowd had thinned out on the sidewalk within a few blocks away from the restaurant, and I determined the crazy looks I’d get for speaking to a ghost would be minimal. “Do you even have it?”

  “What?” Mr. Persistent asked, barely casting a glance at me over his shoulder as he continued on his journey.

  “My pendant.”

  “Why would I have that?” The ghost stopped and turned to face me.

  “Because you said for me to come and get it.”

  “You’re not ready for the power in those stones. What you need at this time is to become prepared.”

  Ugh. I marched toward the blasted ghost. Each step announcing my determination.

  “Now, now, Praedator.” Mr. Persistent took a step back as I stopped before him. “What are you planning to do without your sword? Wring my neck? I don’t think that’ll give you the results you want.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Just so you know, I’m already dead.”

  I stared. He was right. Without my sword, there was nothing I could do to him.

  “Prepare, Fáithsine. Until we meet again.” The ghost poofed, and this time I knew he wasn’t coming back. At least not that night.

  There was only one thing left to do. Home. Go home and lick my wounds after a shitty day. Checking Account better not kick my butt for stopping off to grab a pint. Ice Cream. Not beer. Fat-laden cream, milk, and sugar stuffed with chocolate and peanut butter were a necessity, not a want. I looked up, taking in my surroundings, and recognized the building in front of me.

  Mr. Persistent had led me to Tristan’s apartment.

  Chapter 18

  Conflicting emotions raced through my thoughts as I stared up at the tall structure rooted in front of me. Tristan’s building. A man I hadn’t spoken to in days. My question of which team the vamp played on still a valid concern. In my mind, at least.

  Allegedly working with Trashae to protect me from The Thirteen, yet tossing me off the roof of a building during a vision, Tristan was the Wild Card in my current deck. Except I hadn’t been thrown… yet. The vision had switched from Damon to Tristan. Never before had something like that occurred when seeing the future. So many questions, the primary one being if my mind was simply confused? Fried? It would explain the hallucination of seeing Damon in my mirror earlier that evening. I really didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  Rubbing my aching head, I stepped out of the way of a running child. He was being chased by his mother, winning the race by at least two yards. The woman’s unheeded cries for her son to stop were verbalizing that fact loud and clear. It was with bitter amusement that I acknowledged I wasn’t the only person having a crappy day. But I’d declared myself as the victor for having the most pathetic life… because mine… just plain sucked. And that was why I required ice cream. A full pint.

  With one last lingering look at the apartment building, I stepped away. Then I remembered. The book. Last Thursday I had ended up in Tristan’s apartment on my way home with Anna’s book. The bastard. Why the hell hadn’t he called? Stopped by? Sent it to me via Trashae—who kept randomly showing up on my doorstep to protect me as Wilcox and Andrew had told her to do? What. The. Hell? That damned book had to have important insight into the prophecy, and Tristan was keeping it from me.

  Feet moved, but it sure wasn’t in the direction of home. Oh, no. I was now certain that one book on Celtic mythology was sitting inside the vampire’s lair, and I wasn’t leaving until it was back in my rightful hands. If Tristan wanted a book, he could damn well steal his own. By the time Tristan’s front door opened, the side of my hand ached from the pounding I was doing to gain his attention.

  “Ma chérie, what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Don’t you ma chérie me.” With a jab of my shoulder, I shoved my way inside. “Where is it?”

  “What?”

  I turned and faced the vampire. “No games, Tristan. Where’s the book I had with me when I was here on Thursday?”

  The bafflement displayed across Tristan’s handsome features appeared sincere, yet I still had no trust in the man. Zero. Zilch. Taking a step forward inside his space, I got in his face. “Do not lie to me. Do not play games with me.”

  “Kiara, I promise that I am not.” Tristan stepped back. With a hand running through his blond hair, he glanced around the room. “What book is this that you search for?”

  Deflated, I walked over and leaned against the back of his couch. “You honestly have not seen a book on Celtic mythology?”

  Tristan’s head shook.

  Damn. Perhaps this was karma for practicing theft?

  “What’s in the book?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I hope the explanation for how I fulfill the prophecy. A dead Irish woman seemed determined that I read this particular publication.”

  “You are not ready.”

  “Excuse me… what?”

  “You are not yet ready to fulfill the prophecy.”

  To be honest with myself, I knew he was right. I had no freakin’ clue as to what I was supposed to do. Getting myself killed was probably the best case scenario at that moment. But from having the last few marks happily handing themselves over to me for the cause, to Mr. Persistent telling me I wasn’t ready, and now Tristan repeating the same, I was becoming pissed off. If someone knew something, there needed to be full explanations. Now. I was tired of the cryptic crap.

  “The more I work with Trashae, the better I am with understanding you, Kiara,” Tristan said.

  “Trashae understands me?”

  “She does.” He studied me. “She recognizes the potential powers you have yet to achieve.”

  “Well, when does the woman plan to explain me to me?”

  “When do you plan to stop avoiding her?” Tristan deflected. “Ditching her when she tries to offer help? She has a lot of insight, Kiara. Knowledge. It would be in your best interest to listen. Take her on as your mentor.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Why would I joke?” The vampire sighed. Walking over to his fridge, he pulled out a beer. “Want one?”

  “No, thank you.” I wandered over to the same couch I had sat on during my previous visit. Plopping down onto the cushions, I stared at the man I’d already considered my mentor. His face was drawn, his eyes weary. My head shook as I said, “I cannot trust Trashae.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of what she did.” I held a hand up for silence when his mouth opened to speak. “There was one person in this world I could trust being there for me. My best friend, Hadley. Trashae took her away from me.”

  “Trashae’s power is to change a negative into a positive.”

  “I understand that,” I said. “But that’s not what she did. She changed a positive into a negative because there is nothing positive at all about Hadley no longer being my friend. Admit it, Trashae screwed up.”

  “I don’t think she did.”

  “Explain.”

  Tristan took a seat in the chair across from me. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees. “Trashae uses her powers sparingly, but she is wise with how it is used. And yes, for the first time she felt the warping didn’t go as she expected, but there are two things you need, Kiara. First, protection from a very powerful, and very evil coven. Second, the ability to grow into the person you need to become in order to meet your destiny.”

  “And neither happened. Damon and the rest of his Warlocks still want me, and I’m no closer to fulfilling the prophecy than I was prior to Trashae messing with my life. The only things changed are Hadley no longer being my friend, and now my family, including my soon-to-be evil sister-in-law, love me.”

  “Hadley.” Tristan nodded.

  “What? What about Hadley?”

  “Everyone went into the warping with the expectation that it would protect you from the coven, but Fate stepped in and chose the new reality so a crutch was removed from your life.”

  “I do
n’t get it. What does this have to do with Hadley?”

  “Every time you’re here… every time we practice… you constantly speak of Hadley.”

  “So?” I asked. “She’s my best friend. No—she’s more than that. She’s my sister. She and Aunt Kate are all I have… wait. How do you remember? Ty and Andrew don’t remember Hadley.”

  “The type of magic Trashae uses doesn’t work on all demons.” Tristen lifted a hand to stave off my further questioning. “My point is, you depend on her too much.”

  I blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “How often do you call or text Hadley whenever you have a problem?”

  My jaw clenched.

  “Kiara? How often?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “How do you expect to grow if you are constantly dependent on someone else?”

  “Are you saying this is my fault she’s no longer my friend? That if I didn’t trust Hadley’s judgment so much, Fate wouldn’t have removed her from my life?”

  “You need to learn to trust your own judgment. Not someone else’s.”

  “No… no. None of this is my fault.” I shot to my feet, the heel of my shoe brushing against something hard. “What the…”

  One glance down to the floor and I spotted it. The corner of a leather-bound book peeped at me from underneath the couch. Tugging it free from its hiding location, I had Anna’s book back in my hands. Finally.

  Tristan stood. “Come on.”

  I looked up. “What?”

  “Let’s go.” He walked over to his front door, swiping his keys off the kitchen counter as he passed.

  “No. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He paused and glanced back at me. “Suit yourself.”

  I stared at the closed door where Tristan had moments before disappeared. He was leaving me in his apartment? Alone? Where was he going? Why was I supposed to follow?

  Damn curiosity had my feet moving. Opening the front door, I bumped into the vampire. He leaned against the wall, next to the door frame. Waiting for me to walk through as he no doubt knew I would do.

  Without a word, he took the mythology book from my hands, placed it on a counter inside his apartment, pulled the door shut, and walked off. The odd thing was, he went toward the elevator, not the exit.

  “Plan to stand there all night?” Tristan asked, stepping into the waiting lift.

  I took a cautious step in after him. “Where are we going?”

  “Up.”

  “Ha ha.” I glanced at the elevator buttons as the lift rose. Tristan had punched the top floor. Cold numbness invaded my body as I stared at the number sixty-five. With a ding, the elevator doors opened, and I was out of time. For what, I didn’t exactly know. Panicking, no doubt. I was damn good at doing that.

  We stepped out into the hallway, which consisted of two doors. One I assumed to the penthouse suite—which, with Tristan owning the entire building, I had to wonder why the unit wasn’t his. A second door off to the side was the chosen one the vampire walked through.

  My misgivings grew as I followed. We were inside a stairwell, heading up to the roof. My prior vision had already informed me there was nothing at all good about this destination, but Feet failed to listen. I trailed the vampire like a cow to the slaughterhouse. This night would most certainly end with my death.

  The air was crisp as we stepped out onto the rooftop. It was now mid-October, and I shivered. Grabbing any sort of wrap hadn’t entered my thoughts prior to leaving my apartment earlier that evening. Looking beautiful for my first real date with Wilcox had been the only thing on my mind. The dinner which had turned out so… swell. I swallowed back a lump in my throat at the remembrance. Not the time to be thinking about Wilcox.

  A breeze brushed the skirt of my dress around my legs as I watched Tristan ease to the ledge of the roof. Taking a cautious step back, I fought the urge to walk up and stand beside the now evil vampire. To peer down at the street below and determine if it was the exact same view I recalled from my brief sight into the future. Logic dictated it was, but a huge part of me didn’t want to believe the man I’d spoken to downstairs, the one determined that I fulfill this ancient prophecy, would send me plunging to my death.

  Another cautious step backward, toward the stairwell door, was taken. Downstairs. I would go back there, and once Tristan joined me below, I’d ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.

  Before I could turn, a blur caught the corner of my eye. A vampire’s speed. Tristan stood behind me, his grip tight around the back of my neck.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, as I heard the snap at my neck. The heavy Praedator pendant I wore, the crystals that drew on the demon blood running through my veins—providing me with inhuman strength—slid down my chest as the broken chain gave way. The sound of the stones hitting the concrete floor was deafening. Acknowledgment of the loss of my power, and it rang out louder than the frantic pounding of my heart. Lungs halted. Then we moved.

  One moment, I had stood near the stairwell door, and the next I was staring sixty-something stories down below. The heels of my shoes desperately clung to the ledge of the roof. My arms pinned behind me in Tristan’s tight grip.

  The bastard actually did it, and I didn’t need to look behind me as I had in my vision to know I had a total misjudgment of his character.

  Breathe, Kiara. I forced air into my lungs. Down below, tiny cars sped through the streets. One of them soon to have my lifeless body decorate it as a hood ornament. Either that or I’d be some taxi’s speed bump—depending on how flattened my body was upon impact with asphalt. No, I couldn’t think like that. This would not be my fate. Death. It was not my time to die.

  Anger heated my chilled skin as I closed my eyes. Focus. I sucked in a deep breath. Focus. I exhaled and opened my eyes. The night sky was black, but the color was off. Instead of an inky pool of darkness surrounding me, there was a gray haze that hadn’t existed moments before. A vision.

  This future insight was apparently close to present time. Tristan’s grip still left me suspended in air. My body tilted at an angle away from the building, as if I were a mountain climber about to descend a steep cliff on a rope. Instead of preparing to step off the ledge backward, however, I’d been shoved forward. Staring down and feeling nothing but the air… there was a cushiony feel about it. Weird since air was not tangible, and what I felt was nothing like a breeze. The particles were solid against my skin and held a resilience… like a springboard.

  The answer to my escape crystallized in my mind the moment I snapped back to the present. Night sky had returned to a pitch-blackness. Dots of light drifting up from the streets far below. No gray haze in sight. But the air… I still felt it. Something that defied all logic and science, but I didn’t give a shit.

  With a slight bend of my knees, I used that cushion to give me the push I needed to spring upward from the suspended position where I was being held. The force of my movement caused Tristan to stumble back. I lurched precariously as I returned to an upright position on top of the ledge. The grip around my wrists was released, and I flung my arms out to my side to help catch my balance. The air could still be felt. It surrounded me, and I reached out, desperately grasping at the invisible particles to steady myself.

  Tristan was sprawled on top of the roof when I turned to face him. He stared at me with wide eyes.

  My own eyes shut, and I inhaled another deep breath. Eyes reopened to another vision. Tristen stood in front of me, his face paler than normal while there was a slight twitch of his right eye as he stared intently at me. As if he searched for something.

  “You don’t have to do this, Kiara.”

  I lashed out, striking his face. The vampire flew backward with a force I didn’t know I possessed.

  With another blink of my eyes, reality invaded. The brief glimpse of the future turned into memory as color brightened back into the present. Tristan climbed to his feet from the initial fall he’d take
n after I’d saved myself from a multi-story plummet. I took a step down from the concrete ridge. Tristan made a hesitant one forward.

  “You don’t—”

  “What?” I snapped. “You tried to kill me. Why should it be my death tonight?”

  “I wasn’t try—”

  Tristan flew backward from the force of my punch. I edged closer. My previous anger had morphed onto rage. A man I’d called friend had held me suspended off the side of a sixty-five story building, planning to drop me. But now that I had the upper hand, he wanted to play nice? Hell no.

  My eyes closed, and I refocused my thoughts. The world surrounding me turned back into another off-colored haze. I watched as Tristan scrambled back to his feet for the second time that evening. Instead of facing me, as I’d expected, he veered toward the stairwell door.

  Oh no, you don’t. He wasn’t getting off that easy. My focused gaze on the moving vampire hardened. Tristan’s steps slowed until he stood frozen. I exhaled a deep breath, cognizant that I was still inside the vision. The world was completely silent. No traffic sounds came from down below.

  Not even the sound of the breeze strengthening into wind.

  The heels of my shoes clicked against the hard surface of the roof as I approached my prey. Kicking them off, I quietly walked up to the vampire barefooted. Touched him with one hand. The man didn’t so much as flinch as my index finger grazed his cheek. Part of my mind sensed confusion, the rest of me still felt the fury. It was the anger making my gaze swing toward the stairwell door. Tristan’s escape. He was not deserving of it. I had not been allowed to leave… to walk away.

  Empty wooden crates were piled high near the door. Their previous use, I didn’t know. Didn’t care. They were what I needed at the moment, and it was all that mattered. Shoving the crates in front of the exit wouldn’t stop Tristan from leaving if given the time, but the barrier would slow him down while I contemplated my next move. Acting on pure instinct, I worked quickly and caught my breath while leaning a hip against the edge of a crate. The vampire remained standing where I’d last left him. Still unmoving.