by Evi Asher
She turned the corner to walk into reception and stopped. A very tall male stood with his back to her, listening to something Zane was saying. The male looked familiar, though she was only looking at his back.
His blond hair was long, but she couldn’t see how long, because it was pulled forward over his shoulder.
He had broad shoulders covered in a cotton shirt that stretched over the breadth of them almost too tight. A narrow waist and some ass-hugging jeans completed his stature, making her lift a brow in appreciation.
He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and he wore combat boots.
Mmm. It was always nice to see a fine male. Now, if only he’d turn around so she could see if his front matched the yummyness of his back.
“Here she is now.” Zane spotted her with a smile, and the male turned.
Athera sucked in a breath. Him!
Grave’s beautiful face lit up with a smile. “We meet again, Athera of the Phoenix.”
Mortification! Horror! She stood there in her skimpy workout clothes, and that wasn’t even the bad thing. Skimpy with Grave was a must, but she was sweaty and bedraggled and not at her best. She wanted to curl into a little ball and hide. She wanted to press a skip track button and start over, with her looking her utter best.
All she could manage was a croaked. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to babysit you.”
He gave her another smile, but this one didn’t hold any humor, and she wanted to flinch from the impact of it. Obviously, he wasn’t happy about the task he’d been set.
“On whose orders?” She pushed her shoulders back. If he didn’t want to help her, she sure as hell didn’t want his help.
He ignored her and turned his head to Zane. “Where can I put my stuff?”
Zane gave him directions to a room. It took Athera a moment to realize he’d been given directions to the room right next to hers.
She didn’t know if she should hit Zane or thank him. She started to lean toward hitting him when Zane winked at her as if he was doing her a huge favor.
Maybe he was. She hadn’t decided if she was going to continue trying to seduce Grave or ignore him completely. His being there was too much of a surprise.
He started to walk past her, then stopped as he reached her side.
“You are stuck with me until we get rid of the death god. Best you get used to it and behave yourself, little phoenix, or you and I will not get along.”
Her jaw unhinged. Had he just told her to behave herself? Oh no, he didn’t.
He might as well have tossed a gauntlet at her feet, the infuriating male.
Why the hell was he there if he wanted nothing to do with her?
He walked toward the passage, and Athera spun around.
“Grave.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
“You can go back where you came from. I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“The oracle said differently. You are my last task. The sooner I finish this, the sooner I will have my freedom and my life back. So you are stuck with me until I kill Nexanthon.”
He turned his head back and walked down the passage.
“Why did you put him next to my room?” She was pissed off, and taking it out on Zane seemed like a shiny idea.
“Come on, Ath. We’ve all heard you wax poetic about Grave since you came back, and even though I don’t play for that team, I now see why.” He grinned at her. “I’m giving you a chance to act instead of being a big mouth about it all the time. Get the male. Make him a slave to your charms.”
Athera snorted. Seriously, sometimes Zane was too much of a romantic for his own good. She left reception before he could make any more outrageous suggestions like sneaking into Grave’s room naked.
Mmm, wait, that idea had potential.
Athera let out a bark of laughter as she reached her room door. Who was she kidding? And even if she had the guts to do that, she’d be crushed by his rejection, and she knew Grave would reject her. It was as if he was allergic to bees and she was bee venom, and one sting could put him in anaphylactic shock.
Stupid male. Stupid feelings. Why did she have to become attracted to the most unattainable male in history?
At least she had one solution to a current problem. She wouldn’t be going into the vampire court on her own. She’d have her big bad reaper to keep her safe.
She let out a sigh as she opened her bedroom door. For some reason, knowing that made her feel much better than trying to kill herself on the treadmill had.
* * * *
Grave tossed his backpack on the bed without even looking around the room properly. He wasn’t planning on staying long enough to make it home, so he wasn’t interested in the furnishings of the room he’d been given.
That his room was right next to Athera’s was cause for frustration. He didn’t need that kind of temptation.
He had thought he could handle it long enough to save and free the phoenix from Nexanthon.
The moment he’d turned around in reception and seen her all hot and sweaty from her workout, he’d known there was no way he’d keep his hands off her long enough for him to save her from Nexanthon, and if he had sex with her, she was dead. Fact.
No, he would have to try to get someone to take his place as her guardian.
He would trust only one type of being with a job like this, and it would be a fellow reaper.
That meant Grave would have to go home, which was something he’d been avoiding since he’d left Cerise’s service. He knew he was going to be ragged mercilessly by his fellow reapers for getting caught in the oracle’s clutches to start with.
There was no help for it. He couldn’t stay, so he had to get a replacement.
He’d have to go to the realm of Souls to go fetch one.
Grave moved to the center of the room where there was a bit of free space around him and closed his eyes to focus so he could transport his body home.
When he opened his eyes, he stood in front of the gates that led to the city of reapers. It was huge and ornate, not practical, but beautiful. Grave had thought at times that whichever reaper had thought to add these gates was trying to compete with the resplendent gates of heaven.
That reaper had failed at his task, but it did give the entrance to the home of the reapers a bit of flare.
Two guards stood at the gate, seeing to the reapers and their charges that went through the portal to the city.
It was never quiet at the gates. People died all the time, and reapers were busy. So Grave stood and waited his turn as other reapers and the souls they were transporting went through the gates. When he got to the gate, he grinned.
“Duncan, nice to see you. Who did you piss off to get gate duty?”
Duncan responded with a grin, stepping forward and pulling Grave into a one-arm man hug.
“Long time MIA, Grave. We’ve missed your sorry ass.”
Grave stepped back. “Would have thought you wouldn’t even notice I’m gone.”
“Yeah, well, work load being what it is, we can use all the help we can get.”
Grave gave a chuckle. It was the age-old complaint. Over worked and under paid.
“Well, I’ll see you around—got some business at the building.”
Grave smiled as Duncan said goodbye and made his way through the streets of the city toward the first of the intake buildings.
This was where reapers took their charges to sort out. Unlike the myth that permeated society, reapers did not know the final destination of a particular soul. As he walked to the building, he thought of how different his society was from the way everyone viewed it.
It was a reaper’s job to bring the soul to the SDD—the Sorting and Destination Designation building. From there, the soul was processed and sent on with another reaper to their final destination.
There were three main classes of reapers. One was reapers that went down to collect the souls, like Grave. These reapers we
re trained warriors, because they often ran into trouble collecting souls, especially if they had to face off against other agencies who harvest souls for other purposes. The collection reapers, when called upon, had to fight if there was any conflict with another race.
The second class of reaper was the bureaucratic type. The desk lumps, as the soldier reapers referred to them. They dealt with deciding where the souls went, and they lived for paper work.
The last class of the reaper hierarchy was the divine reapers. They would take the souls to heaven or to hell, or elsewhere. These reapers were considered snobs and thought of themselves as way better than the rest.
Grave entered the building and ignored the front desk where most of the reapers were waiting in line again for their chance to go up and see a case worker.
He made his way past the desk and down a passage. He would take the back way to the grounds behind the building. He knew that was where he would find Cain, the man in charge of the soldier reapers. He would probably be hip-deep in training new reapers for their life ferrying souls.
Grave turned left toward the kitchens. The quickest way out of the building was through the area that opened up onto a wide expanse of lawns.
He ducked through the bustle of the kitchen staff, earning a few glares here and there for being where he wasn’t supposed to be, but no one said anything. No one would. You didn’t question a reaper. The kitchen staff and most of the workers that helped the reapers were souls with nowhere to go. They could choose to stay with the reapers, and most of them did. They were never mistreated and had everything they could want or need.
The smell of food made his stomach growl and he realized it had been quite a while since he’d eaten. He’d snag something on his way out. If Clementine still worked in the kitchen, he’d be able to get a full meal.
The old human soul had always been fond of Grave. Since he’d been a boy and training with the older reapers, she’d taken him under her wing and made sure he was properly fed.
The outside door opened with the slightest push. The souls kept everything running smoothly, and he stepped out onto the lawns.
Grave stopped to breathe in the smell of earth and vegetation. Most of the city was paved, so he had always enjoyed the smells of nature out behind the building.
He could hear the roar of combat and he smiled. The boys were working hard.
They would range in ages from sixteen and up, learning the trade that would make them warriors. In that moment, Grave wished he could go back to his own childhood, back to when his biggest worry was how sore his muscles were going to be when he fell into bed that night, and to what food his mom would serve when he went home on the weekend.
Now, he had to worry about phoenix females that made him forget he was cursed, that made him want to forget it completely, and an oracle that had all but hi-jacked him out of his life and forced him to work for her for an eternity. She couldn’t let him go. No... she had to tack on one last task for him to complete. One that would be impossible to finish.
Grave shook his head when he realized he’d stopped walking. He was standing on the lawn, lost in his thoughts like a daydreaming kid.
Enough. He had a problem to solve and a life to get back to.
Maybe when he’d completed the mission of getting a replacement for Athera, he’d go see his mom.
Thoughts of his mom were wiped from his mind when he realized he didn’t like the idea of anyone else looking after Athera.
“Well, crap!” he hissed and forced his legs toward the training field.
Chapter Four
The training field resembled a mixture between a horse’s training facility and a human boot camp. There were different areas sectioned off by wooden log fencing.
The first was a large open field, but had sand instead of grass, mostly used for group-on-group combat practice and physical training.
Behind the training field was an obstacle course, the walls higher than the first section, with mud holes and nets and all kinds of things the trainees had to get around.
The reapers had creatures from other species helping with the training. Grave was actually pretty friendly with Manix, the fire breathing salamander who helped teach the recruits how to deal with and dodge a determined immortal.
Behind the obstacle course were even more areas for training. Seeing them, even from a distance, made good memories of Grave’s young adulthood pass through his mind.
On the first field that Grave knew turned into a mud hole when it rained, a class of trainees was working on drawing their scythes.
They chanted a count in unison, each number a step in the process to bring their scythes into existence.
Cain marched down the ranks, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched the technique of the trainees.
“One,” the trainees snapped, their arms straight next to their bodies, their fists clenching at their sides.
“Two,” they bellowed as they extended their arms outwards forming a right angle to their bodies.
“Three.” This time their voices held a note of strain.
Grave remembered the difficulty he’d had focusing to pull the scythes into existence, which was a skill the reapers had to master early on.
If you couldn’t pull a scythe, you were a desk lump, and to these boys, that was a fate worse than death.
“Jaz, straighten that arm. You aren’t pulling it down right!” Cain barked.
The boy in question squeezed his eyes shut and focused harder.
“Now you look like you are having a shit, son. Focus, don’t tear a muscle.”
Grave burst out laughing. Cain hadn’t changed a bit.
The instructor turned to see who was laughing and a grin pulled his lips wide.
“At ease, boys,” he bellowed as he marched over to pull Grave into a hug.
“I thought you were lost to the clutches of the oracle,” he said in way of greeting.
“Finally got free.” Grave released himself from the hug and stepped back. “Well, almost.”
“Grave, you know I don’t do half measures. You are free or you aren’t. Which is it?”
“She gave me one more task to complete, and that’s why I’m here. I need your help.”
“Okay.” Cain nodded, his back was still to the trainees. “Jesse, I said at ease, not sit on your ass.”
The boy in question jumped to his feet as if he’d been stung.
“I never knew how you could manage to see out the back of your head.” Grave smiled. It was obvious Cain had lost none of his touch.
Cain chuckled. “Practice. How do you think I keep up with all these youngsters?”
Cain spoke as if he was ancient, and he was, but he didn’t look it. He looked thirty-five at the most, with a hawk like nose and deep set eyes under dark brows.
He looked dangerous, and he was. There was a reason he was the reaper in charge of training all the recruits. The reapers to come out of his program were the best in a long time.
There was some murmuring behind Cain and the reaper spun to look at the boys. One look and there was instant silence.
“I tell you what.” He turned to look at Grave again. “I’ll listen to what you need help with, but you can do me a solid, first.”
Grave would have done anything his former teacher asked, so he saw no problem.
“Name it.”
“You were the best student I’ve ever had at scythe play. How about you show these boys how it’s done?”
Grave felt a half grin pull at his lips. He knew Cain was right. There was no one better—not even Cain.
“Sure.”
Cain turned. “Okay boys, gather round. Let a master show you how to work a scythe.”
There was shuffling and muttering and soon the boys were around Grave and Cain in a wide circle.
Cain stepped back and the boys moved around to make space for him.
Grave moved to the center of the circle and drew in a deep breath through his nose. He should b
e rusty from having been in the service of Cerise for so long, but he’d never allowed his skills to become tarnished. He had worked it every day in the forest surrounding her magical home.
He dropped his hands to his side and let the breath out through his mouth. Then the dance began.
He pulled up his arms in a swift motion and brought them down equally fast, the soul-sucking black scythes appearing in his fisted hands. He took a step forward with his left foot and sank down, swinging his right arm at waist level of an opponent. Then he spun from one knee to another, arching his back as he did to bring both blades up in a spinning motion that would have rendered any opponent unable to move and ever so slightly dead.
He carried on the motion, letting his momentum bring him to his feet, and he twisted his torso, flinging his upper body back and almost doing a backbend while swooping the scythes up and spinning them around where his body had been.
Grave could hear the gasps of shock from the boys around him as he worked the weapon of his people.
They were sounds of wonder and awe, and he almost grinned under the appreciation of the young warriors.
The scythes were an extension of his body, and in truth, they were. It was the weapon he had been born to wield, and he’d taken to it early, pulling the scythes out of the air with some of his more willful childhood temper tantrums. His mother had not been happy when he’d done that, so he’d ended up in training younger than most of the other boys.
Soon enough, he slowed his movements down, coming to stand as he had begun with his hands next to his sides, his head bowed and his scythes gone.
There was a beat of silence, then whistles and applause so loud that others walking nearby stopped to see what the ruckus was about.
Cain let the boys chatter excitedly for a moment or two. Then he stood in front of them. his hands behind his back, and silence fell. The boys knew he wanted attention, and there would be trouble if he didn’t get it.
Silence filled the open air, almost like a blanket.
Cain broke that silence by declaring, “Now, you have seen how it’s done. I expect better from all of you from now on. For now, you are dismissed. You may think on what you have seen and figure out how you are going to emulate Grave.” He was quiet for a moment, his eyes settling on the boys. The he barked, “Dismissed!”