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“And a Goddess?” he asked and immediately wished he hadn’t as her eyes narrowed on him. Suddenly, Devon felt her in his head again, her gaze holding him frozen as she flipped through his memories like a photo album. From his first memory of helping his father plant a tree, through
all the guilt, pain, and depression until the moment a bullet ended everything.
He now had the memory of his death, and he felt relief that he had not been the one to end his life.
However, he never saw his killer, he realized as his mind played out his last moments. The bullets that struck him had not been from anyone in the room with him. The only logical explanation was a sniper, but he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter though. He would hunt them down and end that person as they had ended him.
His mind whirled at viewing it from an outside point of view. He didn’t recognize this cold and
calculating mercenary as himself. He had always known deep down that he wasn’t built for that lifestyle, both physically and emotionally.
He remembered his father begging him not to join the government forces, and the memory brought back that horrible feeling of betrayal. He had not honored his father through his choices. His memories were now running slower through his mind as if coming to a stopping point as he closed in on the moment he ceased to exist—the moment he decided that he would take this
chance at a second life offered to him with the seeds.
The Goddess broke her powerful, searching gaze and Devon returned to his body in the present moment. He tried to cover his immense discomfort at his deepest self being on display for her.
The tension of her presence released inside his head as she left his mind. The memories of his life that the deity had stirred fell back into the recesses of his subconscious, but he felt fuller, less lost with the recovered knowledge of his death.
The Goddess nodded and stepped away from him, her facial expression showing nothing of what she was thinking. Her emotions did not move over her face like the women he had met before. She either had one hell of a poker face or was cold blooded to the core.
“You will be no threat to me, Devon,” she intoned. “This will be your new home. You may call me Persephone.”
New home? “If I’m not a demigod, why am I here? How am I alive? What am I?”
The Goddess looked away, glancing for the first time to Thanatos, who sat quietly in his seat.
He nodded.
“You, Devon, seem to be a Reaper.”
Chapter 5
She watched Devon as he took in her words. Wordlessly repeating them as if committing them to memory.
His stare became fixed on the fire in the corner of the room, blue just as all the fire in the Underworld was. He seemed lost for a moment before he said, “A reaper? What the hell is a reaper? Why me?”
An admirable question. One that Persephone herself had. Why him?
“Your rescue from eternal death was mandated by the Moirai, but your life is now linked to
my powers and the powers of the Underworld. The seeds,” she explained, “tied you to my realm.”
The seeds had been fragments of her essence, the same energy that coursed through her realm. She hadn’t consciously known she could give such a gift until the Moirai deemed it so. Persephone chafed at the intimacy of it. Although she had known the soul for millennia, he might as well have inhaled the shadow smoke of her innermost power.
“An immortal denizen of the Underworld,” she continued, careful to not reveal her uncertainty, “serves the realm. A Reaper serves by transporting the souls of the dead from the human realm to the river, where you arrived at my gates.”
Devon’s brows furrowed, and he flinched away from her. Closing himself off completely felt wrong to her, but she would not push him. She had to choose her battles wisely with him.
“The dead? When I took those fucking seeds, you said I’d never have to kill again. Was this some kind of fucking trap? I didn’t have the choice in life to be anything other than a monster, yet here you are making me a monster for all eternity!” His calm facade crumbled, replaced by a lethal anger that snapped into place in the blink of an eye. She took a moment before responding, wanting him to hear her words and not be so engrossed in his own anger.
Thanatos appeared next to her, shadows licking at his sides. Persephone sent him a quelling look. She understood Devon might be confused since he had been disoriented from the separation of body and soul when they last spoke. Damn the Moirai for not giving her more to go on and leaving them confused and wandering the realms for clues.
“I said you’d never have to raise a weapon again. Reapers do not kill. They guide the souls home.”
Devon glared. “I tried to escape killing in my mortal life, and now I have to be surrounded by death for eternity?” he snarled through his clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring, looking every inch the dangerous predator that he was trained to be.
Thanatos tensed. “Death is not murder, mercenary,” he warned, his voice deepening and verging into his Reaper form. “You will do well to censor your words when you speak harshly of death in this realm. Especially with the Goddess.”
