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A horrible smile graced Reaper’s face. “Next one to speak of this incident,” he intoned with graceful wrath, “will suffer a fate much worse than that.”
Screeching sounded. A horrible crack split the air.
“I’m not afraid to take any of you to the other side early,” he threatened. “And I’ll have fun on the way down.”
Feet hit the earth as students ran away.
Reaper strode toward me. Daring students to say something. Publicly.
They didn’t.
I awaited him from the ground, keeled over. Here came the hands that had lifted me up. The mouth that had set me alight. The smile that had forced me to bite back, to stop being so passive, and to resist complacency.
The Prince of Demons. Whose darkness had never been aimed at me. Whose power never frightened me.
And now that he had claimed me so publicly, put me in the worst position of them all.
Exposed.
He kneeled before me.
“What have you done, Reaper?” I whispered, terror filling my voice.
“It’s okay, seraphim,” he said, the picture of lethal calm. “I’m going to take you home.”
He swung me up in his arms, cradling me to his chest.
The darkness rippled, unsettled, as we teleported.
* * *
Shadows slit roughly ashe stepped between space. But my dorm room didn’t greet us.
Instead, we were in a grey bedchamber, large enough to house an army. He placed me down with two emotions rare for him—softness and tenderness.
Then he turned me to him.
Reaper’s shoulders were tense, his posture hunched, and his entire demeanor… still.
He was embarrassed, I realized.
His voice was strained. “Forgive me.”
I gazed around the room, cagey. “Where did you bring me?” A silver desk sat across the bed, inlaid with the same jewels as mine at home. My feet sank into a rich chocolate rug. Rows and rows of books covered the wall across from us, where a four-poster bed rested.
His face remained tight, distant. As if he couldn’t face me. As if he didn’t want to admit what happened. “I should never have engaged with you. Let you see the…destruction of my wrath. Let you be treated like that by your own people.” I’d never heard his voice so coarse, so unsure.
I didn’t know how to deal with the aftermath of his public altercation. He might as well have declared that I was his lover to the whole world.
But I had not fought his presence there. I had welcomed it. Felt… relieved when I saw him coming to my rescue.
Yet, I tried not to think of the sight that led me here. I would become ill again.
“I’m not used to hearing apologies from you,” I said honestly. I took a steadying breath before I continued. “You don’t have to feel regret for… taking care of me. Had the situation been reversed, I would have done the same for you.” The confession made my lungs burn. It was too true, too raw for what I expected to talk to him about today.
“I cannot believe what I saw today,” Reaper snarled. “Those vile, worthless creatures should have been destroyed like the animals they mutilated. You should never have seen your animals like that. You never should have been rescued from that situation in the first place.”
He huffed out a tired breath. “I should not have tormented them either. But when it came to you… I could not resist my baser nature.”
