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When the daze cleared,I was back in my bedroom.
Alert. Awake. Alarmed, because I was sitting in a demon’s lap, over my bed. Reaper nestled me like a lover in his arms.
“Get off!” I screeched, pushing him away.
“Better?” he rumbled.
“You just kidnapped me! And before that—Adam was murdered!”
“Not by myself,” Reaper said. He kicked up his boots on my bed and lay his head on my pillow. Closed his eyes and exhaled. “This room smells of you.”
I almost stabbed him again.
“What the hell did you do to me in the Barren Fields? When you were—”
I shuddered. “Cleaning me?”
“Well, Gaksi supervised me getting the worst of the carnage off you, so it was a chaperone-approved cleaning,” he explained matter-of-factly. “And the forces that work on the Barren Fields are not under my control.”
“So what the hell happened to me?” My voice dropped dangerously low as I turned my head to face him.
“Your energy, including most of your fear, was devoured by the forces that drain magic out of the Barren Fields.”
That was it. Why I was so exhausted, why I let him run his shadows all over me… we even had a conversation! Like companions! I jumped out of his arms, swung my legs over his chest, and wrapped my hands around his neck.
“You should face your fears with this level of zeal,” Reaper said, eyes blown wide.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You threaten demons every day, but you can’t let your skin breathe without makeup?”
Humiliation washed over me at the accuracy.
“If you can’t die,” I exhaled into his face, “can you still feel pain and suffocation?”
His eyes blazed.
“No, my dear seraphim. But I do enjoy being straddled by you in bed.”
I moved to slap him, but he caught my hand in a tight grip.
“Everything that has gone wrong in my life since I got here is because of you,” I raged.
“Your universe. Your inability to keep your own residents contained.”
He said nothing, eyes cold.
“If I were a fool, I would think that the way you held me in the Fields is proof that a demon could actually be gentle.” I stroked his neck with my free hand. He made a sound that could only be interpreted as a whimper.
“But I am not a fool, and you are a worthless immortal.”
With the raging disgust I dripped from my voice, he finally dissolved.
* * *
The lanterns blurredmy vision as they drifted off into the night sky.
Wolves howled in agony, in tandem.
