Starfire (Grim Gate 2)

“They, meaning the reapers?”

And now I’m wincing again. “You didn’t see it, did you?”

“No.”

“Oh, well, um…the reaper, he, um…he gave me energy?” I make a face. “It was this brilliant flittering beam of light.”

Ethan looks at me for a few seconds, unspeaking. “There’s never a dull moment with you, is there?”

“I’m just trying to keep you on your toes?”

“You could say that again.” He strides forward, taking me in his arms. I close my eyes and rest my forehead against his chest. He was right to say we can get through anything as long as we have each other.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he says. “And if the reapers come back, we’ll be ready.”

“Ready?” I echo, though I know exactly what he means. The reapers are demons. They speed up death and kill people, stealing their auras. They’re bad news, and there’s no way around that. They’re bad, plain and simple. But life isn’t like that. Nothing is black and white, and I can’t get rid of the sick feeling in my heart when I think about killing the reapers.

My reapers.

CHAPTER 22

It’ll be okay.

I nestle into Ethan’s arms, his words echoing in my head. He thinks I’m upset. Scared. That the thought of reapers looking at me as their leader is bad. But the truth is I’ve never felt more empowered than I do right now.

I’m a witch with powers and now I have an army of demons at my beck and call. They’re bad, I know, but if I’m in charge, I can direct them, right? People die every day and if the reapers eat the auras of those who recently passed, it’s not hurting anyone. They would have died anyway.

On some level, I know how fucked up this all is. They’re reaper demons. Things I should kill, not want to protect. Yet whatever ritual they performed that made me their alpha is binding them to me in a way I never thought possible.

Hunter jumps up into the bed, settling at our feet. His presence brings me instant comfort—and grounds me. The reapers are bad news. They are demons.

I’ll deal with them later.

We need to address the currently problem at hand, and hallucinating is a pretty big problem. Ethan slowly runs his fingers up and down my side and I start to relax. I’m not tired at the moment, yet in the back of my mind I know I need to go to sleep or I’ll regret it in the morning. Forcing myself to take in slow, deep breaths, I start to relax.

But an hour later, I’m still awake. Gently, I pull myself out of Ethan’s embrace and go downstairs. Wrapping myself in a blanket, I sit in the living room and watch TV, needing something mindless until I’m tired enough to go back upstairs.

“What would you do?” I whisper, thinking of Aunt Estelle as I pause on the stairs. It does no good to be angry at her. She’s dead and clearly doesn’t want to or isn’t able to communicate with me. Yet I can’t help but be angry. Things would be a hell of a lot different if she hadn’t kept my true identity from me.

I get back into bed and this time I do fall asleep. Ethan gets up first, silencing my alarm and going out to feed the horses and donkeys so I can sleep in. I wake an hour later and get dressed after using the bathroom. He’s in the kitchen, talking to someone on the phone.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he rushes out when the stairs creak beneath my feet, giving me away. He ends the call and puts his phone on the counter. “Morning.”

“Morning,” I reply. “Did you tell your dad about the reapers?” My eyes go to the phone.

“No,” he says and raises his eyebrows. “We’ll keep that between us for the time being.”

“That’s probably a good idea.” Crossing the room, I get a mug and fill it halfway with coffee. I top it off with creamer and take a seat at the island. There’s tension in the air and I know ignoring it won’t make it any better. “So last night was crazy.” I wrap my fingers around the warm mug.

“You could say that again. You can’t, uh, sense the reapers, can you?”

I shake my head. “Wherever they went, they’re long gone. I don’t know how close they need to get for me to sense them. We can check the news for any signs of them, though, right?”

“We can, but let’s handle one problem at a time. It’s not a coincidence you got your hair cut and the same day weird shit started happening. And the way Claire freaked out makes her look hella guilty. She’s scheduled to go into work at ten a.m. so if we hurry, we can catch her leaving and then check out her place.”