Hunter and I go around front to greet Ethan, who jumps out of his Jeep as soon as he sees me.
“I know exactly what’s going on,” I rush out, wanting him to know I wasn’t brought out here by the black mist again. “There were over a dozen scrapper demons moving through. But we got them.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think I am.” I motion to the pile of bodies.
“We really need to invest in a good burn pit. Or a meat grinder. Probably both.”
Ethan looks at the pile of bodies. “Fuck, that’s a lot of scrappers. How did you—I mean, not that you’re not capable—but fuck.”
“Yeah. I, uh, I didn’t do most of the killing,” I admit and open my mouth to tell him that one of my reapers came back and defended me, but snap my jaw shut. My reapers. No, I shouldn’t think like that. Reapers are demons. And I don’t feel sentimental or protective over demons.
“Hunter is a beast,” I reply, not directly lying but not telling the truth either. I absolutely hate keeping this from Ethan, but I can’t tell him. Not now with everything else going on. We need to deal with one problem at a time and feeling an emotional connection with the reapers is definitely a problem.
CHAPTER 25
“Remember when we used to go out to dinner, come home, drink too much wine, and go to bed?” I fluff up my pillow and get in bed next to Ethan. “And things were simple?”
“We’ll get back to that place again,” he tells me, not taking his eyes off his laptop. We’ve spent the last several hours installing the cameras and door sensors, and now Ethan is setting everything up. I haven’t lived in a house with any sort of security system since I moved out of my parent’s home, saying I didn’t need it since I had Hunter. I know that to be true now more than ever but having something like this does give me reassurance.
“It’s all set.” Ethan closes his computer and sets it on the nightstand. “I set the passcode to your birthday. I know it’s easily guessed. We can change it later.”
“Okay,” I say, and we settle into bed together. A bit of unease grows in the pit of my stomach no matter how much I try not to think about the reaper fighting the scrappers on my behalf. It’s not so much that the reapers think of me as their alpha as it is the fact that I’m not telling Ethan. There are enough weird, unexplained things going on in my life right now. Hiding something from him is the last thing I want. Plus, it feels wrong.
I love him. Trust him. We have a good relationship and I don’t want to mess anything up by keeping a secret.
“Don’t worry, babe.” He takes me in his arms. “We’re going to get through this.”
My eyes flutter shut, feeling peace as soon as I’m in his embrace. I will tell him about the reaper…just not now. Because now I’m exhausted from running after scrappers and from shivering in the cold as we attempted to get their bodies to burn.
“I know,” I say and believe it. We will get to the bottom of this. We’ll find whatever is making me suffer temporary insanity and handle it—together. Ethan pulls me to his chest, kissing the top of my head. I listen to his steady heartbeat, calming myself, and then drift to sleep.
We get up and take care of the horses and donkeys together in the morning, and then go back to bed, having sex before falling asleep again. I wake up hours later feeling like I’m finally caught up on my sleep, though I’m not eager to get out of bed. There’s a bunch of housework to get caught up on, and the fridge really needs to be completely emptied and cleaned.
I stay in bed, lounging around with Ethan, for another hour and then we both get up, starting our day hours later than usual. By dinner time, my house is spotless and I’m exhausted. Ethan makes dinner and we call it an early night, both getting into bed by ten p.m. It was a boring, normal day, and I didn’t realize how much my soul needed it until I laid down for the night.
But, of course, the universe has other plans. I’m scrolling through social media on my phone when the motion sensor from the doorbell camera goes off. I open the app and before it can load, the doorbell rings.
“It’s late,” I say, bristling. “Who would be ringing the doorbell now?”
“Stay here,” Ethan tells me and swings his feet over the side of the bed, grabbing his gun from the nightstand. Hunter, who was sleeping in his dog bed, trots out of the room. He’s not on high-alert, and doesn’t sense anything dangerous. Still…no one randomly shows up at your house after dark like this with good news.