Darkness Unbound (Dark Angels 1)

“On the other hand, he might just have come home to die.” After all, the Aedh only bred when they sensed their death was near, and while I was just over twenty-eight years old, that was merely a heartbeat in Aedh years.

“That is also possible.”

I finished the last of my Coke, then pushed the empty cup away and crossed my arms on the table—an action that brought me closer to the heat of him. It trembled across my skin in waves, warm and disturbing. But oddly, he had no scent. He might wear the flesh of a man, but he didn’t smell like one.

He didn’t smell like anything, really. Not even the rain that still beaded his skin.

“Meaning there are others like you out there searching for him?”

He hesitated, then nodded—another brief but oddly lyrical movement.

“But why? What has he done to incite such interest from the reapers?”

“It’s not what he has done, but what he might do.”

Frustration rolled through me, but there wasn’t much point in venting it. It wasn’t exactly wise to get annoyed at someone who could steal your life away between one heartbeat and the next. And though it was obvious he wanted to use me to get to my father, that wasn’t a comforting thought. Not when I knew so little about the reapers as a society or as individuals.

“So what is he up to that’s causing you so much consternation?”

He crossed his arms, and I had to resist the urge to let my gaze linger over the lean, muscular goodness such an action revealed.

Damn it, I either needed to get to Franklin’s—a discreet, upmarket wolf club—or break my vow to stop using Tao. This was getting ridiculous.

“To answer that,” he said, after considering me for entirely too long, “I really need to know just how much you know about us.”

I replied, “As much as any half-Aedh knows.”

“Which is not helpful, as I am not aware of what a half-Aedh might know.”

I swear his lips twitched as he said it—almost as if he was restraining a smile. I wondered again if reapers were capable of amusement, or whether it was simply a function of hormones that—for some damn indefinable reason—seemed to find him attractive.

But that could have been deliberate on his part. If he knew I was half Aedh, then he more than likely knew I was also half wolf, and the form he’d adopted could be an attempt to appeal to my more sensual nature. After all, the full moon was only a couple of days away, and for most werewolves this was the time of the moon heat.

But I wasn’t a normal werewolf. My Aedh DNA had apparently curtailed much of my wolf heritage, and while I had werewolf sexual sensibilities and drive, the moon had no pull on me and didn’t force a shape change during her full bloom. Hell, I couldn’t take wolf shape anytime, no matter how hard I tried. And I’d certainly tried more than once.

And yet, weirdly enough, I had inherited Mom’s Helki skill for face-shifting. I didn’t use it often, but I could, if I wanted to—and with a fair degree of effort—change basic things like hair, eyes, and facial structure. And like my mom, I could hold my altered shape for fairly long periods.

Which was handy for fancy-dress occasions, but not much else.

“Well,” I said, “this half-Aedh knows that reapers are soul guides. You take them to heaven or hell, depending on what their allotted fate is.”

“We do not call it heaven or hell. Those are human terms.”

“Then what do you call them?”

“The light or dark path.”

“Which is basically the same thing.”

He merely shrugged, but something in the way he studied me suggested I was an idiot for believing that.

Irritating, to say the least.

“And is that the sum of your knowledge?” he asked.

“I know there are gates between this world and the next—one for your so-called dark path, and one for the light. I know that Aedh priests used to guard them, but the priests no longer exist.” I eyed him for a moment. “Have the Mijai taken over that role?”

He hesitated. “Not really. We hunt