Mentally.
Emotionally.
Soul deep.
A horrible hurricane hit Crowne Point a year after my father’s death. I remember it as the only time my mother hugged me—us. She wrapped all of us together in a blanket down in the servants’ quarters as the wind slammed against the wall.
My mother said things under her breath that night.Things I’d never heard her utter before or since. About God. About her love,forus.
I remember not being afraid.
I wasexcited.
The chaos of the wind had fed something inside me. The morning after, I walked among the ruins. Wind had ripped off the black shingles of Crowne Hall and the facade was broken toothed. Branches lay scattered among the beach and blocked Main Street and I felt…peace.
Not just for the first time since my father’s death—for the first time in my life.
Among the desolation and devastation, I took a big breath of the brackish after-storm air. The smell of something new, rebirth that comes only after something terrible.
I remember thinking then I wasn’t normal. Everyone else had wrinkles in their brows, and I was smiling. I eventually found a facsimile of that peace…in pills. And one night, I tasted the real thing again—inhim.
But it was so small, so brief, it had been like a drop of wine in the ocean.
Hot and Scary Older Guy, heretofore known as HSOG, slowly lifted his head, eyes locking with mine. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to play with fire?”
“My mother taught me not to look under the bed for monsters. I guess that made me want to look more.”
HSOG laughed,hard, and put his hands in his pockets. “Do you know who I am?”
I blew smoke in his face. “Someone scary?”
He laughed again. I got close to him, until I could taste the musky smoke on his lips—and was promptly yanked back and behind a wall of muscle.
Two out of the four Horsemen.
“This one is off limits,”the first one spoke.
“She belongs to us,” the second added.
Behind me spoke a third. “Unfortunately.”
I’d recognize that low voice anywhere.
Grim Reyes.
The king of the Underworld and leader of the Horsemen. The man who didn’t want my soul but held it hostage anyway—the Reaper.
TWO
GEMMA
“Off limits…I don’t see a tattoo on her.” HSOG’s eyes glittered at me through a slit in the wall of muscle. “The Reaper really hasn’t claimed this girl?”
“The Reaper has no girl,” Grim said. “Will never have one.”
He was too close. All he had to do was take a step and his breath would be on my neck.
“It’s true.” I beamed at the mystery guy. “You can kill me, fuck me, do both at the same time, nothing’s gonna happen but a good time.”
