Page 23 of Reapers Don’t Ride

“You agreed to kill someone?”

I felt guilty for a moment before I shrugged and tucked my cleaning supplies beneath the small sink and went over to crouch beside the bed, studying his eyes, seeing if I could find traces of serious injury in them. His eyes were bright, clear, beautiful.

“Yes. Of course, I meant it as ‘we will kill them,’ so you can deal the actual death if you’d prefer.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “And if this person isn’t corrupt?”

“Then we’ll find a way to get them what they need without killing. What did you want me to do? I’m supposed to be protective of you.”

He smiled slightly and then took my hands, gazing into my eyes with all the softness in the world. “Thank you. Without you, I would have been taken and executed by the angels.” He must think someone was listening in on us. That was a definite possibility.

I squeezed his hand back. “No. Without me, you’d still be happily in the ranks of the angels. You should have let them take me.”

“Never!” His eyes burned with passion. “Your soul is worth saving, whatever the price.”

I put my face down because this was making me feel really uncomfortable. The goblin in him was an amazing liar. He seemed so sincere. Of course, he was an angel who believed in saving souls, but he made it sound so personal. That was the point. And it was good for me to get lost in his seeming devotion. But not too lost.

“But what about your soul?” His soul was in his eyes, filled with devotion and love. I looked away, standing. “I need to source some bags of blood, and you’ll need food to recover. You’re going to stay in this bed until I’m sure it won’t set you back to get up. I don’t care if you’re an angel, you were hurt very badly.”

He brushed the side of my face, sending prickles down my spine and making my heart twist. “If that’s what you want, my precious heart.”

His words affected me even more than his touch. We stayed like that for a long moment before I took his hand and firmly put it down on his lap.

“It’s what I want. Your heart is precious. Mine is dead. So take care of your heart or I’ll kill you.”

I left as quickly as possible. After I closed the door, I leaned against it while my heart did strange things in my chest.

What was I doing? I was already borderline obsessed with the angel, and one thing he didn’t need was to get more entangled with a creature like me. He was pure and perfect and should be associating with other angels like him. But they couldn’t get him into a place like this.

A scent tickled my nose, and I searched the shadows until I made out the slight glimmer of a pair of eyes. I shifted my stance, prepared to destroy the threat.

“It’s just me,” a low, melodious voice assured me, coming closer and letting his cloaking spell fade. He was an angel, going by the wings, but he smelled of bitterness. Was this Lorien the Cupid? He didn’t look like a short and pudgy cherub. He was large, as tall as Gavriel, and as muscular as Richard.

I crouched, prepared to rip him apart if he attacked me, trying to get to Gavriel.

He raised a brow as he looked at the door past me and then at me. “Aren’t you overreacting just a bit?”

I bared my teeth at him. “I’m not acting. He’s mine. No one else is going to touch him.” My whole body echoed back its agreement with that statement. He was mine as far as anything had ever belonged to me, whether or not he felt the same way.

He laughed and shook his head, backing away. “I believe you. That’s unexpected. Your friend will come to no harm from me while you’re gone. I swear it. And the others want your help with their project, so he’s relatively safe from them as well. Also, if he’s conscious, he’s not defenseless. The only reason he’s staying in bed is because you told him to.”

I hissed at him. “You’re spying on me?”

His grin was sharp, smile wide. “Of course. Angels are my specialty, seeing as I used to be one. The two of you bursting in here at the precise moment we were looking for an assassin is more than slightly suspicious.”

I curled my lip. “It must be fate. I have your oath, but know this. If you scratch a piece of my angel, I will see you die the slowest, most agonizing way possible. And if you love anyone, I’ll kill them too.” I darted past him down the stairs, like he wasn’t our target. I couldn’t tell if he was. A bitter angel didn’t seem like much of a threat.

On the bottom floor, I ran into Shane, or I would have run into the large male blocking the exit if I hadn’t pulled up.

“Where do you think you’re going? We had a deal.”

“Blood bags, unless you’re volunteering your vein. He also needs food. And liquids. And if I can find a health elixir, that would be ideal.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “Did you meet the angel upstairs?”

I shrugged, studying him for delicate points I could use to drop him so I could get on my way. Except that I couldn’t hurt him and expect him to not hurt my angel. “We didn’t exchange names and have a polite conversation, if that’s what you mean, but I never really got the hang of polite conversation. I need to get supplies for us. Is that a problem?”

He scratched his neck. “And where would you get blood bags?”