Page 54 of Reapers Don’t Ride

By the time I got to the spa, my hands full of packages, I was ready to go have a nice, quiet blood bag after making certain my angel was safe and well. Instead, I got the whirlwind treatment, hair, nails, and skin.

While I was getting my last nail done, Chira ran at me, sparkling like a yellow and hot pink gemstone. And when she saw the clothing bags I had for her, she twinkled even brighter somehow.

I squinted at her. That much brightness literally hurt my eyes. “Get dressed, and then we’ll go.”

She didn’t say anything else, just took the clothing bags into one of the rooms and then came out with everything on at the same time.

I started laughing. “Genius. We don’t have to carry shopping bags. I’ll wear my dress too, and we can just have the cake.”

She beamed at me. “It’s all so beautiful, so I couldn’t pick.”

“You don’t have to.”

Frankie took one look at her and burst out laughing. Then he grabbed her around the shoulders and scrubbed her head. “You look like a homeless person.”

“No, I don’t. Do I look like a homeless person, Ruby?”

“Of course not. Homeless people don’t sparkle that much. Frankie, I didn’t get you anything. We can stop if you’d like.”

He stiffened up, looking horrified. “No, thank you. I’m not a child you need to buy sparkly clothes for.”

I rolled my eyes and then paid for everything. It was all coming out of my own account. It was nice to pay for happy things.

Chira chattered happily about all the mud baths and the heated pools with special substances that made your skin extra soft and delicious while I carried the cake, hoping Gavriel liked angel food cake. I didn’t know what kind of cake he liked. How could I play the part of devoted lover if I didn’t even know what he liked to eat? We didn’t eat together, or I’d have some idea. We’d have to do that in the future, for the sake of our cover, naturally.

We went down a large elevator into Song, Chira and Frankie getting looks from all the infernal creatures. Then they saw me and walked faster. The fairies looked like easy prey, but if they were my prey, no one else would touch them.

We were nearly home in a very sketchy part of town, and all of Song was relatively sketchy, when a group of twelve figures dressed in black stepped out of the shadows, hemming us in.

I grabbed Frankie, bruising his shoulder. “Take Chira and fly!”

He picked her up and flew, but his path was cut off by a flying figure. Demon wings? I needed a knife to throw at him, but Frankie kicked him back and then the two were gone, leaving me to deal with a dozen mercenaries on my own.

I looked down at my cake box, dangling from my wrist by a ribbon. I really didn’t want to ruin the cake. I should have had Frankie take it with him.

There was no conversation, no threats, just the attack, led by a very solid figure that would be my first kill. But I wasn’t supposed to kill him. My hesitation earned me a stabbed chest. To the right of my heart. How was I supposed to not kill him? I didn’t know how to do that with the same precision as killing. Just leave off the death stroke? But often that ended up with them coming back at you once you’d turned your back on them.

I knew that because I was stabbed in the chest again, slightly beneath my heart when what smelled like goblin stood up after I felled him the first time.

And the cake. Should I put it down or keep holding it? I didn’t want it to get crushed, but if I kept holding it, that only gave me one hand.

The leader charged me while I was slashing through someone’s throat, only not entirely through it. Would that kill him?

The big guy slammed me into a lamppost. It made a tinkling of music, and then the lightbulb exploded, leaving us in the dark. His neck was right there. I could easily rip his throat out with my teeth, but I didn’t want to bite live prey, and I’d promised not to kill anyone.

I head-bashed him hard enough that he slumped down, ripping my new dress in the process. My dress was also ripped when a knife came hurtling out of the darkness and stabbed me directly in the heart.

I plucked out the knife and threw it back at him, taking him down. But it was slightly higher than his heart, because I wasn’t supposed to kill him.

Jaws clamped around my neck, and then I was trying to pry a werewolf off me. I could just break his neck, but how would that not kill him? I gripped his muzzle and ripped his jaws apart, ripping into his skull far enough that he backed away, whimpering and bleeding profusely.

Three came at me, and that time I stumbled back underneath their onslaught, their knives, claws, teeth, barely managing to save the cake so no one crushed it.

Then death descended. Gavriel was there, wings black and glowing, face empty of everything but complete annihilation.

I smiled at him, relieved that he was safe and that I’d saved his cake. Of course, I was also bleeding out and might die. How perfect to see my angel in my last moments.