Page 7 of Reapers Don’t Ride

“Well,” I said, hesitating. It wasn’t like me to trust people, but he was an angel, and he wasn’t corrupt, and I was concerned about the health and happiness of Crucible. “My old place was in Singsong City, so he should be near there if he hasn’t found someone else to stay with.”

“Sing or Song?”

“Song. I’m a vampire. The sun is uncomfortable.”

“You don’t seem uncomfortable.”

“It’s overcast. Also, I fed on a demon for almost a century. It leant me a great deal of immunity to the sun.”

“You fed on a demon for almost a century?” He sounded shocked, like I’d told him that I’d murdered his grandmother.

“Among other things. That must be why I smell of pure vengeance. Demons are incredibly vengeful.” I wrinkled my nose. I wanted him to trust me, but feeding on demons was madness. I had to explain something that was fairly inexplicable. “He was my master, and he insisted that I feed on him. It strengthened the binding, the compulsion to do as he commanded. I was difficult to control, but he took great pleasure in the task. Our original contract limited the things I did for him, but I didn’t think about writing a clause about drinking his blood, probably because I wasn’t a vampire at the time I made the contract.”

“You made the contract?”

“Yes. He said that it was the finest one with the fewest loopholes he’d seen in centuries.”

“Then I suppose it was reasonable for you to make a deal with a demon.”

“No. It’s never worth the price. Besides that, you only bargain for things you can’t accept, that you wish to change. I’ve gotten very good at accepting the limitations of my existence. I would never make a deal with a demon now, because there’s nothing I want.”

“Just because you asked for what you wanted, and it didn’t turn out, doesn’t mean that you should stop wanting things.”

I stared at the idealistic angel. He was so sweetly charming and naive. Also gloriously beautiful. If I wanted something, it would be someone like him, and a life of old-fashioned charm and tradition, with him chopping logs for the fire, and me baking bread and snuggling our babies and ferrets. Alive. I’d want to be alive to have a future, a legacy, and a love that lasted forever.

I patted his arm. “I hope that living outside the constraints of time doesn’t impede your ability to have children. Your babies would be beautiful.” I’d just said that to an almost stranger. I needed to stop talking. Forever.

He stared at me blankly and then said in a stilted way. “Do you fly?”

I stared back at him. “I don’t personally have wings, but I’m not against it.”

He nodded and then stepped into my space and picked me up like I was a bride he was about to carry over the threshold. It was so entirely out of my reality that I did nothing to resist him, just stared at him and accidentally breathed in his scent. Our noses would brush if I moved slightly to the left.

“Hold on and I will do my best not to drop you.” His eyes narrowed, darkness spreading around us, no, those were his wings, casting a shadow that blocked out the rest of the world, and then he leapt into the air, and his wings beat once, twice, and then the world disappeared in a rush of movement and energy that was like nothing else. Except for him. It was exactly like his arms being around me.