Page 73 of Reapers Don’t Ride

“We aren’t getting married! Why are you so annoying? He liked me as a vampire, not as this, and I’m not going back to being undead. It’s nonnegotiable.”

The two angels stared at me with furrowed brows then exchanged looks and nodded before landing back on my bed, but this time one was on either side so I was pinned in.

“The thing about Gavriel,” Lorien said with a graceful gesture.

“Is that he has no idea how to talk to angelic females,” Richard finished for him. “He always feels inferior because of his streak of goblin, and most angel girls are very intense about their duty and their family lines, but mostly their duty. Most angels get contracted marriages that are filled with respect but empty of love. Love is like a lightning strike when your father isn’t around. It’s rare. Incredibly powerful. Do you think that you’d be alive if he didn’t love you for more than your ability to suck his blood? The situation makes him nervous.”

I frowned at him then at Lorien who I knew a little better. He understood falling and coming back. “I’m not an angel. I’m just a weak human half angel who can’t pick him up and carry him away if he doesn’t want to come with me. I’m so weak. But I’m not so weak that I’d make him be with me if he didn’t want me. I am not sacrificing who I am for someone else.”

Lorien put a surprisingly gentle hand on my shoulder. “That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Isn’t that beautiful, Rich? She’s learned to love herself, and not just find her happiness in someone else.”

I snorted and shook his hand off me. “Yes, I’m so beautiful. Oh! I’m probably not beautiful anymore, now that I’m not a vampire. Maybe that’s it.”

Richard groaned. “Woman, that’s not it! Didn’t you hear me tell you how nervous he is around females? Even my sister, he barely spoke two words to her in years. He’s insecure.”

“Which is stupid,” Lorien put in. “The Hartshorn family are the wealthiest angel bloodline around. They aren’t lifelong devotees to the HOST’s but prefer to profit off various arms of the system.”

Richard shot him a look. “Now you’re going to make her nervous.”

The door opened, and there was Gavriel, holding a tray with six different kinds of soup on it, all of them white porcelain, breakable bowls.

“What are you doing in here?” he growled, stalking forward like his tray was a weapon of decapitation.

Richard and Lorien leaned closer to me, getting comfortable. Richard said, “Louisa was telling us all about how she needs time to decide which of all the potential candidates for her hand in marriage she should choose. I personally put my name in the hat.”

“Me too,” Lorien said before gazing at me with soulful eyes. “Fair Louisa, will you do my family the honor of marrying me?”

I pushed on his forehead, getting him away from me. “Don’t ask me such ridiculous questions before I’ve eaten.”

He grinned and hopped off the bed, keeping his wings tight, because there were too many angels in one room for anyone to have their wings out. “Sure thing, angel. Also, I’d like to thank you for releasing me from the wall before you dropped a house on me. That’s the kind of thoughtfulness I’m looking for in a wife.” He winked at me and then strolled past Gavriel, whose face was remarkably impassive, at least until Richard elbowed him in passing, and Gavriel showed a flash of pain that had me wanting to throw a knife into Richard’s back. His wings would probably block it from this angle. I was weak, so I’d have to plan carefully, using a mixture of poisons and his own character flaws to undo him. Happily, he seemed to have a plethora of character flaws to use.

“Here is your soup,” Gavriel finally said once we were alone. He came over and put the tray on the table beside me. Hesitating, he sat on the edge of the bed where Lorien had been, then turned with a bowl and a spoon.

“You didn’t say what you liked, so I brought a variety for you to sample,” he said politely.

“I thought I asked for a plastic bowl. So I didn’t break it if my hands…”

He frowned down at the tray. “They didn’t have plastic bowls, so I guess I’ll have to feed you.”

I folded my hands in my lap and felt cold. And my toes still ached. Oh, the humiliation, to be spoon fed by someone who didn’t want to be here. “I see. Maybe there’s a nurse that can feed me.”

“She’s on break.”

I nodded again. “I see. Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble. We were partners.” He sat on the very edge of my bed and picked up a spoon, frowning down at the bowls. “Would you try this one? It’s pea soup, so soft and warm, but perhaps too bland.”

I opened my mouth, and he put the spoon on my mouth. It was strange to have even semi-solid food after a century of a liquid diet, and breathing and swallowing were tricky. I gripped his wrist while I processed that one bite, getting my mouth used to the feel of it before I forced it down my throat.

“Here,” he said, holding the glass of water to my lips.

It took me a long time to drink the water with the breathing. I had been shy when I was alive, not polite. I remembered this feeling of wanting to disappear. Feelings were so consuming when you were alive, and so irrational.

He held out another spoon from another bowl. “Perhaps you’ll like the chicken noodle better, although it may be too heavy for you. If you need to spit it out, please do.”

Because spitting in front of the man who my heart beat for would be so great. “Thank you.” I said, giving him a furtive glance before I took the next bite. He was so unearthly beautiful, all cutting cheekbones and swirls of silky dark hair. And his eyes. Twin souls of death. I stared at the tray while I tried to chew without biting my own tongue. I failed. At least my teeth weren’t sharp. I managed to swallow that bite as well.

Once again, he was there with the water. He’d be an excellent waiter if he wasn’t a reaper of death. Maybe he did freelance as a waiter from time to time. Richard and Lorien seemed to think that Gavriel was being shy with me, but this coldness wasn’t the same as wanting to disappear. Still, they knew him better than I did. I should make it clear that my feelings were set on him, and then he could clearly reject me so I could try to live with a freshly reborn, shattered heart.