Reaper Unhinged (Deadside Reapers Book 6)

by Debbie Cassidy

  She pulled up her knees and dragged her legs over his shoulders so he could go deeper until my body was riding the pulsing wave of an orgasm so strong it stole my vision.

  The scent of fragrant earth, the rumble of thunder, and the crackling electric threat of lightning surrounded me. My back pressed to the grass. Stars up above. Hunter deep inside me, we crested the rise together.

  His orgasmic cry turned into a howl, and then he crashed down, palms either side of my head, his dark eyes blazing with an emotion I couldn’t define. I rippled around him as he pulsed and stared into my eyes.

  His mouth…His mouth was perfect. I wanted to claim it, to kiss him. To savor him. I lifted my head, eager to do just that, but he pushed me back down.

  “We’re here,” he said. “It’s done. Your pity fuck worked.”

  Pity fuck? “What?” I reached up to touch his cheek, but he batted my hand away. “I heard you, Fee. I heard what you said to Grayson. You’ve done your duty now. It’s over. I’ll play my role as part of the Tribus, but I won’t touch you again.” He climbed off me, leaving me empty and aching, and stood looking down at me, his body gloriously etched in moonlight. “I won’t touch you, not until you fucking beg me to.”

  The Vista melted, and I was back on the bed and Hunter…Hunter was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I found Grayson and Uri in the kitchen, making dinner and chatting away like old friends. For a moment, I considered sneaking away and leaving them to bond, but there was no getting away from Grayson’s sense of smell.

  “You hungry, Fee?” he asked with his back to me.

  My stomach rumbled in response. “Burgers?”

  “And steak,” Uri said. “I marinated them myself.”

  “I’m starving.” I’d made sure to shower off Hunter’s scent and put on one of Grayson’s old T-shirts over leggings. “Steak for breakfast. I love it.”

  Uri chuckled. “After the night we had…”

  He’d almost died. Wait, he had died and been sent back to me. I still had to wrap my head around that. Then there was the loss of Dexter, our civilian Loup, and the two Magiguard. “We lost good people today.”

  “Bastian’s speaking to Dexter’s family. We’ll be holding a memorial service.”

  “Good. Yes. Tell me what I can do to help with that.” I took a seat at the island. “Is Cora not back with Vi yet?”

  “Oh, they got back a while ago,” Uri said. “But we sent them out to get dessert. We figured once this curse is off your back, we can celebrate with something indulgent and sweet.”

  They were sweet. Neither mentioned Hunter or asked how it went. They knew I’d tell them if things had gone wrong; they appreciated it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.

  They were right, and they were awesome.

  My guys…But not all my guys… “I wish Azazel and Mal could be here too. Just in case.”

  Grayson turned away from the hob and fixed me with a stern look. “Nothing will go wrong.”

  I took a deep breath. “You’re right. Vi knows what she’s doing.”

  “And she has a medical professional with her.”

  “Who you sent to get dessert with them?”

  Grayson shrugged. “We said she could hang out with us.”

  “She didn’t look too pleased about that option,” Uri said with a frown. “I’m not sure why.”

  They were two hulking guys with charisma seeping from their pores. It could be overwhelming for a human.

  Grayson passed Uri a plate, and he put two steaks on it then passed the plate to me.

  “Eat,” they both said in unison.

  They joined me a moment later, and for half an hour, it was just us and yummy food and conversation.

  Cora materialized with Vi and another woman just as we were finishing up, and my stomach was instantly in knots.

  I pushed back my chair and stood. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Vi and her doctor friend Missy had me lay on the couch. Missy attached electrode thingies to my chest. I’d had to take Grayson’s shirt off for that, but I was wearing a sports bra, so it felt pretty covered up regardless. They stuck electrode thingies to my temple too, and a machine read my heart rate and brain waves.

  We were ready.

  It was time for Vi to stop my heart.

  A heart that was beating so fast I was afraid I’d pass out.

  Uri and Grayson stood at the back of the sofa and Vi sat by my hip, while Missy sat on a chair with a beeping machine by her side. She was a petite human with a perpetually startled look about her and a soft, soothing voice.

  “Calm down,” she said. “Your pulse is crazy.”

  “I’m about to have my heart stopped…I think it knows.”

  Vi rubbed her hands together. Her palms had inked patterns on them, and sparks flew off her fingertips.

  “Oh, it’s working.” She sounded surprised.

  “You had doubts.”

  “I’ve never done this before.”

  “You’ve never—” I tried to sit up, but Missy gently pushed me back down.

  “Vi?” Grayson’s tone demanded an explanation.

  “Look,” Vi said. “I’ve seen it done on several occasions and it’s foolproof. I charge up the emblems with a chant, drawing on my connection to miasma, and then I touch Fee and will her heart to stop. It stops. We wait a minute, and Missy brings her back.”

  I looked up at Grayson. This was the part where he said something. Something like we don’t have to do this, or maybe we can find another solution. I saw the doubt play across his face, and then his gaze dropped to my neck, to the spot where I’d cut myself, and the doubt melted.

  “Fee, if we don’t do this, that curse will take control,” he said.

  He was right. This was the plan. The only loophole. “Where’s Cora, I need her.”

  “I’m here.” Cora appeared by the fireplace clutching Hunter’s arm.

  “What are you—” His gaze fell on me, flicking to my chest and then to the machine I was attached to. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “They’re about to stop her heart,” Cora said. “I thought you might want to be here.”

  He looked at me, then up at Grayson. “Are you fucking insane?”

  Grayson groaned. “Hunter, this is none of your concern.”

  Hunter’s expression smoothed out to something cold and lethal. “Not my concern? Last I checked I was the third wheel in this Tribus. She’s my mate too, and her welfare is the welfare of the Tribus.”

  For a moment, I’d thought he go down a different route with that reasoning and say that my welfare meant something to him. I shoved away the errant thought. Since when did I care if I mattered to him anyway?

  “I have to do this.” I took a deep breath. “I’m cursed, and this is the only way to end it.”

  He looked like he was about to argue, and it hit me that this could be the last time I spoke to him. To any of them.

  I couldn’t do this without him knowing the truth. My gaze flicked to Cora, who I wager had brought him here for that very reason.

  “Hunter. It wasn’t pity, okay.” I didn’t want to say more. I didn’t need to. “I’m sorry if it felt that way.”

  He snapped his mouth closed.

  I looked up at Grayson. “I lo—"

  “Don’t,” Grayson said. “Tell me when you wake up.”

  I looked up at Uri. “When I thought you were dead, I felt like my heart was breaking. I need you to know that I’m falling in love with you. I just need you to know that.”

  His throat bobbed, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Cora, if I don’t—”

  “No.” Cora cut me off. “Enough with the speeches. You’re going to wake up, and if you don’t, I’m fucking coming after you.”

  There was no way she could do that, but hearing her say it and seeing the fierce look on her face was enough to give me the strength I needed to do this.

  I looked at Vi. “Do it.�
��

  “Stop!”

  The electric scent of a storm hit me, followed by a citrus aroma, and my pulse, which was already hammering, shot into my throat. I sat up so fast the electrodes tore from my skin, but I didn’t even feel the sting.

  “Azazel! Mal!”

  They were here. They’d come.

  They strode toward me, grime and blood-streaked, reeking of the elements, and then Azazel lifted me off the sofa, and I was kissing him, legs wrapped around his waist, hands in his hair. He tasted like smoky fires and freedom.

  “Ahem?”

  Azazel gripped me harder, deepening the kiss for one delicious moment before breaking it.

  “Thank you,” Mal drawled.

  Azazel reluctantly set me on my feet, and I stepped into Mal’s arms. He hugged me tight, his hands diving into my hair, lips grazing my cheek.

  “I fucking missed you. I’ll show you how much once this is over.”

  “Are we going to have a problem, Azazel?” Grayson asked.

  Oh shit.

  I’d almost forgotten about Azazel’s curse. The one that made him keep me, the last descendant of Cain, alive.

  Azazel’s silver eyes dipped to me. “I’m compelled to keep her alive. Although there is a risk in this, doing nothing means certain death for her and consequences for Lilith.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t feel compelled to stop this. I think the curse, whatever it is, understands this is the only way to save Fee.”

  “And if he tries to act up, I’ll put him out for a while,” Mal said with a smirk.

  Yeah, I bet he’d enjoy that.

  Azazel stripped off his weapons belt and holster and handed them to Mal. “I’m ready. I’m here.”

  The fear, the nerves, the rock on my chest, they were gone. My guys were here with me.

  I could do this.

  There was no stalling now. Electrodes back on, the people I cared for most around me, I closed my eyes.

  “Do it, Vi.”

  A fist gripped my heart, and then there was darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The darkness was absolute, but only for a moment, and then a light bloomed up ahead, and suddenly, I was moving toward it with no control over my body. Shit. Was this supposed to happen?

  Didn’t going into the light mean death?

  Who knew when it came to us outliers. This was uncharted terrain.

  Had it been a minute yet?

  They were going to pull me out after a minute.

  The light was a lamppost with a sign jutting out of it. There was a vehicle drawn onto the wooden sign…a bus. A shelter and a bench were stationed on the other side of the lamp, and two figures were already sitting under it. A man and a woman. They were talking animatedly. It was only when I sat down beside them that it was obvious that they were arguing.

  “I told you, time and time again,” the woman said. “Two pinches of citra, not three. Now look what you did.”

  “Then you should have made it yourself,” the man retorted.

  “If I’d known you were about to poison us, then I would have!”

  “How many times do I have to say it. I’m sorry, okay? Sorry.”

  “You can say it until your face turns blue, it won’t help now.”

  There was a rumble, and then a bright purple bus appeared out of nowhere and came to a standstill in front of us.

  “Is this it?” the man asked.

  “I assume so. Look.” She showed him a piece of paper in her hand. “Didn’t have this before.”

  He frowned and looked down at his hands. “I don’t have one.”

  The woman’s smile was sad. “Yes, that makes sense. You never finished the soup, did you?” She patted his cheek. “I think you have to go back, luv.”

  “What?”

  She stood, and he grabbed hold of her hand. “No. We go together. We’re always together.”

  The doors to the bus swished open, and she turned to quickly hug the man. “Not this time, Timmy.”

  A light bloomed on his back, and then he was whipped away from her. She stood staring off into the distance for a moment and then climbed onto the bus.

  Was this my way out of here?

  I hurried to the doors and made to step on.

  “Whoa!” a gruff male voice said, halting me in my tracks. “Not you.”

  I looked up at the driver, a creature so hairy I couldn’t even see his eyes. “Um…why not?”

  “You got no ticket.” The doors shut in my face, and the bus whizzed off to be swallowed by darkness.

  Shit, what now? I stepped back, and heat bloomed in my chest, sudden and sharp. I gasped, grabbing hold of my torso as the wave of heat came again.

  What was this?

  Scratch, scratch at the back of my mind.

  What was happening? Where was I? I was at a bus stop… I needed to catch a bus.

  I turned back to the bench to find it occupied by a guy. He looked young, maybe mid-twenties, but his eyes looked out of place in such a youthful face. They were too knowing. Too shrewd.

  “You waiting for the bus?” I smiled tentatively at him before sitting back down as far away from him as possible.

  “No,” he said.

  “Friends?”

  “No. You?” He canted his head. “Where are you headed?”

  “Me? I’m…” My mind was blank, and maybe that should have bothered me, but it didn’t. “I…don’t know. I guess I’ll find out.”

  A tugging sensation lit up my chest again, momentarily stealing my breath.

  “Someone wants you back real bad,” the guy said.

  “Huh?”

  He studied me for a long beat. “I could keep you. In fact, I might.”

  Keep me? “Look, you’re lovely and all, but you’re a little young for me.”

  “Am I?” He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. “How old are you?”

  “Me? I’m…” Panic bloomed in my stomach. How old was I?

  “Pretty girl like you must have a pretty name.”

  “I…” What was my name?

  I looked up to find him sitting right beside me, his eyes all pupil as he locked onto mine.

  “Yes… Yes, I think I’ll keep you,” he said.

  My hand tingled, and when I looked down, there was a ticket clutched in it.

  Cora

  “Again! Do it again!” Vi orders.

  “I am. I am,” Missy says. “It’s not working.”

  The room is in an uproar. Mal, Uri, and Bastian have Azazel pinned. He’s a fucking beast trying to tear his way to Fee, which confirms one awful thing.

  She’s dying.

  She’s fucking dying.

  “I had her,” Missy says. “I had her, and then she flatlined again. Why is she flatlining?”

  She sounds genuinely confused.

  Grayson is on his knees by Fee’s head, his mouth moving silently. Is he fucking praying? Hunter stands by the fireplace staring, just fucking staring as if he’s frozen in time.

  No. We need to do something. An idea forms in my mind. A fucked-up, crazy plan. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t even know if it’s possible, and I have no clue if I’ll be able to make it back if I succeed.

  But I have to try.

  I step forward, grab Fee’s hand, and make the most fucked-up, biggest jump of my life.

  Right into nothingness.

  It’s dark. Like, can’t breathe, suffocating dark.

  For a moment, panic overtakes my common sense, and I’m hyperventilating, fear a fist around my heart.

  Fee. I came for Fee. I have to focus because I know without a shadow of a doubt that I don’t belong here. This place knows it, but it’s hungry, and I can sense its claws. If I’m not careful, I could lose myself. I could become a meal for the claws waiting in the nothingness. If I’m not careful, I know I can lose myself in here.

  Focus, Cor. Focus on Fee.

  A light blooms in the darkness, turning the world gray. I run toward it.

&nbs
p; Fee

  “You could ride the bus,” the young man said. “Or…” There’s a vroom and a huge bike appeared in front of us, silver and black. It revved its engine. “You could ride with me…”

  The bike was hot. Like super-hot, and I’d always wanted to ride one…at least I think I had. “Where will we go?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  He stood and held out a hand to me.

  The bus chose that moment to show up.

  Shit. I had a ticket, but…the bike was so much cooler.

  I reached for the young man’s hand.

  “Fee!” A woman came running out of the darkness. Slender, fierce-looking with golden hair that came down just past her shoulders. Her gaze flicked from me to the guy with the bike. She gave him a wide berth and held out her hand to me. “Fee, come on. We have to go.”

  She seemed concerned. Worried. “Um…Do I know you?”

  “Dammit, Fee, snap the fuck out of it. If you stay any longer, you’ll die.”

  “Die?”

  The young man leaned back against his bike and studied his nails. “You’re too late,” he said. “She’s already dead.”

  The heat that had my chest in a grip began to melt.

  The woman stared at me in horror. “No. No. Fee. Take my hand.”

  “It won’t help,” the guy said. “But I’m not a monster. I’ll let you say goodbye.”

  He flicked a wrist my way and a weight settled in my head—colors, names, and places. Memories flooded me. I was Seraphina Dawn. I was…I was me again, and I didn’t belong here.

  Fuck! “Cora!” I made a grab for her hand, but my fingers passed through hers.

  Oh, God. It was too late. I’d stayed too long.

  “No…” Cora shook her head. “Please.” She turned to the man. “You can change this, can’t you? You can give her back. There’s still time.” She looked from the bike to the bus. “There’s still time because she hasn’t taken a ride yet, right?”