by Michele Hauf
“Your skin is as white as your title,” he spoke softly, never taking his eyes from her. The claws retracted silently.
“Why must you reap a white witch’s soul? What makes mine so special to you?”
“Because, as you’ve said, every year you collect another heart filled with experience and love.”
“Not every heart is filled with love. Some have been abused and tormented.”
“Yet love is strong, yes?”
She nodded, and smiled at the knowledge and emotions she had acquired thanks to the many hearts. “Even if the human body has only known but a moment of pure love, that love imprints deeply upon the heart. It outweighs vast amounts of tragedy. It is the everlasting hope that all possess.”
“Good reason to desire it, then, yes?” Vashon whispered.
“No more talk of love.” She sat up on her elbows. “Promise?”
He nodded, and the sexy smirk that followed stole away her apprehensions.
Vashon bent to her breast and his kiss branded her with a hot winter’s flame. A lash of his tongue teased her nipple tight. Warm fingers trailed down her stomach, tugging her dress over her hips. She wore no under things, and his discovery of that conjured a pleased growl.
She briefly wondered if he had ever had sex with someone before he reaped them, then decided she didn’t want to know. Such knowledge would prove macabre. Yet could she use this connection between them? If he felt something for her he might not want to reap her, and could even feel compelled to gift to her his heart.
While her brain cheered the splendid plan, her swooning, romantic heart shuddered and begged her to push devious thoughts aside and enjoy this coupling.
Easy enough, as the man had found the apex of her thighs with his tongue and tasted her deeply. Ananda spread her legs and he moved one up and over his shoulder.
Reaching for his hair, she tugged at the short dark strands, wanting to hold him there, to revel in his talents. Teasing, licking, stroking her to a pinnacle that she raced to stand upon, and then, flinging out her arms, Ananda cried out and fell into the wonder of snowflakes and winter flames and the blinding caress of pleasure.
* * *
After regaining her senses following the rousing orgasm he’d given her, the witch shoved him against the pillows and seated herself upon his lap. His hard cock begged to enter her enveloping heat.
Cupping her breasts in his hands, Vashon eyed her devilishly before giving them a squeeze. Full and ripe, he’d not tasted a finer fruit. And she reveled in his admiration, shifting her shoulders and lifting her breasts high, which also rocked her wetness against his shaft.
It saddened him that she was so determined to gain a heart that would take away her ability to love. If he could feel love, he would definitely fall for this woman.
Or maybe that was his cock thinking. Yeah, probably.
“Ananda, please,” he murmured. “I want to be inside you.”
“Then take me.”
Sitting up he lifted her by the thighs to fit upon his rigid shaft. And as she wrapped her legs about his back, she dug in her fingernails at his shoulders and gasped something about how thick he was. But he didn’t respond because all focus arrowed to his core and cock. She baptized him with fire, a flame to which he would willingly surrender, to know ever after.
“Yes,” she gasped aside his ear. “Fill me, reaper.”
She milked him with her muscles. Shuddering, his body lost control beneath the witch’s powerful embrace. And as the climax electrified his system, he cried out. His wings unfurled, sweeping things from the bedside table, and brushing against the ice-frosted window.
Ananda gripped the hard forewings above and behind his shoulders and rode him to a wicked and screaming climax. They came as one, their bodies harmonizing in an exquisite rhythm that felt like the one thing he wanted—but could not have.
Vashon wrapped his wings forward, slipping them about her back and down her hair and along her sweet, pulsing thighs. He remained hard inside her—as hard as his heart.
But he was only willing to give her one hard thing. For now.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Ananda stood in the open doorway watching the snow fall. Her naked body did not feel the cold because behind her stood a reaper whose skin was like molten steel, a natural heat source from which she never wanted to peel away.
* * *
They had made love through the night. Very little had been spoken. Their bodies had created a new language. One of trust.
Your heart is real. I trust it. And earlier he had said that she wasn’t lacking.
His words struck Ananda to her core as she realized the hands she clasped in hers belonged to someone she loved. It was easy to make that leap, from wanting to rip out his heart to loving him. She still wanted to rip out his heart, though, because her own silly heart had gone and fallen in love.
It was screwy logic, but that’s what happened when a woman had the emotions from a century worth of hearts conglomerated within her. She felt pain more acutely, and also experienced love deeply and with too much ease.
A girl could never have a relationship with a reaper. He’d be gone reaping all the time. And there was that little thing about him not being able to love.
Unless he reaps a white witch’s soul.
Which sounded good in theory, until she got to the part about her having to die to allow him to reap her soul. As it stood, if she did not place a new heart in her chest by midnight, she would die anyway.
“Talk to me,” he whispered from over her shoulder.
She shook her head, unwilling to state what she felt. To put it into words would alchemize a magic she did not know how to wield, one of truth and trust and of letting the universe command her life.
“You’re upset we had sex,” the reaper decided. He pulled away from her and wandered toward the hearth.
With a glance over her shoulder, she spied his gorgeous naked form, the muscles sculpted with sinew and painted with flame.
“Never,” she answered truthfully.
Closing the door, a gust of wind curled about her body and a chill burrowed into her core. Pulling a flannel blanket about her shoulders, she stood beside Vashon and stared at the flames. “I will die this day.”
He flinched and gazed down at her. Both knew what that confession meant. “I don’t want you to die.”
“How else to reap my soul?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want you to die.”
“Why not? I’m your ticket to knowing love. It is a wondrous thing, Vashon. You should have it if you’ve a means to it.”
He stroked her hair, that sexy smirk missing from his drawn expression. “You’re so positive about the value of love, and yet your actions betray your words. You want my heart so you will never feel love again.”
“What can I say? I’m a woman. We change our minds more often than our clothes.”
“Ananda, I’ve already told you your heart is real and deserves its own love. What has compelled you to seek a reaper’s heart to forever change that?”
“I once lived amongst the humans in their big city. I gradually moved away, out to this pink cottage in the peaceful forest because everything the humans do is a method in madness. Love is simple and pure, and yet most make it as difficult as they can. They are not content to just be.”
She tilted her head against his shoulder and he hugged her about the waist.
“Humans argue and rage and create such dramatics over every little thing. Relationships are a mad mess because no one knows their own heart anymore. If they cannot trust themselves, then how to trust another? That is my dilemma. So I’ve given up on simple yet all-encompassing love. I am tired, Vashon. Tired of the drama. Yet this stupid heart of mine swoons too quickly.”
“Indeed?”
“I can fall in love like that.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s never real, though.”
“It is real. Every time, I’m sure. Be honest with me, Ananda. Have
you fallen in love with me? I need your truth. I can’t make that determination on my own.”
Because of that damned heart of his.
Could she be straightforward with him? It would toss a wrench in his plans. Or perhaps not. He was a powerful reaper; he performed his job with ease because he didn’t have the handicap of love to make him question his actions.
And she did believe in truth. Without truth, life was, as she had explained, difficult. Yet things had been different with Vashon. Her heart had acted as she had directed, not due to the influence of the hearts she had taken. She’d resisted falling in love with the reaper, until it had become...simple.
“I am in love with you,” she said, and snuggled against his warm body. “And this time, you’re right. I know it is real.”
The blanket dropped to the floor. Vashon’s hands seemed to hover near her shoulders. Reluctant to embrace her after such a bold confession?
She stepped away from him, reading his reluctance. The truth had not won her his love.
“I should straighten things up around here. Then I’ve a final meal to prepare and some stitching to do on my blue dress. If I’m to die, it must be in that dress.”
“No, I won’t allow you to die!”
And yet, as she looked over at her lover, naked and beautiful, not moving to embrace her, Ananda felt the betrayal of her stolen heart all over again. The man stared at her with his soft lapis lazuli gaze, and yet he looked right through her. He didn’t know what love was, so while he wanted her to live, he couldn’t understand why. Unemotional. Fickle? Perhaps. He’d wanted sex, as had she. He’d gotten that.
And she had plunged deeper into the despair of giving love without receiving. Now she knew how her last lover had felt.
She wasn’t a fool. There was no way into the reaper’s steely heart, to teach him in these final hours how to love. And she was no match to his allure. She could throw wounding magic at him to hold him back for a time, but he would eventually defeat her.
And as the day grew long she would grow weaker. And when midnight tolled she would close her eyes on the one thing she now wanted more than her life.
* * *
Vashon gathered his clothes and told Ananda he was going out for more firewood. She didn’t need more after the previous load he’d brought in, but he required the distance.
Now twilight, it had stopped snowing and he marched through the fluffy ground-cover clad in leather pants, boots and nothing more. If he had a beating heart he would be able to feel the cold and sense the heat from a flame. At times, he wanted that more than anything. And then other times he was resolute with what life had given him.
The son of a Fallen One, demonized when his feet had touched the mortal plane. His father had taken a human woman as his lover, a grave crime to Heaven. In repayment for such a crime, his child had been forced to reap lost souls for eternity.
If she did not procure another heart—human or otherwise—Ananda would die tonight and he must reap her soul. He couldn’t do that now. Because she had gotten inside him. Had rapped against his hardened heart. It wasn’t love. How could it be? But something about Ananda clung to him with a sweet tenacity he didn’t want to shake.
Could he allow her to take his heart?
No, for that would see her become as hard and cold as he was. He could not bear to watch her grow adamant.
What other option did he have but to walk away from her, and to keep on walking? Ananda would find a human heart and live on, continuing to feel and love, as she should.
And he would not.
So he strode onward, because while something inside flickered and prodded him to stay, he dismissed it as nonsense, a lingering glow from having made love with her.
“Made love,” he muttered, and smirked. “How can a man who cannot know love, make love? It was sex, nothing but.”
A sigh warned he was being foolish, but again, he ignored that inner voice and tramped onward through the snow. He’d find another white witch. It wouldn’t be today, or even this year. He’d waited this long for love; he could wait longer.
No, you can’t. You want her.
He kicked at the snow, sending up a plume of feathery flakes before his steps. Unfurling his wings, he wrapped them forward and around his arms and shoulders, suddenly feeling the chill for some reason.
* * *
Ananda watched her lover stride away from her.
“He’s not coming back,” she whispered. A tear dropped onto her cheek. The air froze it into a tiny diamond. She swiped at it, watching it melt on her fingertip. “If only his heart could soften like this, then he could know love, and I would not crave to be hard of heart.”
Because her heart was not hard, and it would never be so. And she had to face that and accept it. Only a few more hours before the deadline. It was too late to travel to the city and find a human’s heart. She didn’t want that false love anymore.
Did Vashon realize that by walking away from her he was leaving her to die?
“Come back to me, Vashon.”
Chapter Seven
Snow swirled beneath the brilliant moon glow that decorated the ground with diamonds. Ananda tracked through the deep snow, knee-high boots pulled up under her dress, and a long wool coat she’d hastily thrown on still unbuttoned. She had to find him.
She needed him.
Her heart would stop beating without him. And that had nothing to do with her imminent death, and everything to do with the immense love that swelled within her.
Vashon’s tracks were difficult to see, for the drifting snow had covered them over. What remained were shallow sinkholes that ventured deeper into the forest. He was not walking toward a town. Why had he not unfurled his beautiful wings and flown away?
Ananda pushed onward. She had mere hours before she would take her last breath. She did not feel weak, at midnight she would just suddenly drop dead, she decided. A horrible way to die, and yet, she did not want to suffer, and so she would accept what must be.
The only heart she desired was Vashon’s. And she no longer wanted it so she could place it in her chest and continue life. No, she wanted his heart through love.
An impossible want.
Yet so simple, this love that she would not hamper with questions or self-doubt, such as the humans did. She loved Vashon. That was all—and everything.
“Vashon!”
An owl hooted and a brutal gush of wind toppled her. Clasping her bare hands on the loose, thick snow, Ananda did not curse her romantic heart but this time embraced its tenacity. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She focused inward to enact her earth magic and bring up warmth from the ley lines, but beneath her skin’s surface the innate magic merely sputtered and pricked at her pores.
She had brought this upon herself by greedily seeking something she was not meant to have.
* * *
Vashon reached the forest edge and stretched out his wings to sense the vibrations in the air. His sensitive wing filaments could detect a lost soul hundreds of leagues in the distance. He must resume tracking souls in need of reaping.
And then something inside his rib cage pulsed, actually thudded against his resolve. He placed a hand over his chest, wondering what it could have been. Almost like a touch from her hand, yet firm and unrelenting.
He turned around and scanned behind him. Snow and trees everywhere, save a tendril of smoke curling up from the cozy pink cottage.
“Ananda,” he whispered.
He could not leave her to die alone in the cottage. And if she had been able to get another human heart, then he, at the very least, needed to confirm she was well.
Though he confessed that in his wildest dreams he wanted to sweep her into his arms and hear her tell him she loved him again. Putting the sentiment into words made it real. Then he would know love, yes? Just because his heart was adamant didn’t mean he couldn’t receive love. And maybe if he received it, it would sink into this stony heart of his and soften it.
Wh
ether or not that was possible, he could not continue without Ananda. Her bright blue eyes had bewitched him, and he was glad to have fallen under her spell. Unworthy, yet willing to receive whatever regard she would give him.
Ahead, he spied the sweep of something blue gust up from the vast stretch of white. He marked her herbs and wood smoke scent.
Again, a thud within his chest punched him forcefully.
Sweeping out his wings, he soared over the ground, landing next to his forest princess. Snow bejeweled her hair. He clasped her hand.
“You’re so cold. Ananda, what are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you,” she said through shivering lips. “Vashon...no matter what I think I want...my truth won’t allow me to have it.”
“My heart?”
She nodded. “Don’t want to stop feeling this love. Vashon...I love you.”
He bent over her, nuzzling his face into her hair and hoping his innate warmth could bleed into her and give her solace. How long before the moon took away her life and he would be forced to reap her soul?
“I won’t let that happen.”
Kissing her cold mouth, he held there until warmth blossomed on her lips and she moved up against him, clinging and seeking. And the words his mother had said to him so many times chimed softly in his thoughts: I am part of you.
Something pulsed against his rib cage. From inside. Vashon slapped a hand to his chest. Could it be? Impossible. And yet, his mother’s heart had been human.
“Vashon...”
He grabbed Ananda’s hand and placed it over his chest where he guessed his heart resided beneath the skin, bone and muscle. “Take it,” he said. “You must take my heart so you can live! The last thing I desire is for you to be like me, never knowing love. At the least, you will be alive and we can be together.”
“No, Vashon... I don’t want that now.”
“Don’t you want to stay with me? I will be here for you, I promise. I will take care of you, Ananda. I will give you everything and all.”
Snowflakes littering her eyelids, she stroked his cheek. “Everything but love.”
