Heart of The Reaper: A Dark Monster Romance

by YD La Mar

  “Reese. Reese, honey, are you there?” I blink a few times, trying to see if I can remember what he was talking about. I can’t. Shit.

  “I’m sorry, I was just thinking about something.” Best be honest with him. No point in lying.

  Isaac gives me another smile. “I can see that.”

  I sip the straw of my soda to try and hide my embarrassment.

  “So what’s his name and what did he do?”

  Coughing and spluttering, I almost choke on my drink. What the hell?

  Once my throat clears enough, I ask, “I’m sorry?”

  “Reese, I’m not a young buck. I’ve been around the block a few times and had my heart broken in the process along the way. I can take a good guess where your mind is in addition to the fact that a wonderful woman like you chooses to remain single.”

  “I-I- uh..”

  “It’s alright. I didn’t mean to pry.” Isaac reaches over the table and puts his warm hand over mine. It’s the strangest thing. This is what people do on dates, right?

  “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky bastard. Well, not so lucky since he let you get away. I’m up for the challenge if you’ll let me?” My face feels like it’s a hundred degrees hotter, and I excuse myself from the table, mumbling something about needing to go pee.

  His soft chuckle echoes in my mind all the way to the back of the restaurant where the restrooms are located.

  Taking a deep breath, I look at myself in the mirror. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I act right on dates? Why does Bear have to consume my damn thoughts all the time? Why does he continue to torture me? No one else is in the restroom, thank goodness. I probably look like a loon as I continue to mumble under my breath at my own reflection. This is how it starts, doesn’t it? Insanity? Is this what Mama did before she decided to bring her gun? Ugh! I don’t need to bring my past misery back to the table. I shake my head to dispel my thoughts before I go to leave the restroom.

  The date with Isaac ended on a positive note. That note being, I didn’t lose my job but rather just had a nice day off instead. Isaac drove to the front of my apartment and insisted he walks me to my front door. I don’t know how to handle these things, so I just nodded.

  When we reached my apartment, he places his hand on the door beside my face and leans in. My heart is racing as my mind goes back to when Cameron did the same thing. I try to calm myself by mentally repeating Isaac’s name to erase Cameron from my mind, but in the end, I quickly turn my face to the side, making Isaac land his kiss on my cheek instead. Chicken.

  Isaac, being who he is, only chuckles and gives me another peck for good measure before he turns to walk back to his car.

  Once I get on the other side of my apartment door, I let out a breath and lean back against it. What am I going to do? What if Isaac likes me more than I like him? How will this affect our relationship as an employee and employer? Isn’t there something about not dating your boss? He’s handsome enough, charming and all that jazz but…

  Bear’s face comes to mind, and I scream behind closed lips. Why? WHY? Dammit all!

  REESE

  The next day at work goes by quickly. As quick as it can, anyway.

  “Reese’s pieces girl! I haven't taken a shit in three days, what’s wrong with a brotha? Help me! I don’t care if you have to stick whatever it is you stick up my asshole. I want this shit out!” Just another day in this household.

  Laughing, I finish up Mister Clyde’s lunch in the kitchen, making sure to add a stool softener pill to his cocktail of pills.

  Once he’s done eating and taking his medicine, I sit on the chair by his bed and start reading to him out of his favorite book: The Art of War.

  You can take the soldier out of the war, but you can't take the war out of the soldier sometimes. Well, in this case, the sailor.

  This is some dry reading but I do it for him since it seems to calm him after tirades like the one he had today about his poop issue.

  The stool softener worked, and then it made me work. Lord, it was an adult version of a blowout and I was up to my elbows in it as I tried my best to clean Mister Clyde so he doesn’t end up with a bedsore from excessive moisture.

  It doesn’t help that all he would do is scream, “My ass! It’s coming right for ya!” every time he thinks he’s going to let another one out during the cleaning process. The entire room smells like utter...shit.

  Reese: 0

  Mister Clyde’s ass: 1

  Opening all the lower level windows in the house to air out the smell, I had to take a quick shower and borrow some of Isaac’s clothes since Mister Clyde's blowout won the battle this round.

  Making sure I closed all the windows back after getting cleaned up, I sit in the chair beside his bed and tilt my head back, closing my eyes to rest for a bit. After a long beat of silence, I hear Mister Clyde’s voice.

  “Don’t think I don’t see you fucking standing there. I ain’t going, no way in hell. I’m fucking staying right here.” Eh?

  I open my eyes and look around. Who the hell is he talking to? When I turn to look at Mister Clyde, his eyes are glued to the far, dark corner of his room. There’s nothing there but shadows. He must be getting senile. How long do men usually live anyway?

  Going back to my previous position, I close my eyes again. Thank goodness Mister Clyde always makes sure the house is at about seventy degrees even. Any higher, and I would be sweating bullets by now. It feels like I must have knocked out for a few minutes, because the sound of the front door opening makes me jerk awake, giving me a little crick in my neck. Damn.

  “Hey, Dad. Hey...wow Reese. You look good in my shirt.” Is my face heating up? Why does that statement sound so wrong? I’m a little frazzled as I straighten myself up in the chair. I put both of my palms against my face to try and cool it down before I answer.

  “Ah..sorry, I had some problems during one of the tasks. Had to clean up and borrow some clothes. I promise to bring it back clean tomorrow.” Was it rude of me to take his clothes? Maybe I should have borrowed some of Mister Clyde’s.

  Isaac laughs, as he always does when I’m around. Half the time I don’t even know what it is he finds so funny.

  “Laugh it up son, it was world war three up in this place, first with my ass impacted and then on fire from it, shooting out uncontrollably like a damn rookie on a machine gun.”

  Isaac really laughs then. Lord, help me around these men.

  Once Isaac wipes the tears off his face from laughing so hard, he tells me to gather my things so he can take me home.

  When we get there, Isaac takes one of my hands in his and kisses the back of it before he gives me a sly grin and gets out of the driver’s side door. What is with this guy? Once he opens the door for me, he grabs my hand again and leads me to my front door.

  I am honestly too tired for this. Whatever this is, we’re doing. I just want a bath to wash the day away.

  When we reach my front door, it's like deja vu all over again. But this time, I’m too tired to think and too tired to fight. When his lips touch mine, they’re soft and warm. He’s tentative the first two seconds before his confidence and experience take over. My mind is a bowl of mush and I don’t know what I should do with my hands. The smell of him surrounding me and intoxicating my already weary mind.

  Before I can even make a decision on where to place my hands, Isaac pulls away and smiles at me. I’m still processing how I should feel.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You taste divine, Reese.”

  The moment the statement leaves his lips, I feel a breeze pass my face, and the look in his eyes change. Something happened.

  His face turns into a snarl and then it’s gone. Both of his hands grab my face again for a kiss I wasn’t prepared for. It’s searing, it’s heady and I’m lost in it. It’s so dominant and so arousing. A moan escapes my lips, and he devours it before it can even be heard. His tongue dances with mine, and my heart feels like it's stuck in my throat. I’m so nervous, I’m so
excited and I want more.

  When he starts to pull away, he nips my lips and licks the bottom lip with such slow seduction I can’t help but gasp. Is my pussy clenching?

  I don’t know when I closed my eye,s but when I open them again, I see Isaac’s eyes dance with flames right before it disappears. It can’t be.

  Isaac shakes his head a few times and smiles at me.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Goodbye, Reese.”

  I watch as he walks back to his car, shaking his head a few times. My stomach is full of butterflies, and my heart feels like it's about to explode in more ways than one.

  BEHERAA

  I almost didn’t make it. The souls that called to me in the desert lands took longer than expected. The bomb explosion took half the town. I flashed to Reese’s abode right when I was done escorting the innocent to where they needed to be.

  She wasn’t there. The two blasted sprites were the only ones to greet me, and my mind filled with fury. That is, until they kept stumbling over themselves and pointing to the door behind me. When it finally occurred to me what they were trying to communicate, I flashed to the other side of the door and witness something that made my chest constrict and burn.

  My insides felt like they were decaying in vats of acid as I watched the human male remove his lips from Reese. My hands itched to remove his soul and send it to the deepest depths of my caverns when my mind gave me a different solution. A better solution.

  Pulling a little of his essence, I grab hold of it and enter his flesh. Using what I learned from the last time I performed this act, I pushed his consciousness to the back and completely take over his body.

  Reese seemed she was already receptive to more advances, and the thought made my insides churn, but at the same time elated since she won’t see my own courting coming. If she is now accepting male courting, then I will have to make sure I am the only one she sees.

  Grabbing her face with the force of my anger, I steal a kiss from her waiting lips. I am lost. I am consumed. I feel a need so deep it confounds me. She is mine. How dare this male think to try his wiles on her?

  I make sure to give her a kiss that steals the breath out of her very soul the same way she’s done to me all those years ago. But in my mission to lure her to me, I become lost in our dance of the tongues. How does she do this to me? How does she take my control from under me when I least expect it? Why does it not bother me as much as it should?

  When the kiss ends, I find the emotion of greed takes over me, and I nip her lips for just another taste. But alas, a nip just isn’t enough. She tastes too damn tempting, too damn good for me to stop. My tongue steals another taste that will hold me off until I can come to her and make her understand her place belongs with me. How I wish the time was upon us, but this process of becoming corporeal is getting on my very last nerve. I need more souls; I need to consume more flesh.

  Once the thought enters my mind, I’m determined to get it done as quickly as I can. I flash out of the human flesh I have possessed and find myself in a warehouse where some other petty rivalry is happening between what humans call ‘gang warfare’. I do not allow them to finish their squabble as I have a timeline I need to keep to. My Scythe takes a wide swing and my jaws open up to devour the thirty males before me.

  REESE

  I go to work the next day in a daze.

  Bear.

  It was Bear.

  Those eyes, it has to be him. There was a contrast to Isaac’s initial kiss, and the eyes answered my question.

  He slipped in again and for once; I didn’t feel like punching the fucker in the throat. That kiss. THAT KISS. I squeeze my legs together to try and stifle the ache, sitting in this chair beside Mister Clyde’s bed as he takes a nap. Ugh! Why does he do this to me?

  That was the kiss I never knew I needed. That was the kiss from Bear I never knew he was capable of. My body tingles from my head all the way to between my legs, and I hate it. I hate that he does this to me. Why can’t he just let me move on?

  Maybe you don’t want to move on.

  Ugh! Fuck you brain! Stop that shit!

  Where did Bear learn to kiss like that? The way his lips and tongue dominated me, turning me into complete putty in his hands. The more I question it, the more pissed I get. Where the fuck did he learn to kiss like that? If I find out he’s been practicing on other human females, I’m going to fucking kill him! Just the thought of other females with their lips and hands on him kills me on the inside. My heart is aching again, the pain resurfacing from the opening of old wounds and the possibility of new ones. I’m once again reminded of why I was pissed at him in the first place. Fucker!

  I never did get that bath I planned. Fucking Bear, messing that up too. Where the hell did Quasi go? Does he know who Bear is?

  “Reese’s pieces girl! I got the worst cramp right now. Fuck! Maybe I need to turn over. Turn me over, girl! Get a damn flat shovel out of the garage if you have to! My damn stomach!”

  I get up and grab his left side by the shoulder blade and by his hip. Getting down into squat form, I start to turn him slowly when Mister Clyde lets out the nastiest, loudest fart known to humankind. I drop him back onto the bed and fall back in my chair in a fit of laughter.

  After cussing at me like a ...fucking sailor, Mister Clyde starts to join in on the laughter.

  Damn, I needed that laugh.

  It’s been a damn long day at work. I didn’t let Isaac walk me to my door this time. That last kiss is still seared into my brain and I just can’t put it together with Isaac’s face, I just can’t. I just want to wash away the memory of that kiss. Scrub it out of my mind with fucking steel wool.

  The moment I get home and lock the door behind me, I’m already stripping off my clothes as I walk towards the adjoining restroom to my bedroom.

  The sound of the water rushing into the tub sends my mind and body into an instant calm, the way white noise on the TV used to send my mother into calm when I would fall asleep on the floor after my cartoons would be done. I can’t wait to get in this bubble bath. It’s been a long time since I had one, something I need to remedy. My mind has been tumultuous lately.

  Turning off the water, I slowly step into the tub, letting the warmth cocoon me. Losing track of time, I find myself drifting off when a strange sound in the distance startles me. What was that? Mama always told me that being a single, independent woman would put a target on my head. It still didn’t stop me from doing just that. That was before she threw me away like yesterday’s trash after finding out what Daddy’s been up to behind her back. I lost my mother in more ways than one that day.

  Getting out of the tub, the sound of water sloshing off my body makes me inwardly cringe. If someone broke into my house, they would have definitely heard that. Leaning my hand onto the sink counter to grab my towel, my hand slips a bit, inadvertently knocking the dental floss that has partially found some of the string under my palm. The box of floss slides across the sink and down to the ground, extending the string of floss way beyond what I would have used in a week. Dammit. Can I be any noisier? I wonder if it’s Quasi? I haven’t seen him in a while. Shit, I wonder if he’s alright and if someone’s taking care of him wherever he is. He should be here with me.

  Wrapping myself in a towel, I try to tiptoe slowly towards the bedroom. I thought I was being slick when a large dark form blocks the doorway. My heart stops as I halt my movements to look up - and up - at who broke into my apartment. The figure is shrouded in a cloak, and I can’t see his face. It looks like a male because of how broad his shoulders are. He’s huge and towering. There is a cool chill that emanates off his body as well, and it makes my wet body shiver.

  When his hand shoots out towards me, I stumble back and fall on my ass. The pain brings me quickly back to the moment, reminding me that my hand hit something on the way down. When I look, I see the floss that dropped earlier. With a split-second decision, I grab it and hide it behind me.

  The figure’s cloak
starts to dissipate before my very eyes, and in front of me is a vision from my childhood nightmares. He crawls towards me in such a slow motion that my mind plays tricks on me. His skin, what skin he does have, is stretched into strings across his skeletal body at sporadic parts, and the glow behind his eye sockets reminds me of the nights I woke up in tears for my loss. I feel my anger rising and I kick out towards his chest to get him away from me, but the quick bastard grabs my foot with his hand before it can make contact. He tsks as he continues his crawl towards me. My towel has unraveled itself and fallen open, presenting my naked body to him like a damn war prize. I can feel the cooled droplets of water trace down between my breasts, the lingering steam in the room and his very presence making it almost hard to breathe.