Page 1 of The Reaper

ONE

FALLON

I shut the textbook I’d been flipping through and glared at the cover.The Fundamentals of Nursing Practice. As far as I was concerned, those fundamentals could go suck a dick. Blowing out a breath, I ran my fingers through my unbound hair and dropped my head into my hands. Why the hell did I think I could do this? Studying full-time to become a freaking nurse?

Maybe Grayson was right, and I wasn’t ready for this.

I’d barely been clean for a year when I started my nursing degree. I still had shit I had to work through, but my therapist had suggested focusing my thoughts on something other than my sobriety for a while. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but after talking to Grayson, he reminded me that there had been a time when I wanted to help people suffering from cancer like our ma had.

Nursing had seemed like the most logical choice.

But right now, it all seemed too difficult.

Maybe I just needed to take a break. I’d been studying for close to seven hours. The length of time had nothing to do with needing to study, but more to distract me from the quietness of the house. Grayson and Sloane had been gone for only two days, but it felt like a lifetime. For as long as I could remember, it was me and Grayson against the world. I didn’t begrudge him finding happiness with Sloane—he deserved that—but I hadn’t truly been prepared for what my life would be like without him in it every day.

Standing, I stretched my arms over my head and stumbled in the direction of the kitchen. I drew to a stop, however, when there was a thunderous knock on the front door. My whole body froze as fear overrode my senses, locking muscles down on bone and turning my blood to ice. The unease I was feeling expanded quickly until I could hardly breathe.

My world seemed to shrink down to just the door. Swiping my tongue over my bottom lip, I willed my body to break from the atrophy. To move. To do something.It’s only someone knocking on the door, I tried to reason with myself. But that old fear—the one that crept up on me whenever I was alone—began to whisper in my ear.

What if it’s him?

What if he came back?

Exhaling sharply, I forced my fingers to flex, telling myself that Owen Ward didn’t know where I lived. That he wouldn’t come back for me—not after Grayson made such a display of the other four men’s bodies. Besides, he’d gone into hiding and Grayson hadn’t been able to find hide nor hair of him no matter how much he looked.

Biting my lip, I started toward the door. Reaching up onto my toes, I peered through the peephole and looked out onto the street beyond the porch. It was dark outside, the streetlights barely breaking through the heavy rain that hadn’t stopped falling since I’d started studying this morning. It had worsened though when a storm rolled through about two hours ago.

Orange lights flashed somewhere on my right, and I opened the door to find a black Range Rover parked haphazardly in front of my house. I frowned. Whoever it was, had half mounted the curb, and … was the driver’s side door open? Squinting, I stepped forward to get a better look, only to nudge something with my foot on the front step.

My gaze dropped, my brain trying to make sense of what I was seeing. There was a dark mass—the shape indiscernible to my adrenalin-addled mind. Blindly, I reached behind me to flip the porch light switch beside the door. Yellow-gold light illuminated the doorstep, and I gasped when I saw what was lying there.

“Help.” The word was breathless—a rasping baritone that simultaneously sped up and slowed down my heart. Whatever fear had been pinging through my body not more than a minute ago dissolved as I kicked into motion. My instincts took over—the same ones that were able to help Grayson after Sloane had brought him home beaten to within an inch of his life.

Crouching, I pushed the dark, rain-soaked hair away from the face of the man who had collapsed on my doorstep. I scanned his features, taking in the square jaw and dark stubble spread over it. A flicker of recognition shot through me. This was Orin Lynch, the clan’s Reaper. Grayson had always warned me away from him—saying he was unstable and a danger to women.

But why the hell was he on my doorstep?

Injured. He must be injured. I surveyed his body for wounds, skimming my hands along his soaked clothes.

His skin was like ice against my palms.

I found the first injury on the left side of his ribs. My hands were coated in his blood, so I continued quickly to see if there was anything more serious. I felt all the way down his body and legs, not finding anything else, but I needed to get a better look at the wound in his side.

The sound of a roaring engine reached my ears over a rumble of thunder. A black SUV had turned into the street and was slowly driving down the road. I squinted against its bright headlights, wondering briefly whether it was someone from the clan to pick up Orin before I saw a bright flash coming from the dark interior.

Somethingthwackedinto the wall beside me, and I turned in slow motion to see a hole in the white cement render.

Jesus, fuck, that was a bullet!

Throwing myself to the ground, I draped myself over Orin and squeezed my eyes shut as I waited for the volley of suppressed gunfire to stop. My heart wasn’t interested in waiting it out, deciding to leap into my mouth. My pulse raced. My palms were sweating despite the rain. For a few long seconds, near-silent bullets pelted the Rover and the front of my house, shattering the small window in the front door.

Then, just as quickly as they’d started, the bullets stopped, and the SUV sped off in a squeal of tires, leaving the acrid smell of burned rubber mixed with cleansing rain in its wake. My pulse was still thundering when I straightened and checked Orin. He didn’t appear to have been hit, but if we stayed out here, they might come back to finish the job.

Rising on wobbly legs, I hooked my hands under Orin’s arms and attempted to lift him. A couple of inches was all the ground I could manage, so I tried again. He was deadweight—probably more than double my own. I tried again, grunting with the effort. Each time I managed to drag him only an inch or two, but I finally had him inside.

Once his legs were in, I hustled around to shut and lock the front door. Broken glass crunched under my feet. Grabbing a magazine and some duct tape, I shoved it over the window casement and secured it, then shut off the porch lights and turned around. Outside the windows, lightning illuminated the sky, sending shadows and light dancing along Orin’s body sprawled on the hallway floor.

Hurrying to his side, I lifted his shirt to get a better look at the wound, but the soaked fabric stuck to his clammy skin. I was going to have to remove it. In the kitchen, I found the scissors in the top drawer, washed my hands, then snagged the first aid kit from under the sink. From the laundry, I grabbed a clean towel and ran back to Orin.

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