Page 12 of Paris and the Reaper

Paris’s wonder crashed in despair, his father ruining another joyful moment in his life. Not to mention all the lives he must have ruined in his quest for power. Paris gathered the nearestblanket around him, needing the softness to counter such violence. “You may not believe me,” he said, “but I don’t work for my father. I don’t support his cause or Chaos. I never have.”

“But you are his heir. And you told him how to contact Icarus.”

“I didn’t know what for. Just something to do with someone called the Devil, and they promised to keep Icarus safe.” Paris leaned his forehead against his knee, eyes slipping shut as defeat and regret swirled in his gut. “And not that it matters, because I know I shouldn’t have believed them and should have just kept my mouth shut, but they got that info with my father’s knee on my neck. I didn’t give it up voluntarily.”

Mac’s sharp inhale drew Paris’s attention back to him, to the person who’d clearly been through hell the past few days but had still made sure he was safe and secreted away. Paris lowered his knee and inched out a hand, covering Mac’s where it rested on the cushion between them. “I’m sorry for what he’s put you through. And I’m sorry he tried to hurt your friend and for whatever he did to Icarus. I don’t want anything to do with him or his empire. He can keep it.”

“You may not want it, but it’s yours now.”

Mac’s gaze held his, the intensity of it momentarily distracting Paris from his words, but once they sank in, his breath caught. Made getting the most important question of his life out difficult. “Are you saying?—”

Mac flipped his hand over under Paris’s and gently held his. “Your father died in the battle last night.”

Paris couldn’t describe exactly what sound jumped out of his throat—a gulp, a shout, a gasp—it was the last news he expected. Tears welled in his eyes and raced down his cheeks, his chin wobbling so hard he had to wedge it against his chest.

Mac squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Paris said, jerking his face back up. More than anything, he wanted this man, his rescuer, to know what he truly felt. “This isn’t grief. It’s joy, it’s fucking relief I feel in my soul.” The same sense of freedom he’d felt when Mac in raven form had landed on his chest on the altar. “For the first time in my entire life, I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

He barely got the last word out when his sobs broke loose, twenty-plus years of pain and terror working their way up and out. Mac used the hand still in his to draw him into his arms, gathering the blanket around them both. Paris leaned against him, grateful for the steadiness, for the comfort while the awful world he knew fell away.

For his second chance at life to become a reality. Vincent would never hold him under the water again.

He could breathe, free and easy, and with that hopeful thought, the sobs began to subside until there were only sniffles and sizzling embers left. “He’s really gone?”

Mac held him tighter, chin resting on the crown of his head. “I delivered his soul myself. Watched it get extinguished. I had to be sure. He won’t hurt you or anyone else ever again.”

“Thank you,” Paris said, and yet the words didn’t seem nearly enough. As he snuggled deeper into the raven’s embrace, he silently vowed to spend the rest of his life earning his second chance. And to bring warmth and color into the life of the man who had given it to him.

SEVEN

Paris wasn’t lostthis time.

He’d been here before. Would never forget sitting in the back seat of his father’s SUV and crying over a future he’d never have. In retrospect, he’d probably been brought as a sacrifice that day, but it didn’t make the day any less of a milestone in his past of painful losses.

Today looked much the same. The giant oval lawn full of people—a couple sharing a picnic, a group of friends tossing a frisbee, classmates chatting over books. The plaster and glass buildings with their echoes of mission-style architecture, the farthest north the trend had reached before magic and greed had chased the religious fanatics back south. Bright sun overhead, making the veneer of normalcy shimmer bright.

Portola University.

Paris would’ve liked to attend college, but erased persons, like Vincent had paid for him to be, couldn’t enroll in school. Granted, he probably wouldn’t have survived four years here. He would’ve been killed by a rival dealer or kidnapped by a tech oligarch to leverage against his father, but at least he would have been out from under Vincent’s fist. Instead, Atlas had arrangedfor private tutors, all of them excellent and paid enough to get over their fear of working for the Cirillos. But that was as far as their connection had gone, none of them becoming friends. Paris only had Kai and Jason for that, and Icarus, whose company he’d paid for.

As a young man crossed in front of him on the oval, the glide of his steps too measured, the shift of his blue eyes too fast, the rise and fall of his chest nonexistent, Paris thought he must be a vampire like Icarus.

One with access to Daylight. Out here in the violet midday.

Violet.

Paris looked the direction the vampire had come just as the vamp glanced over his shoulder, both of them spying the small, bearded man on the oval’s stone wall. Dressed in overalls, he sat munching on an apple, taking a break outside in the sun like everyone else.

But as the vampire moved to take another step and couldn’t, Paris knew that wasn’t what the man was doing at all. The vampire’s claws extended, and he slashed at the monster’s invisible hold. No one noticed his struggle except Paris. No one noticed the small man’s red eyes or the snakes that slithered out from under his pant legs and sped through the grass in the vampire’s direction.

No one noticed the world turn a deep, dark violet, or the oval lawn narrow into a deserted alley, or the vampire lying on the wet, grimy pavers with deep cuts in his arms and legs. No one heard him scream “Help me!” into the night.

No one except Paris.

“How, Paris? Tell me how to help you!”

Paris jolted awake, the dark, violet night resolving into a pair of dark, violet eyes. “Mac?” The raven’s strained voice had echoed around the alley walls, pulling Paris out of Portola and back to...?

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