Page 78 of Fearless
As gently as I’d ever seen him be, he placed a tiny, black saliva-soaked kitten into my awaiting palms. Her eyes still had that bluish color in very young kittens, and she barely weighed anything at all.
“Meowww!” she yelled at top of her tiny kitten lungs, squirming in my fists. “Meowww!”
She looked and acted just like a kitten, as far as I could tell with my bodily senses. But there was something else I couldn’t quite place. The feeling that pulled me to this scrap pile, the desperation and the need to dig her out had calmed, but the presence of it remained within me. It felt like something separate from me, and yet a part of me all at once.
Reaper looked at me knowingly as I held the tiny kitten to my chest.
“You were meant to find her,” he breathed softly. “And nothing else in the world mattered until you did.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s exactly right.”
“She chose you,” Reaper added. “Like Hades chose me.”
The dog sniffed the tiny, squirming ball of fur and gave her an affectionate lick. I didn’t know what was happening, what this was. But right then I only saw Reaper’s loyal companion. The strange, faceless man who shared the same name did not make an appearance in my head.
Reaper reached out one finger to stroke the top of the kitten’s head. “Has she already told you her name?”
I nodded again, rubbing warmth into the tiny, helpless animal that I already knew was so much more.
“Her name is Freyja.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN PAINLESS
