Page 48 of Reaper
“It’s supposed to give you all the facts. Skuld loves Reaper and wants what’s best for him. I do too for that matter. But what’s best for Reaper is a woman who can handle what the afterlife is really like. It’s not all white lights and roads paved in gold. That being said, Valhalla is heaven, just a different one than you’re used to hearing about.”
“Again, how does that help him?”
“Do you love him?”
“I…” She presses her lips into a thin line. “I don’t know.”
“You sure about that?”
“I think that’s a conversation I should be having with him,” she counters.
“Fair point. I’ll leave you with this then, however, I’ll deny ever having said it, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Reaper is one of the finest Warriors I’ve had the pleasure of ruling. He’s loyal, protective, and has a good heart, still as it is without its beat. But he’s also a hard man in that he doesn’t allow himself to feel anything good. That is, until he met you.You, Kyra Thomas, are the other half to his Warrior soul. And he’s the other half of yours. You just have to accept something that defies everything you thought you knew about the world.”
And with that, I remove myself from the equation, returning to Valhalla.
It’s up to Reaper now.
25
Kyra
A WEEK LATER…
“You good if I head home, boss?”
Barry’s question snaps me out of my daydream which seems to be the standard lately. Ever since meeting Skuld and Odin, since talking things out with Reaper, I’ve been a walking shell. Nothing got solved that night at the clubhouse, but I left feeling better than when I arrived.
“Yeah. I’m not too far behind you.”
Reaper and his brothers haven’t been to Night and Day since I watched him take Jason’s life. I miss him like crazy, but I’m not quite ready to reach out. Besides, it goes both ways. He hasn’t called me either.
What if he went back to Valhalla without telling me?
That thought has crossed my mind more than once, and like all the previous times, I don’t mindlessly search for an answer. If Reaper left, then he left, and it wasn’t meant to be like everyone seems to think. I’ve gotta trust my gut on this.
And my gut is telling me that he’s still around.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Barry says as he walks out the front door.
The rest of the staff left about thirty minutes ago, when the diner closed for the night. I’ve got a few minutes more of cleaning to do, and then I can go home and relieve Sasha.
And maybe I’ll call Reaper.
I go through the motions of wiping down the counter, then make my way through the building to shut off all the lights. I’m parked in the back lot, so after locking the front door, I weave back through the tables and head that way.
All my attention on finding my keys in my purse, I push open the back door with my hip, not bothering to watch where I’m going. And that’s how I end up running into a hard wall of…
“Don’t scream,” a man snarls, and I lift my head to stare into the eyes of a masked man who’s got a gun shoved into my side. “Get back in there.”
The voice sounds familiar, and halfway down the hall, it registers that it’s one of them men from the night I was attacked.
“What do you want?” I ask, more fear lacing my tone that I’d like.
“So many things.” He glances over his shoulder. “Hurry up,” he orders his partner, who seems to be lingering at the door. “We don’t got all night.”
