Page 53 of Sinister Hearts
“Time to meet Death!” the Reapers seethed. The man’s soul was suddenly sucked from his body as the light in his eyes went dim and his body limp. Jax’s skeletal giant threw the man’s lifeless body to the altar. Before he could look back at me, I began running. Running into the void, where nothing but obscurity surrounded me.
“Little ljos!” the Reaper roared in agony, the echoes chasing me through the dark catacomb.
I ran with my arms before me, hoping to feel anything, but there was nothing but frigid darkness inside this catacomb.Wham! I ran right into a wall, and my consciousness began to slip from my grasp.
“It’s okay, little Robles, I got you.” Bjorn appeared in a shadowed light. As my vision began to falter.
“Is she alright, Pop?”
Running footsteps in the distance surrounded me.
“Jaxon,” I whispered as he appeared in my faint vision.
“Remember what I told you, baby.” His words clung to me like threaded cobwebs.
My vision went black.
My surroundings and senses came back to me slowly, as I became aware I was in Jax’s room. A dim fire was lit, the embers burned and engulfed me with a woodsy scent, comforting me as I regained consciousness slowly. I pulled the blankets closer to my body, the memories swarmed me of how I got here. Visions of morbid shadows flashed before me. It wasn’t a dream, was it? I felt my throat and chest tighten.
“There she is.” Jax’s deep voice came from the corner of the room. He was invisible to me, camouflaged into the darkness, only his glowing eyes visible. Rising from his chair, he walked into the light, showcasing himself to me.
“How long have you been there?” I asked curiously.
Jax took his cowboy hat off and placed it beside me.
“All night. I watched you sleep. Tossing and turning, screaming and sweating like a fever dream,” Jax admitted, worried, rubbing his forehead.
I silently nodded my head, slightly embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, sitting up in his oversized king bed.
“You saw me shift into a Reaper and kill a man, and you’re tellingmesorry?” Jax smirked, sitting beside me in bed, rubbing his thumb on my bottom lip. “What is it, littleljos?” he asked me, catching the hesitation in my eyes. The visions of Jax’s Reaper killing that man swarmed my mind tenaciously..
“That man that you killed, I heard what he confessed.” Now I truly knew that everything I’d been experiencing this past year was not just my imagination. The myths and legends of Grimstone were not just tales we used to tell at sleepovers, hiding underneath the sheets with our flashlights. The lore of witches and demons among us, they were so very real.
“Do I terrify you, littleljos?” Jax questioned, attempting to stand from the bed beside me.
I caught his hand in mine and looked at the Nordic ink that painted his freckled skin. “No. I feel… somehow safe.” It was the grappling truth. That, and the fact that I’ve known these men all my life, and they have never made me feel unsafe or scared. I knew that deep in my bones.
“Reapers don’t claim the lives of innocents, Faye. I hope you understand this isn’t something I can just walk away from. This devotion to Odin, it lives in my blood, just like the occult runs in yours.”
“No more secrets, Grimwood.” I nodded in full acceptance. “I would never ask you to change. I love you, but it is a lot to process.” Our hands intertwined. “I’m in love with Death so deeply it rids any rationality. I want all of you, not just parts of you,” I proclaimed.
Jax kissed me brazenly and wrapped his big hands around my dainty neck bringing me in closer, both of us lost in a euphoria; the secrets between us evaporating like thin air.
The acceptance of both of our nature had us brimming with anticipation, with tranquil love. “Tell me everything,” I breathed, as I wrapped myself into his muscular, marked arms. “I want to know you.” My hands landed against his broad chest. I traced the Nordic ink that hugged his entire body, the curiosity of what they all meant aching at me.
“When a Reaper takes a soul, our skin is claimed with Nordic symbols—the symbols of my ancestors, of my gods. It’s one of many rewards for our oath. The more marks a Reaper carries on his flesh, the more souls he has reaped.”
Those words left me with my thoughts, realizing that Jax has more hunter’s marks than Creed and Ryker combined.
“It is our rank, showing all the other Reapers how ruthless we are,” he explained.
“Does it keep you awake at night, the souls you’ve reaped?” I asked him, as I ran my fingers against his markings.
“No, my littleljos." he replied, holding me tight before the warm fire. “There is true evil in this world, Faye. It’s the souls that have yet to be reaped, that is what keeps me awake at night. These monstrous deeds that are committed are not solely done by superstitious creatures, but by the most dangerous of all—humans with no reason to drive them, other than hate and ego. A curse surely to overcome even the purest souls.”
I sat and digested every word, in awe of the shadow Reaper I loved to death.
