Page 5 of Reaper's Reward

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MADDOX

Bianca grinned, malicious intent in her eyes. I sat in a chair, Bianca standing between me and Ryder. To my left, Addie still slept. The witch lifted a dagger hilt. There was no blade attached to it, but I doubted she even needed a physical weapon. The way the air around her made my skin tingle like TV static told me all I needed to know.

A wave of magic washed over me and left my body tingling. The witch’s eyes went wide with shock. She pointedly looked me up and down. Her upper lip curled, not in disgust, but in confusion.

“How do you not have a soul? What the hell?” she spat.

I shrugged. It wasn’t like I had an answer.

The witch threw her hands in the air. “This might not even work! I wished you’d told me sooner. The whole point of this is to bind your soul to your body while you’re dead. It would have sent your spirit to the afterlife, if you had one. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

She paused. “Where the hell is your soul?”

Once more, I shrugged. I had a feeling I knew of its whereabouts, but I didn’t have concrete evidence yet.

Bianca dragged her fingers through the air like she was writing something. I figured it was some sort of magic and ignored her. So, she was rewriting her spell on the fly. What was the worst that could happen?

When she was done, she put one hand to my chest to brace herself. “Are you ready?”

Ryder wore a dubious look, like he wasn’t sure about the efficacy of this. That was all I needed.

I snatched the witch’s wrist before she could stab me with her magical, invisible dagger. Her eyes widened. A spark of magic fizzled around her as her brows furrowed ever so slightly. When she sent that magic at me, it plummeted into the nothingness inside me.

Well, there was one perk to this insatiable hunger. It seemed that it would eat even magic. The discovery brought a grin to my face that made the witch’s scowl even deeper.

I shifted my gaze past the witch and locked eyes with Ryder. “Don’t bring me back until I have Addie.”

Ryder stiffened at my command. This ritual would effectively kill me. Ryder was on standby to shock me back to life. I didn’t want to come back unless I could bring Addie with me. They would know I was successful when Addie woke, and not a moment sooner.

“As badly as I want to sayno deal, Ness would have my ass if I let you come back without her friend.” Ryder’s eye twitched. “Don’t force me to lose both of you at once.”

I grinned. There was a hollowness in me that no longer feared death. I’d faced it too many times to fear it at this point. If Addie was in the afterlife, then I would remain there with her for as long as she stayed.

Ryder understood, to a certain degree. At least, that’s what I assumed. The man had his own mate. The spitfire had likely put him in similar situations before.

Ryder nodded to Bianca. I released her wrist. Magic flared around the hilt in her hand. It lengthened and sharpened into a green blade that she thrust at me. I tensed, but it didn’t matter. The magic blade delved past flesh and bone to pierce my heart.

I barely had a moment to gasp before I awoke in the afterlife. There was no falling, no portal. I didn’t even have a moment out of body like a regular ghost. I simply materialized in the cold darkness of a cave. Somewhere, I could hear rushing water like a river. Above that, I could hear whispers.

Was every passing this easy? Or was it the fact that I’d embraced death?

It wasn’t my experiences with Addie that made me accept death. I embraced it long ago, when Paige left me. As much as I hated to admit it, that was the truth, plain and simple. I’d felt like nothing after she left. Perhaps that’s when the hollow hunger started. I’d filled it with alcohol and work.

I stood and stepped into the darkness. If any of the old tales told me anything, I knew not to look back. That was begging for trouble. I faced forward and tried to figure out which direction would hold what I was looking for.

Thankfully, death meant something else to me, now. I wasn’t the walking dead man that I’d been back then. Well, maybe I was…more like a walking dead wolf? The terminology didn’t make sense. All I knew was that I didn’t feel that same kind of directionless ennui.

I had a direction now, and it led me right to Addie.

An invisible thread pulled me forward. It tugged at my solar plexus and gave me hope. Though I wished I had some sort of torch or flashlight in this darkness, I wasn’t afraid of it. Not even when it whispered with a hundred voices. I simply wished the spirits a good day and kept moving forward like I was on a mission.

And I was.

My mission was to find Addie. I put a hand out to my side and touched the jagged stone walls of this underground domain. Was this where Hel lived? It seemed like it was due for some upgrades. It reminded me of my darkest days, when I let my house get filthy.

Could a goddess mourn? Could depression hold her in its cruel grasp?

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