Runes #03 - Grimnirs (4 page)

I clicked on the next vlog entry, then the next one, my stomach churning. They’d been posted every week I’d been away. Had I sneaked into the doctor’s office and used his computer while in a drug-induced haze?

I re-watched the first video, studying my body language and clothes. I didn’t act drugged, and the pink silk shirt was mine. I didn’t remember taking it with me to the hospital. I jumped up and checked my closet. The shirt was there along with the dresses and jackets I wore on the other videos. Another thing caught my attention. The background in each video was the same. I’d taped all of them here in my bedroom.

“Are you editing another video or do you just like watching yourself?” a familiar voice mocked from behind me.

My heart tripped then started to pound. The reaper from the store was in my house. In my bedroom. What was he doing here?

2.
 
Echo

Before I could turn, a hand pushed my hair away from my shoulder and warm lips kissed my neck. Sensation slammed through me, and my breath caught. I froze, even as my body reacted and trembled. Hands slid down my chest and cupped my breasts with such ease, as though he’d done it before.

I gripped his hands and yanked them away from my chest. “Get your filthy hands off—”

He moved fast and covered my mouth, swallowing the rest of my words, his tongue sliding between my lips in a kiss that drove all thoughts from my head.

My world exploded, blinding sensations surging, swelling, and crashing through me. I mumbled a protest. At least, I think I did, but he angled his head and deepened the kiss, his tongue boldly caressing mine.

Holy crap! Was this the kiss of death? Was this how he yanked people’s souls from their bodies? I tried to resist, but I was no longer in control. He’d taken over every one of my senses and had me completely under his power. Dizziness washed over me as I floated away to a place where nothing mattered but his mouth and the way he made me feel.

There were worse ways to die, I decided. At least this way, I’d go happy. As though he’d heard me, he lifted his head. I pried my eyelids open and stared at him.

His face slowly came into focus. His hood was down, baring his face and hair. His skin was tanned and smooth, the shadow on his chin making him look even sexier. His golden-green eyes flashed with a naughty gleam as though he was thoroughly enjoying himself. His shaggy dark brown hair was cut in an asymmetrical style, low on the sides and longer on top. The style looked too tame for a leather-wearing reaper, even though he’d changed his leather shirt for a black T-shirt. I’d expected him to have longer, unkempt locks. Up close, his face was even more beautiful, and he smelled so good.

“I love it when you lust after me,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ve missed you too, sweet-cheeks.”

Sanity returned.

“What… what do you mean?” I managed to whisper, my lips still tingling from his kiss.

“It amazes me how you can be so devious and twisted, yet look so sweet and innocent.” He kissed me again, laughter rumbling through his chest and vibrating through my body.

I wasn’t ready to die yet, damn it. No matter how intoxicating his kisses were. And I wasn’t twisted. Nothing he said made sense.

I brought my teeth down hard on his lower lip. More laughter came from him. Then he leaned back, licked the drop of blood, and exposed the teeth marks I’d left on his lip.

My eyes widened when the cut slowly disappeared. He self-healed? Of course, he did. He was the grim reaper. I opened my mouth to ask him how long I had left, but he spoke first.

“You want play rough?” he asked. “Good. That’s just how I like it.”

“No. Don’t—”

He scooped me up and moved so fast my room was a blur. One second I was on the chair, the next flat on my back on the bed. Panic coursed through me.

“What are you doing, you sick bastard?” I snapped.

“Playing your game.” A wicked smile lifted the corner of his lips.

I scooted to the other side of the bed, but he was there, blocking me.

“Where are you going when I came here specifically for you, Cora?” he said.

My heart threatened to leap from my chest. “Right now?”

“Yes. Right now. I want you, Cora.” He went into hyper-speed. When he stopped, he was coatless and shirtless and straddling me, most of his weight on his knees.

My head spun, and I was so confused I just stared at him like an idiot. I didn’t understand why he had to be shirtless to take my soul, but I guess if I had to die, I didn’t mind being escorted by a shirtless hunk.

He had a broad, masculine chest covered with black tattoos. The tats, glowing and dimming, continued down between his rock-hard abs and disappeared under the waistband of his pants. The leather pants stretched across his thighs and hugged his…

“Keep looking at me like that and the game ends now,” he said in a husky voice.

I dragged my eyes away. What in the world was I doing ogling
him
, the being about to yank my soul from my chest. I should be screaming. Begging for mercy. No, I wasn’t going to beg, and if I screamed, my parents would rush upstairs. I didn’t want my parents to find my lifeless body upstairs.

Maybe I could reason with the reaper. Buy more time. “Can I have more time with my parents before…” My voice trembled to a stop. I cleared it and finished, “you take me away?”

He cocked his eyebrow.

“Please,” I added.

He chuckled and ran a finger down my neck to the top button on my shirt, leaving behind heated flesh. “Begging, Cora? That’s new. You can have tonight and the whole of tomorrow.” He undid the top button of my shirt. “I’m not taking you away. You’re coming with me. We all have jobs to do.”

I grabbed his wrist. “So I can have until tomorrow night?”

“Sure.” He studied me with narrowed eyes then smirked, reached behind him with his other hand, and pulled out a weird-looking knife. It wasn’t the mini scythe. This one was different. It had a thinner blade and a ridged handle as though it was specifically made for his long fingers. I swallowed, staring at the blade and then his face.

“I’m done playing games, sweetheart,” he said. “I want you now.” He lowered the blade toward my heart. I stopped breathing.

“Please,” I whispered. “You said I had—”

“The begging is a nice touch, but you’re overdoing it,” he mocked, sliding the blade under my shirt. “You don’t want to bore me, Cora.”

Part of me wanted to close my eyes and let him finish me off, but another part refused to cower. Let him look me in the eyes as he killed me, the jerk. How could he promise me more time then change his mind? Was this how he did things? Gave false hope to the dying? I hoped my face haunted him for eternity.

I glared at him, and our eyes locked as I braced myself for the pain that was sure to follow. Instead, the buttons on my shirt flew across my room as he cut them off in one clean sweep. Cold air rushed to my skin. Instinctively, I pulled at the gaping fabric and tried to cover myself.

“You don’t want to do that either, doll-face,” he warned.

I held my breath again when the cold tip of the knife touched my skin. Any moment, I expected him to yank my soul out with the blade. Hadn’t he pointed his scythe at Morello’s soul and caused him to freeze?

“I want to talk to my parents first,” I demanded. At least that was what I’d meant to do. My voice came out shaky. Totally pathetic.

“Now?” The blade moved toward my heart.

“Yes. To say good... good…” Tears rushed to my eyes, and I couldn’t finish the sentence. Not wanting him to see them, I closed my eyes and braced myself again. Once again, the pain didn’t come. I opened one eye then the other.

He was staring at me with a frown.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I started to nod, but then shook my head. “No.”

“You’re crying. What’s wrong?”

What did he expect? That I should laugh in the face of death? “I don’t want to… to…” I couldn’t bring myself to say “die”.

He shifted, so he was kneeling, though he still straddled me. “Why didn’t you just say so? I would have stopped.”

I blinked. My voice shook as I mumbled, “You would?”

“Of course.” He shoved the knife somewhere behind him. “What’s the fun in foreplay when you’re not enjoying it?”

Enjoying it? What kind of a sick bastard toyed with people before killing them? Trying not to lose it, I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you mean I have to show you that I’m scared before you kill me?”

He looked at me like I was the village idiot. “Kill you? What are you talking about?”

“Just now. You were about to kill me and take my soul.”

He laughed and gracefully got off the bed. “Nice comic relief, sweet-cheeks.” He bent and came up with his T-shirt.

“I’m a Grimnir, not a killer. There are rules and there are
rules
. I might break and bend a few, but I don’t cross some lines. I don’t kill my people. Where have you been the last week?”

Now I was the one confused. His people? “Last week?”

“You were supposed to meet me, but you just disappeared. What happened?” He pulled on his shirt, tugging it over his broad chest, his movement graceful. The sleeves hugged his hard chest and masculine arms. By the time he covered his ridged abs, I was sitting up and trying, unsuccessfully I might add, not to drool while pulling my button-less shirt across my chest.

“Meet you?” I asked. My thought process had slowed to a snail’s pace. “I’ve never seen you before until today at the store. I think, uh, you are confusing me with someone else.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He reached out and twirled a lock of my hair around his forefinger. “I’d never confuse you with anyone else. I know you in the only way that matters. Intimately. Talking is for those who lack imagination, and the little games we play are just, uh, foreplay.” He caressed my lower lip. “Spices things up.”

“Cut that out.” I swatted his hand, heat rushing to my cheeks. Needing space, I scooted to the other side of the bed. “You are mistaken. I’ve never…”

“Never what?”

I couldn’t just blurt out I was a virgin. That I’d been waiting for Eirik, the guy I loved, to one day wake up and notice me.

“Never mind. So what you’re saying is that the entire time I thought you were about to kill me, you were playing a game?”

“Foreplay, doll-face.” He wiggled his brow. “That’s how you like it.”

“Are you nuts? You scared the crap out of me, and over what? An imagined relationship between us?”

“Imagined?” He appeared beside me in a flash. I took a step back, but he followed. His earthy scent and warmth swirled around my senses, screwing with my thoughts. “Would you like a blow-by-blow description of what you and I have been doing the past several weeks? How much you like it? How often you—”

“No,” I snapped, my cheeks burning. “Stop it! I don’t want to be part of your twisted game, reaper. What? You’re bored escorting souls, so you have to find people to screw with?”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you serious?”

I wanted to claw his eyes out. Right at that instant, I didn’t care that they were gorgeous or that he had the most incredible lashes I’d ever seen on a man. I wanted to neuter him.

“Do I look like I’m having fun?”

“Then tell me how I know personal things about you, Cora Jemison,” he said, leaning in. “Born on December sixteenth in Portland, natural blonde, curtains and carpet.” He grinned when heat rushed to my face. “You wear bra size 30 D, hate spinach, but love Hawaiian pizza. Your best friend is Raine Cooper, and until I came along,” he paused and smirked, “you thought you had a crush on Eirik Seville. The god-child didn’t deserve you.”

“It isn’t a crush. I love Eirik.”

“No, you don’t. I could tell you a thing or two about him that would make you run—”

“Not interested. He’s perfect. And Raine is no longer my BFF.” Gripping my ripped shirt, I moved as far away from him as I possibly could. “You could have gotten that information from my friends or my vlog.”

His arched eyebrows shot up. “Okay, let’s move on to intimate details. You love it when I kiss your neck. Makes you purr like a kitten. You have two distinct birthmarks: one on the underside of your left breast and the other on your inner thigh, where only a lover would know. You want to cover both with tattoos but you’re scared of the tat guy getting too close.”

How could he possibly know such things? Covering my birthmarks was something I’d never discussed with anyone, not even Raine. No, that wasn’t true. The topic of body mutilation had come up during a group session with Dr. Wendell at the psych ward, and I’d mentioned wanting to ink myself.

“GAH! You are a sick, perverted jerk! You had your souls spy on me. No wonder I’d wake up and find them standing over my bed.”

“Listen, baby-doll. I love playing games with you because it makes sex great between us, but this is ridiculous.” He moved away and snatched his duster. “Stop pretending you don’t know me. If you want to end things, just say so. It’s obvious you’d rather be a Mortal than…” He looked ready to grab me and shake some sense into me. “Forget it.”

“Than what? Be with you, someone who’s obviously insane?” I pulled a hoodie off the peg on my wall and yanked it on. “What kind of a reaper goes around making up stories about people? Kissing them like… like…”

“Like what?” he asked, the annoying smirk back on his face. “Like I know you? Like I know what you like and how you like it?”

“Like you want to suck their soul, you jackass.” I snapped and tried to zip up the hoodie, but my hands were shaking too much. “You want my soul, take it, but don’t go around claiming we are lovers when I’ve never seen your smug, condescending face from wherever hellhole you crawled up from. If this is some kind of reaper joke because I dispersed a few souls, then hardy har har. The joke’s on me. Now get out of my room.”

He stared at me as though I’d lost my mind, and then he chuckled.

“Jerk.” I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.