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“Positive.” Cabal nodded as he broke into her thoughts. “But he’s not coming for a killer, Cassa. Watts is coming for you.”
? CHAPTER 21 ?
Death watched; Death stalked. But as Death sat in the woods across from the inn and watched the shuttered windows, there was an edge of weariness that crept through the mind and through the soul.
Blood stained not just the hands, but the soul as well.
“He escaped.” Myron James sat to the side, and in his voice Death heard the same weariness, the same old bitterness. “He’s on his way here.”
Of course Watts was on his way here. It was here that it had all begun, here that the Reaper had had his greatest triumph.
Three women. Three beautiful women that had been destroyed by his evil.
“Cabal’s going to try to stand in our way,” Death informed the other man. “He’ll keep guard over the reporter, that’s going to throw a wrench in it.”
“Not if we draw her away from him.” Sheriff Danna Lacey’s voice was fraught with agony.
God, so much pain. It beat at him, tore into the center of his being and lashed at the animal he had always kept careful control of.
Drawing Cassa Hawkins away from her mate wouldn’t be that easy. The animal known as Death knew this. The man, the man understood it, regretted it.
Suddenly, there was so much regret. So much blood scenting his entire body that sometimes he wondered if there was a way to survive the fallout.
Watts would be dead soon, he would make certain of it. There was nothing left to live for except the executions to come. There was no reason to worry about a future or roads not taken. There was only this, only Death.
“She’s not to be hurt.” He hardened his voice, injected the steel needed to ensure that his orders were carried out.
“Since when do we care about her?” Danna was the only one foolish enough to question him. “She came here. She made the decision to place herself in danger.”
“Because we drew her here.” He straightened from his crouch, his eyes still on the inn.
He could sense the four men inside, plotting, maneuvering to learn who he was. He was a dead man. He was Death. He would remain the shadow they could never identify, his life depended on it.
“Are you certain the Coyotes that rescued him will keep us apprised of his location?” Myron straightened as well, his voice rough with his own memories, his own pain.
“They know the cost if they don’t.” Death shrugged. “Either way, Watts will die, even if I have to go hunting myself.”
He stared back at Myron, seeing the pain on his face and in his eyes. That pain had only grown over the years since Illandra’s death. Since his mate had died on that ill-fated mission. A mission Death had selected her for.
The guilt that weighed him down was heavy. It stacked on his shoulders until there were days he felt as though he would collapse under the strain.
God help him, it had been too long, too many years that he had lived as a shadow, waiting, watching.
“We should take her b
efore he arrives.” Danna’s voice was thick with unshed tears, her scent was thick with a pain she never allowed free.
Death shook his head. He felt the breeze as it moved around him, feathered through his hair, and suddenly the memories were so clear, so crisp. The feel of soft hands rubbing at his scalp, the whisper of her kiss, her laughter. The knowledge that she had betrayed him.
So much betrayal. His life had begun in betrayal, and it would end with it. He had known that for far too many years. Had accepted it.
Serena had died by the hand of those she had betrayed him to, and their child was paying the cost, even now he feared. The child they had cut from her body.
Pain fueled rage. It bit inside his soul with sharpened fangs and tore at his guts with rapier claws. Damn her to hell. She had thought she would be safe, that the bastards that searched for them would keep their word to her. She had never paid attention to the blood they had spilled or the proof of those that had already been betrayed.
Where was the child? Only Watts knew the answer to that. He had taken the baby with him. The Council had never known of the child that disappeared that night. But Watts did. Death demanded its due. The child was all he had left to live for—the child, and the deaths to come.
“Rick, we have to get her away from them before Watts arrives,” Danna argued. “She’s what he’s coming for.”
