“Ah, yes. Spanish, black eyes, large . . .” He gestured toward his chest.
“No bigger than mine, thank you,” I said, crossing my arms. “She and her boyfriend, Raymond, were helping us.”
“They are mortals, and of no concern to the reapers,” he said, surprising me by driving past his house and turning into the drive of a neighboring house. “They were probably sent on their way.”
“I hope so. I don’t think I could stand having any more innocent people’s blood, metaphorical or otherwise, on my hands. What are we doing here?”
He stopped the car and got out, gesturing for me to follow. “There is a back way into my house, via the attic.”
There was a narrow, mostly invisible break in the hedge that served as a fence around his property, and between him and his neighbors. I squeezed through the break, spitting out bits of yew leaves that poked into my mouth, following silently as Alec sneaked through the garden, past a small, dark guesthouse.
“Wait here,” he whispered, pushing me against a tree trunk while he crept up to one of the windows of the guesthouse. He returned a moment later, gesturing again for me to follow. We slipped past an empty pool, the water rippling gently in the evening breeze, lit from below to make the pool a glowing teal beacon that had nothing on the clarity that was Kristoff’s eyes.
“Can you climb?” Alec asked in a hushed voice as he stopped next to a large split-trunked tree.
I looked upward to where the tree’s branches lay against the roof of the house. Normally, I wouldn’t consider such a thing, but Kristoff’s life was at stake. “I’ll manage,” I told him.
By the time I struggled from the leafy and branch-riddled embrace of the tree and through a window into a dark, close attic, I had come to the conclusion that climbing a tree in any apparel was hazardous, but doing so in a gauzy sundress meant to entice one particular man into a frenzy was definitely not a smart idea. More than once Alec had been forced to climb down to detach me from some particularly troublesome branch, ultimately being forced to rip the material free.
“Note to self: Next time pack tree-climbing clothes, preferably something in the non-tear nylon family,” I said as I got up from where I’d landed on the attic floor. Through the thin light streaming in from the outside house lights, I could see that the front of my dress was smudged with dirt, little leaves and twigs clinging to bits of torn fabric, long, wrinkled tears leaving the bodice more a memory than an actual garment. A faint breeze on my backside told me that the skirt was likely to be in the same condition.
“I would say you look charming, but I doubt if you would appreciate my approval of your underwear,” Alec said, his eyes on the exposed portion of my bra. “This way. I feel their presence in my house, so we must go very cautiously.” He started to edge his way around the boxes and discarded furniture that littered his attic, pausing a moment at the door to mutter, “That is odd. I feel . . . Hmm.”
“Feel what?” I whispered as he silently opened a trapdoor in the floor, sticking his head out to examine the hallway below before he got to his feet. There was a foldout set of narrow steps that must have been very well oiled, for he lowered them without a sound.
“Feel the presence of people I had not expected. Unfortunately, I can’t tell how near they are. Come. We must be silent now.”
I followed him as quietly as possible as he crept slowly down the hallway. The upper floor was dark, but lights shone up from below. I picked off twigs and leaves and a couple of bugs as we headed to the main stairs. Alec held up a hand to stop me. I stayed against the wall as he slid along it to the stairs, peeking over the edge to the floor below.
He stood up suddenly and, with an inexplicable smile at me, ran down to the floor below. I stood stunned for a moment, then followed.
I made it to the bottom of the stairs before I realized what it was that had Alec so amused. Four men and two women were arranged in various poses of bondage on the huge living room floor. The women had been propped up more or less upright, their hands bound behind them, their feet tied, with duct tape across their mouths. Two men were prone on the floor, blood around them indicating that they had been injured, although they, too, had been bound. The other two leaned drunkenly against each other, their eyes spitting fury as I slowly entered the bizarre scene.
But what had me coming to a complete halt was the sight of the two men lounging on the couch.
“Took you long enough to get back,” Andreas said, looking up from where he was examining his fingernail.
Rowan, who had his feet resting on one of the prone men, stopped flipping through a magazine to glance up. “You found her, I see. We figured you must have her, since they didn’t.”
“Yes, and you might have told me you two were in town,” Alec said, strolling over to the two men. He squatted next to them and eyed them carefully. “It would have saved me a great deal of trouble. Where is he?”
“Kristoff?” Andreas nodded his head toward me. “He’s over there.”
I spun around and almost choked with horror. Kristoff lay on a small honey-colored couch that sat under a huge mural of the ocean, one arm hanging lifelessly off the edge.
“You bastards!” I shrieked, running across the room to where he lay. “What have you done to him?”
“I like that,” Rowan said, nudging one of the guys on the floor as he raised his head. “Did you hear her? She called us bastards.”
My horror turned to sheer terror as I realized the pattern on the floor was due to blood, not the design of the carpet. “Oh, my God, you’ve killed him! I swear by all that is holy that you will all pay for this. I will not rest one single second until you’ve suffered the way you’ve made my poor Kristoff suffer.”
I collapsed on Kristoff, sobbing into his chest as I clutched his lifeless body, my mind swimming with endless agony that threatened to burst from me in a blinding, searing light.
“Ah, nothing is sweeter than the sight of a Beloved reunited with her love,” Andreas said, his voice mocking the depth of despair that filled me.
Rage unlike anything I’d felt before washed over me. I lifted my face from the empty shell that was Kristoff and focused my gaze on his brother. “You think it’s sweet, do you? Let’s see how sweet you think this Beloved is when she’s through roasting you alive, you bastard brother killer!”
“Pia, stop,” a voice murmured in my ear.
“Ooh, someone’s in trouble,” Rowan said archly, pushing over the reaper on the floor.
“You’re second,” I told him, focusing my attention on him until light rained down from above. He yelped and leaped to the side, bouncing on the couch as he patted wildly at the sparkles of light remaining on his clothing.
“Beloved, you’re pulling out my hair.”
Alec crossed the room, giving the two men an irritated glance. “Mind the sofa. That’s Italian leather, and it didn’t come cheap.”
“You’re third,” I growled, slamming down a wall of light between Alec and the doorway through which he was obviously about to go. “Don’t give me that look, Alec. I’m sure you think I’m the worst sort of idiot for falling for your innocence act, but I assure you-”
“If you’re through with my ear, I wouldn’t mind if you released it. I’ve lost all feeling in it now.”
“I assure you that I . . . I . . .” I looked down. I had been clutching Kristoff’s head to my bosom as I swore eternal vengeance for his death, but somehow he’d shifted so that the fingers of one hand were gripping his hair, my other hand grasping his ear.
Eyes brighter than any gem regarded me.
“Boo?” I asked, my heart doing a backflip or two.
His face twisted into a momentary grimace as a muffled laugh, followed by, “Did she just call him ‘Boo’?” made its way from the vampires. “Would you mind releasing my ear?”
I stared in stupefaction at my fingers closed around his ear. It was turning white. “But . . . you’re dead.”
“Not quite. Nearly, but not quite,” Rowan said, vaulting the recumbent reapers as he strolled over to us. He hesitated a moment. “If I touch you, will you rain light on me again?”
“Eh?” I said, my brain finally catching up with my heart.
He gently took me by the arms and pulled me off of Kristoff. “When we found him, the reapers were in the act of hacking off his head. But he’s always been a fast healer.”
Kristoff sat up, rubbing first his ear, then his throat. I was aghast to see a nasty, jagged-looking welt that
