Blurred

think?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe in pacing yourself.”

“Maybe you should.” She grinned. “Look at you.”

I took as deep a breath as my lungs would allow and pulled her onto the bed with me. Her braids spread out like a halo across my comforter, shimmering even when there was no light to reflect from them. I leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her jaw. Heat sparked across my lips.

“I’m okay,” I said, cursing my body for being weak. “We don’t have to stop.” Every nerve writhing under my skin was begging me to just give up and collapse. I couldn’t do that. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what I wanted to be. I didn’t realize I was still, face buried in the warm hollow of Anaya’s neck, until she placed her hand on the back of my head. Moisture blurred my vision.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re not.” Anaya slid off the bed and I scrambled to sit up. “You’re not okay,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You have no idea how close you are. I can feel it.”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It matters!” Anaya’s fingers balled up into tiny fists at her sides.

I raked my fingers through my hair, wanting to pull it out. “What do you want me to do, Anaya?

Tell me. Because I’m open to suggestions here. I’m on my way out. There’s no stopping it. We’ve been over this.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said, smoothing her dress out where I’d wrinkled it. “It’s something I have to deal with. I made this mess. I’ll clean it up.”

“What mess?” I narrowed my gaze on her. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” she said. “I have to go.”

“Someone’s going to die?” I asked, my eyes lingering on her blade as it started to glow and pulse with light.

Anaya tilted her face to look up at the ceiling as if she were seeing right through it. She looked determined.

“Not if I can help it.”

Chapter 23

Anaya

I let the heat blooming around me take me home.

Or as close to it as I was probably ever going to get. I stared at the gates, the ache of longing working its way up my throat. It would have been nice to see my parents again. But after today, that dream would be gone. A hum of peace danced on the breeze, sifting through my hair, tickling my ears.

A gust blew a few braids into my face. Braids that still smelled like Cash.

“Anaya,” Balthazar’s voice echoed behind me.

I turned around. I couldn’t even force the smile that I knew he wanted from me. A smile that would tell him that everything was going smoothly. That good little Anaya had logged another day of doing exactly what she was told.

“What is it?” His blond brows furrowed as he stepped forward. “What happened?”

“How much longer are you going to put him through this?” I asked.

“We’ve already discussed this.”

“Will you ever let him cross over?” I said, meeting his gaze. “Or are you going to make him your slave for the rest of eternity?”

He laughed. “Oh Anaya, love, you haven’t gotten attached to your pet, now have you? The job was only to keep his soul safe. Not to grow a heart.”

I closed my eyes. “Answer the question, Balthazar.”

After a few beats of silence, he sighed. “No. I’m sorry, Anaya. He has a greater purpose than crossing over. He is too valuable to let his talents go to waste.”

“I can’t do it,” I said, trembling. “The deal is off. I’ll stay working as a reaper. But I won’t put him through another minute of this.”

He raised a brow as he came to stand beside me. Glowing embers flew around us like fireflies. The white fog that clung to Balthazar like a cape spread out around us, rippling with energy and power.

“Excuse me? You won’t?” Balthazar laughed, a loud booming sound that echoed from walls that did not exist in this place. “Do you forget that I own you, Anaya?”

“When he takes his last breath, I will be there. And I’ll carry him over. Not to you, but to the gates.

Where he belongs,” I said.

His fingers latched onto my wrist before I could get another word out. My warmth. The only thing that kept the feeling of life flowing through me slowly crept up my arm before Balthazar’s steady fingers leached it away, leaving me cold. Afraid. His eyes turned into pale blue orbs that refused to release me from their gaze.

“Do you really wish to challenge me?” he whispered into my ear. His breath was like ice, melting against my heat. “Do you honestly think I would let you make me look like a fool?”

Fear bubbled up in my throat in the form of a scream. I swallowed it back down into the empty pit that I used to call my stomach. I shook my head and whispered, “No.”

He leaned forward and my heat began to inch its way out of my lungs, across my lips. The look in his eyes said this was my end. I tensed and readied myself. I knew this might happen, but still…did my thousand years of perfect servitude mean nothing to him?

Shock stole the plea about to escape my mouth as Balthazar released my wrist and stepped away. He shook his head and looked to the gates as if they might open and provide him with an answer.

“You will do what I ask of you,” he said calmly. Somehow this was worse than his anger. Like the calm before the storm. “You will do it, or I will have Easton find you a permanent home in Hell. A pretty plaything like you?” He looked over his shoulder. “Why, they would rip you to shreds fighting over who got a turn first.”

I looked at my feet, wishing I could release the pain and fear gnawing inside me. Wishing I had tears that could carry it all away. Instead it swam circles in my chest, torturing me.

“This isn’t right,” I whispered. I was starting to think Balthazar didn’t know what that meant. What we were putting Cash through was wrong.

He turned and raised a brow at me as if he were surprised that I wasn’t submitting to him after his threat.

“Balthazar, please,” I whispered. “I’m begging you. I can’t go on doing this knowing…”

He sighed. The weight of the world was in that sigh. “Knowing he possesses Tarik’s soul,” he finished for me.

I looked up, unable to conceal my surprise. My betrayal.

“How long have you known it was him?”

He shrugged. The keeper of the afterlife. The second in command to the Almighty… shrugged.

“What would you like me to say? I always knew.”

Anger started an inferno in my chest. Turned my vision red. I didn’t give a damn about his threats in that moment. He’d known. He’d been toying with me for a thousand years!

“How could you not tell me? You let me think he was okay. That he had crossed. That he was waiting for me!”

“Anaya, be reasonable.”

“Be reasonable?” I seethed. “I have been nothing but reasonable for you, for this job for over a thousand years! What did you think I was working for?”

Salvation. I had been working toward a salvation he had promised me. A salvation that included

Tarik. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fend off the memory threatening to take me. Something in me wouldn’t let me. Something in me said he needed to see. When my eyes flew open, I could feel the heat seeping