A Grim Love: Can't Fight Time (10 page)

Grim smiled as he opened his eyes to find Nina beautiful and sweaty, her pupils dilated and unfocused. Taking the same hand he’d used on her clit, Grim licked the pad of his thumb, tasting her.

Smiling, Grim levered himself up and flipped her on her back. Raising her hips Grim thrust deeper, grinding harder, his hand shooting out to grip the armrest. Emotions played across Nina’s face as she moved her body and met him with the same ferocious need he had for her.

Their bodies were completely in sync, moving with the soft of practiced rhythm that seemed inherent.

“Marry me,” Grim demanded as he gripped her thigh and swung her ankle over his shoulder to penetrate her deeper.

Nina’s neck arched and her nails swiped across his arm. “W-what?”

Grim reached for her other calf and swung it up until her ankles rested on his shoulders. “Marry me, Nina.”

She snapped her head to look back at him, eyes wide and stained with tears. Sweat soaked into her hair, her lips were bruised, and her face was flushed. Fleetingly, Grim wondered if it had been like this for his father and if that was the reason he’d slept with Ivona despite knowing the risks.

Sex--no, making love with Nina was intoxicating. It was like he’d spent all his life wading through a desert and now, he’d miraculously found an oasis. His own private, beautiful, lush oasis. He wouldn’t let her escape now. Never.

“Grim--” her voice was throaty, maybe a little sore “--I can’t marry you.” Her voice was lost on a gasp as he thrust sharply into her, tilting her back a little to rub against her over-sensitized clit.

“Stop that!” Nina moaned as she leaned down and pressed her hands against his abs.

Grim shook his head and repeated the torture, bringing her to the edge of orgasm but never allowing her the pleasure of coming. “I’m not asking, Nina.”

Glaring at him, she tried to move away, but he kept her firmly locked to him. Anger flashed across her features; “There’s no future here, Grim. I’m all for doing it like rabbits right up until the second I die, but I’m not going to build a doomed future with you.”

Nina’s body was the only thing keeping his sanity and anger in check. She didn’t understand. Once he married her, that was it. She wouldn’t die, because he’d never let her. He’d kill any reaper who tried to take her away. She’d live with him in his world so her father could never get her. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her.

“If you marry me, I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let you die, Nina. You'll be my wife, under my protection,” Grim bit off as his composure began to slip. “Not even death will take you away from me.”

White heat exploded in his gut as Nina suddenly came, thrashing on the sofa with only his power keeping her from hurting herself. But he was right there with her, roaring out his pleasure as he did the one thing he’d promised he’d never do.

“Fuck the past,” Grim gasped as he laid his head on her stomach and gulped in air.

Nina moaned as he throbbed inside of her, a last testament to their joining. “Fuck the future.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Grim paused, his hand on the ornate handle carved with the Bloodspurn coat-of-arms: a teardrop-shaped vial with two swords crossed behind it. He loathed the symbol. He loathed everything it stood for, everything that it demanded the king stand for: murder, mayhem, and war.  

Pushing his bitter anger over the past aside, Grim entered the throne room, his every step reminding him that, after this, everything would change.

Questions and thoughts buzzed in his head about good and bad choices, what was right and what was wrong. But he always came back to the center of it, the reason he had come here, the reason he was willing to throw away all he had worked for, all his family had achieved... Nina.

Looking down at the silver-veined black marble and then up to the dark red drapes covering the dozens of floor-to-ceiling windows, Grim forced his feet to move forward. This was one of the rooms Grim truly detested, its displays of wealth coated with death, betrayal, and anguish. The room was supposed to embody their name, their legacy--the Bloodspurn Kingdom, with the strongest warriors and the most fearless kings in the land.

Paintings depicting gruesome death scenes lined the walls as Grim walked the length of the room to his father. Captions told how and by which king the people in the paintings had been killed, but there were no actual pictures of the kings themselves.

Grim had told Nina that Reapers never killed, and he hadn’t lied. Reapers never killed
humans
, but Grim couldn’t same the same their own people. Just like humans, Reapers murdered, tortured, and massacred each other. Perhaps it was the humanity in their veins from when they used to mate with humans.

Then again, it could just be what drove every person to maim and kill: power.

“Grim?” His father’s voice was quizzical, as if he wasn’t sure if Grim was truly there or not, a figment or reality.

Gritting his teeth, Grim watched the maid beside his father lean over, trying to tempt the king with her curves. That might have worked years before, when the king had sunk himself between the thighs of every woman he found in an effort to reclaim the feelings that Ivona had stolen from him with her death. Grim remembered what it was like during those times, when all you could hear through the halls was a woman's cries of ecstasy and seconds later the angry footsteps of the king leaving because he’d felt absolutely nothing.

That was when his father had truly begun his slow descent into madness, and when Grim’s mother had begun grooming him to take over the crown.

Smiling wide and sitting up straighter on his throne, his father looked like he’d just been given a giant present. “What are you doing here, my son?”

Grim paused at the base of the steps leading up to the throne. The throne itself was stone, smoothed out from so many kings’ asses sitting and dictating to people. But it was the teardrop-shaped vials hanging from the ceiling all around the seat that sent a shiver of fear down Grim.

It was beautiful and terrifying, watching the vials swing through the air with only the slightest sound of grains rubbing against each other. When Grim was a child, he’d been playing in the throne room and had accidentally broken one of the vials. It had split into a thousand tiny teardrops and a billion gray grains, and the smell had been so familiar.

Later he’d found out what the smell was, what the thousands of hanging vials were: reapers’ remains. Thousands of reapers stuffed into vials no bigger than his middle finger, murdered by Bloodspurn kings and placed on display for all to see. They might as well have cut off their heads and hung them on spikes around the room.

Grim shook the unease and anger out of his head. “I’m here to see you, Father.”

“Hmm?” The king's eyes caught on the maid’s bosom as she leaned over, but the look he gave the tempting flesh was hollow, as if he was looking right through her.

“I would like to talk with you about the human--about Nina.” Grim ground out as he watched the maid frown, perplexed, and move away from the king.

To the side of the room a door burst open and a surge of energy he recognized shot out into the room. “Mother,” He drew deeper into the folds of his cloak, grateful that’s he’d changed into his “Grim Reaper” form after he’d left Nina.

“Samuel!” his mother swept into the room with all the power of a typhoon. “I am glad you have brought up that unsightly creature.”

Grim watched with a slight amount of satisfaction as the maid visibly paled, then lowered her head and rushed out of the room, past Grim. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” the girl muttered as she fled.

“Morrigan! What a pleasant, pleasant surprise,” Grim’s father said as the corner of his mouth rose. He gave Grim an exaggerated wink, his eyes dancing with more than mirth. “What brings you here?”

Grim would never understand why his father had married Morrigan. Yes, she was Grim’s mother now, and the woman who had raised him, but never had she been kind or caring, choosing instead to be distant and disappointed with her sons.

“I assume you’ve heard about the human your son brought home, Tuoni? A disrespectful little thing with all the manners of a street rat,” Morrigan said scathingly as she ascended the steps to the dais. She took her place next to his father on an equally impressive throne surrounded by vials.

Grim flinched at the insult to Nina, but mentally forgave his mother.
She still doesn’t know.
Grim stifled a laugh as his looked at the black cloak and Ivory bones that he’d seen all his life.
Very soon Nina would be his wife and the next Bloodspurn queen.

Grim’s father, Tuoni, looked quizzically at his son. “Yes, I heard. She broke you. Split you in two. Took you again. And made you anew.”

Tuoni reached for the glass the maid had left him, but just as his fingers closed around the goblet it fractured and broke into a million pieces. Grim watched his father frown as he looked at his wine-soaked hand, shards of glass embedded in it. Then, very slowly, he leaned down and licked his bloodied hand.

Immediately his mother snatched the hand away from the king’s mouth and tore off a piece of her cloak to tie around it. No one spoke as maids appeared out of the woodwork and cleaned off the king before disappearing as quickly and quietly as they’d come. Grim had seen the scene many times over, yet another reminder why it was time to take the throne. His father’s grip on reality, on his power, was slipping fast.

It pained Grim to see his father this way, though he supposed it was better in comparison to his earlier whoremongering. At times Grim would find his father completely coherent and sane; they could have whole conversations, and he would give Grim advice. The next day, his father wouldn’t remember any of it. He would be lost to Grim once again.

It scared him sometimes when he looked into his father’s eyes and wondered if his and Uri’s fate would be the same.
It wouldn’t be if Nina was with me.
Grim clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, knowing it was time.
She’d keep me sane.

“It’s been nearly a month, Tuoni! We still have a human living in the castle, and the Castoff king’s daughter will be coming any day.” Morrigan shifted in her throne, sitting straighter, her power held firmly in check. “And from what I’ve heard, she loathes humans.”

More than you, Mother?
Grim mentally retorted as he looked up at his parents, desperate to get this over with and then return to Nina. Return to her soft body, warm arms, and comforting words.

“Mother, Father, I wanted to tell you that I will not be marrying the Castoff girl. I want--will marry Nina.”

For a moment the entire room was still. The vials stopped swinging, and their powers paused. Then, like a rolling wave, he felt his father’s power leak out and encompass everything. Even his mother shifted away from her husband.

Grim didn’t match his father’s power or pin it back against him as he could have. No, he let his father have control. He was seeing himself in his father, seeing the exact same reaction from the other side.

With all the grace of phoenix uncurling its wings, Tuoni rose from his chair and took the steps down to his son. “Emotions, emotions, such fickle things. They come and go like butterfly wings." His smile was a bit lopsided, eyes clouded like he might be drunk.

Suddenly his face dropped, transforming into the mask of urbane indifference that Grim had seen almost all his life. "You don't love her, Grim. It is simply the first time you have felt human emotions, and you're not sure how to deal with them. You're letting your emotions control you. And
that
my son, will be your downfall."

Grim felt his defenses rise and his power flare up. When his father was lucid, he was extremely brilliant, tapping into a wealth of knowledge. But that was his father's downfall: despite all his brilliance, he had failed to save the one woman he loved.

“I will not repeat the mistakes of the past, Father.” Grim’s eyes skirted over the vials. The past was in the past and had no place in his future. Nina had taught him that, taught him to leave what could never be fixed for the ages and to relish the present. But he didn’t just want the present, he wanted the future--their future, where Nina was alive and safe and his.

Grim’s resolve hardened until it became unbreakable. “I will deal with the Castoff king and his daughter. I will care for my land and my people. And I will protect Nina and crush anyone who threatens us.”

Grim looked into his father’s eyes, mirrors of his own eyes, the exact same shade of blue. “I am not you, and I will not make your mistakes.”

Gathering his power until it swirled around him in a thick fog, Grim shed once more, rebirthing as something he’s never been and never wanted to be: a true Bloodspurn king. It was in the flex of power, in the sinew and muscle coating his bones, in the hard gaze of his blue-diamond eyes.

“Mother.” Grim turned and acknowledged her, bending his head and feeling his hair slide against his cheek. She hissed at him and recoiled like a frightened snake.

“Father.” Grim turned his gaze to Tuoni, and saw the widest grin splitting his face. He knew his father was off in another place.

“I’ve lost myself. I’m out of time. I’ve lost myself. I’m out of my mind.” The king repeated the chant, eyes burning feverishly. “You were never me, Grim. I died long ago, and you never met me.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Grim turned sharply away from his father. He did not want to listen to the words of a crazy king. He wanted warm sheets that smelled like milk and honey, and a supple and needy body that tasted like woman.

His picked up his speed, flying with a power few creatures in the universe possessed to the side of the woman he loved.

***

Nina was caught in a memory… or was it a dream? She could no longer tell them apart.

She was in the morgue, but she wasn't in the morgue. She was seeing herself, but it was through her own eyes, like she was watching herself in a movie.

Then the morgue melted and she was in a field of flowers… or was it at home in her bed laying on her flower comforter? Was she a child or a woman?

Music played, a melody that she recognized, words she could sing to, but couldn’t understand. Or was it a conversation? Was she hearing music or a conversation?

Her father smiled at her, her mother beside him. They looked happy, not at all how she’d seen them before. They also looked different, like they weren’t exactly her parents. Who were they?

Nina couldn’t see anything; it was all a swirling blur of dreams and memories smashing into each other like fighting rams. Time unwinding, circling back--unmade, recreated. It hurt.

The feeling of uncertainty, of not knowing what was going on, was driving her insane. She needed to get out. Needed to escape. Right. Now...

“Having a nightmare?” Uri’s voice penetrated the memory, or dream, or whatever it was, and drew Nina back to the present.

Nina felt like she’d jumped three feet in the air, but she didn’t even move a muscle. The memory faded into nothingness as Nina slowly returned to Grim’s bedroom. The sheets were warm beneath her naked body, and a slight swivel of her hips let Nina know she was still covered by a sheet.
Thank God for small mercies.