A Grim Love: Can't Fight Time (8 page)

The morgue is sterile. Silver doors line one wall. The floors are white, surprisingly clean for a place where murder victims came and had their body’s torn open. I’m trying to focus on everything and nothing; the body on the silver slab covered by a white sheet is calling to me.

“Leave! Get the fuck out!” I’m screaming at the coroner, I think I’m crying.

I finally look at the body, but I’ve been looking at her this entire time. My vision blurs, overwhelmed by tears. I swipe at them angrily.

“Why is she smiling if she’d dead?” I ask angrily.

“Not again!” Nina moaned, leaning against the stone wall for support as her breathing started to hitch with panic.

“Nina? What’s wrong? Does your head still hurt? Are you still hungry?” Nina could hear Uri asking urgently, but the memories were too vivid, too alive, and they forced their way back into her mind.

My father’s gone, along with the coroner. The room’s empty and cold. It’s just me and my mother’s body. I think I see her smile widen.

I know I’m losing my mind.

“Ugh!” Nina choked, the emotions spilling out of her as she became to shake, tears racing down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nina heard someone ask above her.
Stay here! Don’t go back!
Her subconscious screamed at her.
I’m trying!
She screamed back, turning her head to focus on Uri’s blurry form. Nina could swear that there was a black shadow behind Uri, but then she was pulled back.

The world blurs again, and I have an instant headache. I massage my temples, the need to scream and cry and rage is riding me hard.

“Nina…” I snap my eyes open and look at the corpse. I can only see her head and the tops of her shoulders. Her creamy mocha skin is pulled tight and looks pale. I can see her collar bone.

I focus my eyes on her face, looking for any flicker of movement. Maybe she’s not dead?

I look at her lips, tinged blue, and her cheekbones look like knives trying to come out of her skin. The hair I used to play with as a child, used to braid, looks like dark brown straw, like it could fall out at any second.

“Nina…” I hear the whisper again, stronger this time, maybe a little bit irritated. I take a step back, my eyes focused on her eyes. Just a flicker, I tell myself. Just a--

“Nina!” Uri yelled, shaking her violently until Nina felt her head bang against the brick wall.

Nina looked at Uri as her vision began to clear.
Oh shit!
A dozen or so people were gathered around them.
Crap, I look like a nutcase!

“I’m fine Uri. Just--” she started, shaking off his hands as she pulled herself to her feet. Nina ignored the shaking of her legs, and swiped at her eyes.

The visions were coming closer together, but they still didn’t have any rhythm. It seemed Nina wasn’t safe from the memories even in another world. Whatever messages were in the vision, really just wanted to be discovered.

“You are not fine!” Uri snapped at her, his voice holding a slight tremor of worry.

Nina opened her mouth to argue, but a sudden thought occurred to her.
Why do I need to lie?
She was already almost-dead, already in the Underworld, already aware that her life for the next couple of months was going to be a joke. So then what was the point of saying she was fine when she wasn’t--hadn’t been--since her mother passed away.

No, she was murdered by my father;
Nina reminded herself, looking up at Uri as he all but wrung his hands. If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t been fine since the morgue, and in the last 48 hours “not fine” didn’t even begin to compare to her shit-tacular life.

“I’m not,” Nina whispered, reaching out to clutch at Uri. The truth was ripped from her soul as she allowed herself to rely on someone. “I’m not fine!”

Uri gathered her close, stroking her hair as she clung onto him, too numb to even cry. Again there was that surge of heat, except this was different. Uri’s heat didn’t burn her like Grim’s; it warmed her like brandy, like a friend on a dark night.

“I’m not fine,” Nina whispered into Uri’s shirt as she heard the shuffle of retreating footsteps, and slowly realized they were alone once again.

“I know, Nina. I know,” Uri soothed, rubbing her back in large comforting circles.

It was a few more moments before Nina was able to release her death-grip on Uri’s shirt and slowly step away. Neither of them spoke as Uri turned and placed a comforting arm around her.

But it’s different.
And it was. Uri’s embrace was warm and inviting, but Grim’s
?
Nina shook her head as a feeling of power ran over her senses like a thousand tongue-strokes. Shivering, Nina tried to ignore the throb between her legs and the longing in her heart… longing for a reaper who would have let her die.

***

Uri swirled the amber liquid in his glass and sighed appreciatively. “Still the smoothest scotch I’ve tasted.”

Grim glowered at his brother, and balled his fists to keep from beating the living daylights out of him. Ten minutes ago Uri had strolled into his study, popped open his scotch, and started drinking. It was obvious he was waiting for Grim to give in and ask about Nina, but he would be waiting until the universe ended before Grim would ask anything.

What Grim had done in the human world had been stupid. Loneliness and empathy had driven him to talk with Nina, to share things he had never shared with anyone--to break the rules that kept him and his country together.

Humans and reapers weren’t meant to be together.
Grim understood that better than anyone, and even if Nina was just down the hall and in desperate need of a friend--of comfort--he wouldn’t give in, he couldn’t.

“Were you really going to let her die?” Uri finally asked as he took a sip of his drink and regarded Grim over the rim of his glass.

A flick of Grim’s power sent the drink tumbling back and the liquid pouring down Uri’s throat in a harsh burn. Coughing and hacking, Uri glared accusingly at his brother, trying to compose himself.

Crossing his legs, Grim leaned further back in his chair, not wanting Uri to see how much the question had upset him.
Would I have let her die?
He’d been thinking the same thing for a while now, the dark hollow of his study giving him no other choice than to reflect.

Grim turned to the fireplace, his eyes catching on a painting hanging there. Women, mothers, lovers, they were such complex creatures: they gave life, killed life, and left life kill them.

Grim thought back to Nina’s mother’s soul. From the moment he’d taken her mother’s soul, Nina had never left his mind. The tragedy of her life had been the background music for his waking moments. But meeting her, talking with her, feeling the flare of attraction ignite in his bones had changed him. Before, he would have said that one human’s death meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, but Nina wasn’t just a nameless soul he’d come to collect.

“I should have never spoken to her.” Harsh words whispered in a harsh tone.

There was little else Grim could say, or that he wanted to say. Of course, Uri was never one to let anything go. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Brother. It never accomplishes anything.”

Grim looked up at the boy across from him. At times Uri seemed to be young, living in the moment, doing what he wanted when he wanted and damning the consequences. But at other times...

“Sometimes I fear you, Uri.” Grim shook his head as he rose from his chair. “You have the potential to be so much more.”

He didn’t spare his brother another look as he tucked his bones into the folds of his cloak. He would keep his skeletal form until Nina left; less chance of her finding out who he was.

Hand on the doorknob; Grim was stopped by his brother’s silvery voice. “You might have the power to take her away, but you can’t do anything unless she agrees. Just remember--” Grim felt his power rouse as his anger flared to life. “--Nina’s mine until
she
says otherwise.”

The door swung open with a burst of power, the wood splintering on the stone wall. Grim wouldn’t forget; his brother would never let him, and that was reason enough for him to avoid Nina.

After all,
he thought bitterly as he stalked down the hallway with his brother’s laughter trailing after him,
I would have let her die.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Darkness. That was all Nina saw when she finally came back to herself: complete and total darkness. In the back of her mind she could remember Uri walking her to a bedroom--her bedroom--and leaving her to deal with whatever she was going through.

Why’d he leave again?
Nina racked her brain and an image of herself screaming at him, raging for peace and solitude sprang up. “Oh. That’s why.” A self-deprecating laugh escaped her and was instantly consumed by the darkness.

Fidgeting, as a sudden need to move consumed her, Nina peered into the blackness wondering about her next play. She was in the Underworld, with Grim nowhere in sight and Uri claiming her as his. Weird didn’t even begin to explain the events of the past few hours—days, really.

Closing her eyes, Nina took a deep breath. Her heartbeat was so slow that she wondered if the quiet little thumps were just her imagination. Concentrating, she could hear her mother’s voice advising her: “Close your eyes and focus on one goal. Find it, and keep it close.”

“One goal,” Nina whispered, focusing on her breathing as she contemplated.

What do I want?
It should have been a simple question, considering that Uri had basically told her she could have anything she wanted; just not more time.

I want my mother back.
The thought came with a rush of sadness and tears. But with another slow intake of breath, Nina let it go; she let her pain and sadness over the murder of her mother ease out of her as she exhaled.
My goal, what’s my goal?

The answer curled around her ankles, up past her calves, between her thighs, over the curve of her belly, between the valley of her breasts, and up the column of her neck until she could finally breathe life into the word. “I want Grim.”

As soon as the words were spoken aloud, given a life and a purpose, despite knowing that he would have let her die, despite knowing that there was no future for them, despite knowing that he might be the one to take her soul... Nina’s mind was still made up.

Slowly opening her eyes, Nina noticed that the dark didn’t seem so endless, so stygian. If anything, it seemed full of undiscovered possibilities, untraversed paths. It was the path Grim walked, the same one she’d follow.

Her joints popped and her muscles ached, but Nina still forced herself to get up and search blindly around the room for a light. It was high time she got out of the darkness.

But she never found the light; her hands closed around the smooth cool metal of a doorknob instead. For a split second she paused, a million thoughts going through her mind as to the how and why of her decision, but she forced them out of her mind. She was dying, literally dying, and every second she agonized over whether it was right or wrong was another second wasted.

“I’ve made my decision.” There was steadfast conviction in her tone, an assurance that no matter what came to pass, it was the road she would walk.

Nina gripped the knob tighter, and forced her wrist to turn. “Fuck going back.”

***

Grim’s power reached for Nina before he could corral it.
Stop!
he commanded himself as the woman in question turned a corner and strode purposefully towards him.
She’s not yours, remember?

“You have some crappy guards,” Nina said matter-of-factly, her hips swaying slightly as she came closer to him. “You might want to hire some new people.”

If he’d still been in his human form, Grim would have smiled at that. “Do you know who I--?”

“Samuel,” Nina cut him off as her eyes peered into the black folds of his cloak.

Grim pulled the material closer to himself, needing to separate himself from her as much as possible. The woman was more dangerous to him than anyone; even the Castoff king seemed like a minor nuisance compared to Nina.

He didn’t speak for a while, trying to remember why he insisted on standing there with her instead of turning and walking away. It hadn’t just been his insane attraction to her that had deterred Grim, but her very humanity. It had been her humanity that had cemented his decision to let her go, no matter how much he wanted otherwise.

A rustle of fabric and a whisper of air through bones was the only indication that he was about to speak. “Can I help you with something, Ms. Strathmore? I assume you’re not just here to reprimand me about my guards.”

Grim watched her take a step closer to him, her eyes seeming to see past his black cloak and ivory bones to the man hidden inside. It made him feel caught, like an animal in a trap preparing to be taken. Never had he felt like anyone had power over him--even those who truly did have control over him had never made Grim feel base and naked, raw and wanting.

Nina stared at him for another long second, seeming to consider something before she shook her head and dismissed the idea. “What are you doing right now?” she asked.

Grim felt his power stir at the thought of spending more time with her, but he knew that he should tell her he was busy, that he had affairs to attend to, that any day now his fiancée would arrive… but he couldn’t.

“I was just headed to my study,” Grim said aloud.

“Mind if I join you?” Nina asked as she swung around to his side and linked arms with him.

Grim twitched, feeling a bit awkward with a human touching him in his reaper form. No one had ever done that, and for a second Grim worried that Nina would drop dead like in the movies. But she just stared up at him, her smile mysterious and her eyes alight.

“You are a curiosity,
Amica,
” Grim said before he could stop himself.

Recognition flared in her eyes before Nina lowered her lashes, hiding her gaze from him. In that moment Grim extended his power to her, trying to pry into her mind, but was met with completely blankness. It was as if the woman next to him wasn’t even there. Grim tried again, as he looked down at her, trying to probe into her mind, see all the secrets she kept from him. But there was nothing, her mind and thoughts invisible.

“Are we just going to stand here and stare at each other, or are we going to go to your study?” Nina’s voice lacked censure, and actually sounded like she was trying to suppress a laugh.

Grim turned away from her teasing smile and fire-streaked curls, needing to distract himself while they walked to his study. “How are you adjusting to the Bloodspurn kingdom?”

Nina’s soft breasts rubbed against the material of his cloak, and though he couldn’t feel the sensation of them pressing into his arm, there was something to be said about Nina moving closer to him. She was so odd for a human. Strong, with an endless curiosity and intelligence that surprised even Grim. Sometimes he wondered how much she really knew, or if she was hiding secrets just like everyone else.

“Well, considering I’ve been here all of twelve or so hours, I’m doing pretty well.” Nina’s voice was steady; betraying none of the nerves Grim knew she had to be feeling. “I mean your mom’s kind of a bitch. But I like Uri, so that’s good. Though sometimes, I feel like he’s hiding something. But then again, aren’t we all?”

Grim felt his power slide around Nina and bring her closer to him, and he tried to rein it in.
She’s not mine,
he told himself again, though he was starting to believe it less and less.

Maybe walking with her wasn’t such a good idea. The last time he’d walked with her...

Grim let the thought trail off as they turned a corner and arrived at his study. He nodded to the guards stationed on either side before he opened the door and ushered her through.

“Hello!” Nina chirped to the guards as she went through. Neither paid her much attention, except to glare briefly at her.

Grim frowned as he followed her through and shut the doors.
I suppose the stigma still exists.

“I told you, you need new guards,” she muttered as she went further into the room. “Wow!” Nina breathed as she spun in a slow circle to look at all the books lining his study.

Grim followed her eyes as she cranked her head back to look all the way up. He knew the shelves reached several stories, but he’d never been awed by it. Perhaps he’d been around it too long to see the beauty anymore. That was the case with many things in his homeland lately.

“This is incredible! I mean, there’s got to be more books her than the Library of Congress,” Nina whispered. “And the paintings...?” her voice trailed off as she walked over to a portrait hanging over the fireplace mantel.

If Grim had had a heart, it would have constricted. It always pained him when he looked at that portrait: the beautiful woman with pale skin and eyes like sapphires, her midnight-black hair twisted in a complicated braid and thrown over one shoulder. Beautiful, ethereal, always poised with her legs tucked under a flowing lilac skirt, with her hands resting softly on her distended stomach.

“Who is she?” Nina asked softly, making Grim look away from the painting to her.

Nina was turned towards him, half her body facing the painting and half facing him. The fire wasn’t burning, but with a flick of his power, flames leapt in the grate, cracking the kindling and warming the room. Still, Nina did not turn away from him.

Sighing softly, Grim glided over to her, sending his scythe to rest on his desk. He spoke when he was beside her: “This is Ivona Bloodspurn, my
birth
mother.” His tone was soft and filled with a mix of love and contempt.

Nina picked up on it. “Did you hate her?” Her tone was soft and inquisitive.

Always so curious, Amica,
Grim thought fondly as he turned to her and gestured to one of the couches surrounding the fireplace. He watched her pause, looking at him again like she was seeing through his facade, before she moved to a couch and sat.

“I never knew her,” Grim replied as he followed Nina and took a seat next to her, keeping a good distance between him and temptation.

A frown marred Nina’s brow before it cleared, and her face softened. “Because she was human, and died giving birth to you.”

Grim drew deeper into the folds of his cloak, uncomfortable with the subject. Nina was far too observant for her own good, seeing more than most humans or Reapers would see. It made her dangerous.

Feeling unsettled, Grim let his power leak out to saturate the room with his displeasure. She was a human, a frail and easily killable human with a lifespan like a second.
She’ll be gone in the blink of an eye,
Grim thought angrily.

“Do not forget your place here, human,” Grim’s voice was a whistle of air through bones with an edge like a blade. “You may have Uriel’s protection, but you are under my roof. Do not assume to ask me questions like we are friends--we’re not.”

Fire sparked behind Nina’s chocolate gaze before she leapt from the couch and went to stand in his face. “You are the most temperamental, egotistical man-child I have ever met! And here I thought you had a pretty good reason for not telling me who you were to begin with, Grim. But all you want to do is bitch and moan and keep everyone at arm’s length because you don’t want to even take the chance that someone might see the real you!”

Grim froze as her words sliced through the anger covering up the hurt he felt over his mother. “You know who I am.”

***

Every single freaking time I get near anything touchy with him, he becomes the world’s biggest asshole!
Nina thought sourly as she looked into a skeleton’s face and searched for Grim.

The minute he’d uttered the whole “curiosity” thing, she’d known it was him. And before that, when he’d called her “
Amica
,” she’d had an inkling. Though why the man was looking like the stereotypical image of Death, instead of the gorgeous, silver-skinned man she knew, confused her.

“I guessed when you started calling me ‘
Amica
.’” Nina leaned back as a weird fog started to spread over his body. “What the hell is--?”