Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (32 page)

“Arianne!”

Arianne whipped around, searching for the source of the voice. This time she couldn’t mistake Balthazar calling for her. She returned her gaze to Niko. His expression went from calm to worried.

“Stay here, Ari,” he pleaded.

“Arianne, open your eyes!”

Balthazar’s voice grew insistent. The dizzy spell got worse.

“What do I really know about you, Niko?” she asked around the need to puke. The room felt like it spun around even if she was standing still.

“I love you.”

Those three words pulled her to him. She loved him…so much. She loved the way he smiled at her. She loved the way he’d hold her hand while he drove. She even loved the way he teased her. The only reason she agreed to help Death was so she could get Niko back.

Her Niko. Not this pretend guy standing in front of her.

“Arianne!”

She looked away from him. “I have to go.”

When she moved past him, Niko grabbed her arms and pulled her to his chest.

“I won’t let you leave. I can’t.”

Arianne’s heart jumped into her throat. She spoke around it. “If I want to save you, I have to go.”

“No!” Niko’s grip tightened around her arms.

Arianne winced. “You’re hurting me.”

Even after she said it, Niko wouldn’t let up. In fact, his grip bruised.

“You can’t leave. Stay here. Stay with me.”

“Arianne, open your eyes!”

Chapter 35

AFDN

O
N
T
HE
W
HITE
S
ANDS
of the Strait of Gwen, fresh out of options for how to revive Arianne—because calling her name obviously worked like a charm—Balthazar shook her. She’d healed enough the second he and Ben made it out of Solara’s lightning strike range. She likely wasn’t in any pain anymore. The powder had done its job, as it had done on him. Her skin stopped looking like burnt meat—replaced by flaking, new pink skin. Other than having to cut her hair, her face remained relatively untouched. He focused on her closed eyelids instead of her tattered clothing. He’d have to replace what she wore. She’d dropped her pack when they made a run for it. Ben had been busy stomping out the flames at the end of Balthazar’s coat when Balthazar laid Arianne on the sand.

Now Ben stood by his shoulder, looking down at Arianne. They couldn’t board Charlie’s raft to Haven if she didn’t regain consciousness. Charlie wouldn’t allow her passage if she didn’t pay the fee herself. To do that, she had to wake up.

He shook her again, harder this time. If she didn’t open her eyes soon, he’d resort to head-butting her.

In the distance, lightning bolts continued to explode. Even out of her reach, Solara still attempted to kill Balthazar and crew. He looked back over his shoulder at the Ghoul Woods. A plume of smoke rose up from the burning Blood Trees. The air reeked of ammonia from the boiling sap. Solara wreaked havoc on her new territory—all because Balthazar and Arianne escaped her clutches.

“Come on,” he said, returning his gaze to the still unconscious Arianne. “Open your goddamn eyes!”

“How’re you sure she’s in there?” Ben asked.

“Oh, she’s in there.” Balthazar tapped her cheeks. “See how her eyes are rolling around?” He pointed at her fluttering eyelids. “Her dream doesn’t want to let her go.”

“How is that a bad thing?”

Balthazar held the profanity inside. He’d had just about enough of the boy. He bargained with Granmare Baba for the sake of avoiding having to answer these inane questions.

“If she stays inside the dream then we might as well give up. She won’t ever wake up.” What Balthazar left out was if she didn’t wake up, she would return to her body and she’d be in a coma for life. If she was no longer attached to her body, her soul would fade into nothingness.

He stared at the cut red thread. Eventually, it would erode, and when it completely disappeared without Arianne’s soul processed, she’d turn into a Wraith. Balthazar had searched for Ben’s life string when he’d freed him from the cage. He had about an inch left then. Now less than that remained.

The disasters kept on coming.

Why he ever agreed to all this escaped him. Was D’s seat worth all this aggravation? To date, he’d almost died more than three times already. Sure, being in the Nethers was far worse, but he should be sitting as the new controller of the Crossroads instead of helping a silly girl save her equally silly Reaper boyfriend. Well, technically, his task was to help D remove Brianne’s Bitterness from his chest so he could challenge him for the seat, but who could keep track at this point?

Frustration bubbling over, Balthazar lifted Arianne up and brought his forehead down against hers. She yelped, blinking her eyes rapidly. Then she groaned, reaching up and massaging the redness Balthazar’s forehead had left behind. With no regrets, he eased her back onto the sand.

“About goddamn time you opened your eyes,” he grumbled, sitting back then stretching his legs on either side of her.

Arianne kept rubbing her forehead. “Why do I feel like I hit a brick wall?”

“Maybe because Balthazar head-butted you,” Ben said, a silly grin on his goofy face.

Balthazar snorted, casting his gaze over to the red water. It lapped at the white sands, turning the shoreline pink. The sea breeze wafted at them the water’s coppery, tangy scent. A blessed reprieve from the burning sap. Along the coast, hexagonal stones were stacked like a toddler haphazardly left his blocks on the floor.

“Thanks.”

Arianne’s voice drew him back to her. He stared into her ever blue eyes, clear as the human sky. What could he say? The customary “you’re welcome” stuck to the walls of his throat. Like he’d ever acknowledge her gratitude. Ben saved him from having to.

“What’s with the largest
Q*bert
set?” Ben hiked his thumb at the ballast columns.

Arianne followed his gaze and said, “They were formed by Gwen. Nobody knows what she really was. Some say she was a god, others say she was more powerful than that.”

Balthazar almost breathed a sigh of relief at not having to explain to the boy what the almost forty-foot high columns were. He’d never met Gwen, but from what he’d heard, she’d gone crazy. The varying sizes of the columns indicated her lack of control except for what they called the Giant’s Organ. Sixty ballasts more than thirty feet high with three shorter tiers created the whole thing. It gave the effect of an elaborate pipe organ.

“They say she fell in love with a Heavenly Host who betrayed her. That’s why the water is red. She cut off the Host’s wings and let them bleed over the ocean. And those columns are the Host’s bones,” Arianne continued. Her voice took on a lonely turn that called for Balthazar to soothe her.

His hand reached for her when Ben said, “It’s freaky how you know all this stuff.”

She rolled her eyes toward the gray sky. “You don’t even know the half of it.” Then she turned those eyes on Balthazar. He immediately dropped his hand. “Do I even want to know how you saved me this time?”

Her question brought out his more normal side, the one not hanging on her every word and thought her hair looked pretty. “You’re not gonna like it.”

Ben’s face crumpled. “He had his tongue down your throat.”

Arianne blushed immediately before she slapped him in the chest. “You kissed me!”

He grinned, showing fang. He couldn’t help himself. The fear he’d felt when she’d died on him almost broke his sanity. She walked in his realm now, no longer tethered to the human world. He felt partially responsible. Whether to tell her or keep it to himself until he returned her to the Crossroads presented another question he’d deal with later. For now, they had a boat to catch.

“It was either kiss you or let you die.” He stood up and dusted white sand off his backside. “Easy choice to make.”

“Don’t ever do it again.”

Despite the admonishment in her tone, she reached up. He wrapped his hand around hers and gave her a tug until her body stood close enough to his.

“By that blush on your cheeks, I’d say you enjoyed yourself.” Balthazar knew he fanned the flames in the worst possible way, but he couldn’t help himself, not when he stood this close to Arianne, her lips inches from his.

“Are you two actually flirting?” Ben didn’t hide his disgust. Balthazar had the urge to slap the boy upside the head. The urge became actuality when his hand did what his brain wanted. Ben’s head snapped to the side. “Ow!”

“Balthazar!” Arianne said indignantly. She pushed away from him and stepped closer to Ben. She examined the place where Balthazar’s hand had connected with Ben’s head. Balthazar had to stop himself from pulling her away from the almost-Wraith. Technically, Ben didn’t represent any danger yet. But Balthazar still had to keep an eye on him.

When had he become a baby-sitter?

Instead, Balthazar concentrated on stomping down the ugly jealousy rising up from the darkness within him. To be jealous of a twerp like Ben when he could have anyone he chose meant Balthazar really had come down with something. Arianne infuriated him half the time. The other half, on the other hand…

Not going there.

If Arianne wanted to mother-hen her best friend, then let her. It didn’t mean he had to watch, so he scanned the shoreline.

Not all the ballasts littering the coast were large. Some of them were short enough to walk on. The shortest of the columns formed a makeshift dock, and at the end of the line bobbed a raft made from Blood Tree wood. On the raft stood the ferryman, Charlion, in his hooded white robe. Like D, Charlion preferred to hide his true face beneath the cowl of his robe. No one knew why. The sleeves of his robes were so voluminous that they covered his hands clutching the oar he used to steer the raft.

Balthazar turned his back on Charlion so the ferryman wouldn’t see him fish out two coins from his coat and hold one in each hand. On one side of the coins was the morning star, the symbol of Lucifer back when he was still God’s favorite. You met him at the Heavenly Gates, not Peter. Before he fell from grace, of course. Someone else had the job now—a new morning star. The other side of the coin remained smooth, symbolizing the Nethers. A cold shudder went through Balthazar at the memory of spending more than a thousand years in that godforsaken hellhole.

“You two done fawning over each other?” he grumbled.

Arianne stepped away from Ben to frown at him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“You keep forgetting why we’re here,” Balthazar barked back.

“Sometimes I think you like being mean and pushy.”

He laughed. “I am mean. Now, shut up and listen.”

“Don’t talk to her like that.” Ben took a step toward him, his chest all puffed up. Thank God Arianne had the sense to stop him by placing a hand at the center of his chest.

“What? You think you can take me? I’ll
eat
you.” Balthazar showed fang. “I’m running out of patience for your kind of bullshit. Just shut your trap and obey.”

For the second time that day the thought of baby-sitting twisted Balthazar’s insides. When had he sunk so low?
Oh, that’s right, when I agreed to help
. Even his thoughts sounded bitter.

“Open your mouths,” he said through his annoyance.

“I thought you just said to close them?” Arianne asked. She was being sarcastic for the sake of it. He knew she knew through his thoughts why he asked them to open their mouths.

“Do it or I shove this in your mouth.”

Arianne complied, sticking out her tongue and eyeing him like the worst creature in the world. Some days Balthazar felt that way. Her reminding him stung for some reason.

Not letting her get to him any more than she already did, he placed the coin on her tongue, the morning star symbol up.

“Hold the coin in your mouth,” he said. “Don’t swallow it.” He raised the other coin to Ben’s lips. The boy jerked back.

“I’m not putting that thing in my mouth.”

“It’s not dirty,” Arianne said around the coin. From the sound of her voice, she struggled not to swallow it and drool at the same time.

“It’s payment for a ride on Charlie’s raft,” Balthazar said through gritted teeth. Forget Arianne getting on his last nerve. He had the urge to chuck the boy into the Strait of Gwen and let the waters feast on his pathetic soul. Unfortunately, if he wanted an audience with the Redeemer he couldn’t act on the impulse. He pointed toward the raft, and Ben wisely looked in that direction. He continued. “You need to place the coin on your tongue. As soon as you get onto the raft, the coin will disappear.”

Ben looked back at Balthazar. Despite the skepticism in his eyes, he accepted the coin and placed it in his mouth. He winced, probably from the metallic taste. Balthazar took great pleasure in knowing those coins had stayed in his coat for a long time. Who knew what stuck to them. Not that they’d get sick from germs. Souls didn’t get sick—not in the human sense.