Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (9 page)

“You’re such an idiot,” Balthazar grumbled. “If you’d stopped when I told you to you wouldn’t have fallen into the hill.”

“If you hadn’t scared me then I wouldn’t have backed away.”

“If you just listened to me then you’d know that I don’t take residual energy from humans.”

That stopped the next argument she prepared to toss his way. He looked into her eyes the way the fake-Niko did, and she dropped her gaze.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice still not quite working right from inhaling all that powder.

He finished dusting her off and stepped back. His gaze roamed her body, and for a second, Arianne squirmed. In the back of her mind she knew he was just checking her for any trace of powder left, but it still weirded her out having those black eyes with white centers staring at her. It was unnerving. Freaky, almost. Yet haunting.

When he completed his inspection, he handed her a wineskin.

“Drink.”

One word, a command.

“I thought I didn’t need food?”

He frowned. “Just take a damn sip, Arianne, before I make you.”

She brought the skin to her lips and took a sip. A cold, sweet liquid splashed into her mouth. She wanted to drink more, but Balthazar snatched the skin away.

“I didn’t say chug the whole thing down,” he scolded.

She swiped her arm across her lips and swallowed the last of the liquid in her mouth. “What’s in that thing?”

“Angel’s blood.”

Her eyes bulged. “Excuse me?”

His lips twitched, as if he held back a laugh. “Angel’s blood is the best cure for inhaling Angel’s tears. You learned the hard way that Angel’s tears are highly hallucinogenic.”

Arianne still couldn’t believe she’d just swallowed the blood of a being which, until now, she’d thought only existed in stories. She would have gagged if the sweetness had let her. She hated to admit it, but if Angel’s blood tasted like that, she’d drink it down like iced tea.

“What were you hallucinating about anyway?” Balthazar’s question pulled her away from thoughts of making a grab for the wineskin.

“You won’t understand,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure you tried to kiss me.”

Chapter 9

BTW

B
ALTHAZAR
W
OULD
H
AVE
L
AUGHED
if her reaction didn’t insult him so much. Her face paled and her body shook like a leaf in the wind. A part of him wanted to admit that he’d been messing with her. That the entire time she’d been hallucinating, she’d thrashed a bit at the most, lost in the images brought on by the Angel’s tears. But the worst part of himself held his tongue. Let her think she’d tried to kiss him. More suffering for her. He’d intended it from the beginning anyway.

Holding on to that thought, he removed the bandana and stuffed it into one of the many pockets inside his overcoat. Just because he’d helped her on this fool’s errand D sent them on didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun.

“I almost…” Arianne’s voice trailed away like she gagged.

“You were hallucinating. It’s part of the territory. I’m here. You’re here. Add a little Angel’s tears and
poof
.
”

“But I almost…”

Okay, that sounded like she’d vomited in her mouth a little. Balthazar reined in his fun before his ego took a major hit. If someone could tell him just how much time they’ve wasted, it would be Granmare Baba. They had to see her now.

“Pick up your knife and let’s go.” He pointed at the glinting blade. He would have made a grab for it, but the blade exposed like that could still harm him. It did have a life of its own. He’d bide his time and take the knife when it was sheathed, where it couldn’t hurt anyone—especially him. He couldn’t damn Tomas enough to the deepest pits of the Nethers for giving it to the chit. She’d poke an eye out with that thing.

Without breaking eye contact, Arianne bent down and felt for the knife. One of the more idiotic things Balthazar had seen. When would she learn that he would have hurt her already if he’d wanted to?

“Will you stop,” Balthazar said, finally fed up. “I promise not to feed you to anyone. There, you happy?”

Only then did she drop her gaze and twist around. She reached for the knife, which lay a good six inches away from where she’d groped around for it, and returned it to her thigh. Balthazar breathed a sigh of relief. If she only knew the real damage that thing could do. He cursed his mother. Only the most powerful blacksmith in Heaven could conceive of the blade in Arianne’s possession. His mother hadn’t always been crazy. In fact, he remembered good times with her. But when his father left…Balthazar shook his head. Pretty soon after that, Brianne began to ramble on about how she needed to protect the world from him, how he was his father’s son. She’d feared his powers so much—even as a boy—that she had forged the one thing that could easily kill him.

In a moment of clarity, Balthazar took back the curse. Maybe Brianne had been right. Maybe the world did need protecting from him. Everything he touched he destroyed. Who could say taking D’s seat wouldn’t be the same?

“I’m sorry,” Arianne said when she stood up.

Lucky for Balthazar she turned around to pick up her pack at the same instant that his jaw dropped. He shut his mouth and convinced himself she hadn’t just apologized to him. No one had ever uttered an “I’m sorry” to him before. To apologize meant weakness in his business. He never allowed himself to say the words, no matter how wrong he knew he’d been. When she turned back, he’d managed to put his mask of indifference back together.

“For annoying me with all your questions?” he asked nonchalantly.

Instead of the knotted brow and blazing eyes he’d come to associate with Arianne when he teased her, he got a frown. He couldn’t be sure how he felt about that reaction. The insults just kept on coming. Who knew quiet expressions hid more hostility than actual words?

“You’re going to make me say it,” she said in a whisper. His ear told him she spoke through her teeth. She didn’t meet his gaze. Such an emotional girl. If she only knew…

He laughed at her immaturity. “This whole Q and A has to stop. I don’t know how many more questions I have left in me to answer. The solution’s a mile away.”

Her blue eyes lifted, but the frown on her face remained. He clearly disturbed her more than he gave himself credit for. Huh. Could he actually be better at his job than he thought? She tempted him to keep going, to open the wound a little more.

Maybe next time.

He wouldn’t let his guard down just in case. He focused on what they had to do next instead. This detour into Granmare Baba’s territory was unplanned. On good days Granmare Baba maintained a surly attitude. She became downright killer when annoyed. Walking in on her uninvited would raise her hackles, but if Arianne wanted to survive, she needed to get rid of her residual energy scent, and the only creature capable of masking energy like that was Granmare Baba. The last time he visited her, he managed to leave without much damage to his person. Then a thought hit him. Why did he never leave a place without pissing someone off?

He pushed away the question. “When we get to Granmare Baba’s place there are a couple of rules you need to remember.”

For the first time, Arianne waited for him to continue. This disconcerted Balthazar more than her reaction to their almost kiss that never happened. He pushed through the feeling and ticked off the rules by raising a finger for each one.

“Don’t talk to her unless she first talks to you. Don’t be rude.”

She snorted—an almost perfect imitation of the one he did.

“What?”

Arianne rolled her eyes. “You expect me not to be rude when you’re the one who insults people with every breath you take?”

“Of course I won’t be rude to her. Much.” The last part he added under his breath. “And last rule, don’t—under any circumstances—leave anything. A lock of hair. A fingernail. Anything she can use to control you after you leave.”

“Okay, so I won’t remove my braid and cut my nails. Seems easy enough.”

“This isn’t a joke, Arianne.”

“You actually used my name for once.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Just do as I said and we’ll leave there not dead.”

“Why do I get the feeling dying isn’t the worst thing she could do to us?”

“Because it’s not. Trust me.”

“Why should I when you don’t trust me?”

Reaching his limit for this stretch of the conversation, Balthazar turned on his heel and marched away. He reminded himself to slow his pace—the last consideration he’d give her. He needed to feed soon. He felt the hunger, not in his gut, but in his chest, a pull that helped him locate the nearest source of life force. He hadn’t been lying when he told Arianne he didn’t consume residual energy. The time he’d spent in the Nethers had changed his appetites. Now he preferred something stronger. He hadn’t planned on the need to feed, sure his energy supply would last him until they reached the Voyeur. Arianne’s unscheduled romp among the Sorrow Flats had forced him to use his reserves to yank her out of a very powerful hallucination.

Angel’s tears were the worst. Instantly addictive. No one trapped in their hold ever escaped until they wasted away. If he hadn’t pulled her out and given her the Angel’s blood, she’d have died within hours.

Walking by her side in silence, Balthazar glanced at the red thread trailing behind her. A part of it had frayed. The hallucination had done a number on her. The Angel’s blood only cleansed someone; it didn’t fully cure them. If he didn’t get her to Granmare Baba soon, she would start jonesing for the tears again. Now he had to trade the witch three things instead of the two he’d initially planned. Being with Arianne was costing him more than a year of her life was worth. He should have asked for more.

“You said you have a solution for my questions,” she said when they’d finally cleared most of the flats.

Balthazar gave her a sidelong glance. She seemed fine, but her twitching fingers told him otherwise. She didn’t seem to notice that they moved involuntarily.

“Granmare Baba has the ability to upload some information into your head. Basically, we’re asking her to help you understand a few things about the Underverse. You’re handling things okay now, but I don’t want you freaking out on me at the wrong moment.”

“I’m sensing a bit of a control freak here.”

“Let’s see you not have the need to control the situation when you’ve faced down what I have through the years.”

“And about me being human?”

“That’s pretty easy. She’s just going to give you something that convinces others that you’re not what you appear to be.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“Hell no.”

“Did I really try to kiss you?”

He almost missed a step at the sudden change of topic. “We’re back to that?”

“I thought I was with Niko,” she said.

“I take it the experience wasn’t pleasant? Nikolas can do that to people.”

“It sounds like you hate him for some reason. Why?”

If it weren’t for the real curiosity in her eyes, Balthazar wouldn’t have answered her question. “We do things we’re not proud of. Nikolas more than most.”

“You know him.”

A statement with more truth in it than anything he could say. Everyone knew Nickolas. A little too well for more than most. There lay the problem. Arianne knew Nikolas as the teenage high school boy. Balthazar knew Nikolas as the take no prisoners Reaper who occasionally did D’s dirty work. Nikolas could have easily been third in the rankings, maybe even D’s right hand, but he maintained his Reaper of Georgia status to keep under the radar for the side missions he would be given. It baffled Balthazar that Arianne didn’t seem to know this about Nikolas.

“You’re in love with him,” he responded.

“Since I started high school.”

Nikolas? Entertaining love? From a human, no less. “And how’s that going for you?”

She shrugged. “He finally noticed me when we became Chem partners.”

Balthazar whistled. “That’s rough.” Yet completely understandable considering who they were discussing at the moment.

“It’s not so bad. I mean, I was prepared to just like him from afar until we graduated. I guess the universe had other plans.”

“It does that sometimes.”

“It was all nice until he accidentally reaped Carrie’s soul.” She paused, a flash of sadness came and went on her face. “My sister.”

“In case you forgot, the job of a Reaper is to reap souls, hence the unoriginal name.”

“You don’t have to be a jerk about it. If you knew Carrie the way I did, you wouldn’t want her to die. She had this light in and around her. No matter how sick she got, she still managed to smile and make everyone around her feel safe. But being with Niko made me see there’s a life beyond mourning Carrie’s death.”

Balthazar stopped when a hut made from the leather of demon’s wings came into view. Smoke curled from the makeshift chimney at the top. Good, she was home. The sooner they saw her and he made the trade, the faster they could finish this godforsaken trip and Balthazar could move on with his life. If Arianne wanted to delude herself into thinking she loved trash like Nikolas, then that was her lunacy not his.