Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (32)

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 Roxanne regained consciousness by degrees, a part of her unwilling to give up the embrace of oblivion. She recognized it—she’d been here before. Within the layered darkness she’d find him, the one who always waited there. He’d comforted her as an infant, wiped her tears as a child, and held her as a woman. He needed her, desired her . . . and frightened her all at the same time.

But now she was alone and that frightened her even more. Where had he gone? Why wasn’t he waiting? What would she find here without him? She began to search for him just as she felt the warmth on her cheek, a caress against her throat. Lips pressed to hers. At last. . . .

She opened her eyes with a soft gasp and found herself caught in the midnight depths of Santo Castillo’s gaze. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (31)

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He leaned closer, his mouth a breath from hers, his hand gliding down her smooth throat to settle over her silent, unbeating heart.

“Come back,” he murmured against her mouth.

Some part of him noted the irony of his actions.

Death’s kiss never restored a life, yet as he pressed his lips to hers, his senses awoke and ricocheted throughout him. He felt a jolt go through her body, racing like lightning across a stormy sky, a current that stretched from his touch to her absent soul.

Triumph welled up inside him as he felt her heart stutter and thump beneath his fingers. He stole her first shivering breath and replaced it with his own.

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (30)

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Not yet. Not until he understood what he’d seen tonight.

He scowled at the relief that flooded his system, wanting to purge the remnants of the human causing it. He consoled himself with the reminder. His goal had been delayed. Not changed. He’d waited for her before. He could wait again.

He didn’t have a plan. Didn’t know what the next step would be and certainly didn’t like the ambiguity of allowing an unstable, suicidal cop to make the calls. But the reaper recognized danger when he saw it, and left without choices, he’d do what he had to do. And when it came time, he would reap Roxanne Love.

The pledge echoed in his head as he turned west and headed for the hotel he’d checked into the night before, using Santo’s credit card to pay for the room. A few minutes later, he parked in the lot and shut off the engine. In the sudden quiet, he gazed at the unmoving woman sprawled on the seat, limp and unresponsive.

Her skin looked like pearl against the hue of his fingers. He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, fascinated by the contrast in their color, by the silken feel of her. He couldn’t look away as he willed her to take a breath. To open her eyes.

She’d gone to the darkness without him there to meet her. Was she afraid? Did she search for him?

“Come back to me,” he whispered.

Gently, he traced his fingertips along the curve of her jaw, then the pad of his thumb across that full bottom lip.

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (29)

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Those who broke ranks found themselves alongside Lucifer, roasting under the seething displeasure of their maker.

He’d seen Abaddon’s messengers and minions tonight and more, like the thing that had followed him. It had been unnatural, even for a creature from the Beyond. And what had been that building pressure he’d felt in Roxanne’s last moments? The hot whip of wind that couldn’t have existed?

Why had they let him leave with Roxanne? Did that mean she was not their target?

Though he was not her brother’s reaper, the twins shared more than a birthday. Reece and Roxanne shared death days, too. Four of them, counting tonight.

He disliked the turn of his thoughts. Disliked that they led him away from the prize. And he fucking hated that he could feel the human urging them on.

Creatures of the Beyond had manifested in Roxanne’s restaurant tonight. Now he couldn’t just reap her and return home as if he hadn’t seen it. Nor could he go back to the Beyond and report it. He shouldn’t be here. If he was caught, he’d be banished to Abaddon.

Both demon and domain, Abaddon stood for and personified evil and darkness. Abaddon made hell look like paradise. If at all possible, the reaper—Santo, an irritated voice in his head reprimanded—would like to avoid it.

That left him one course of action. He couldn’t reap Roxanne Love.

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (28)

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And what had drawn the Others? The very underbelly of the Beyond had been at her front door. The locusts, the scavenger demon who’d shot both her and her brother, the Black Tides of Abaddon . . .

He felt a chill go through his human body. In the Beyond, identity was a luxury afforded to the very few. God, of course, stood separate from the mass of His creations. Some angels bore names and reputations—usually the wrong kind for the wrong reasons—but not all did. Entire battalions of winged entities answered to angel, just as thousands of faceless, nameless entities called themselves reaper.

But even in the Beyond—or perhaps especially in the Beyond—anomalies existed. Lilith, Mammon, Beelzebub, Lucifer . . .

And Abaddon, a name most humans wouldn’t recognize even though it was the very reason they feared death. A name that marked a place in hell all its own. Scavenger demons took delight in killing, in the terror that consumed their victims, but Abaddon had bathed in their blood. He’d been so cruel, so vicious that he’d been locked away, named for the place of destruction where he’d been banished.

What humans had never understood was that hell had been made for creatures of the Beyond, not for mortals. God would never send one of His beloved creations there, no matter how great the sin. But His army . . . His workers . . . His devoted servants . . . He expected more of them. 

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (27)

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She belonged to him, this woman who’d slipped through his grasp like a wind, who’d engaged him in a predator’s hunt, turning him into a stalking animal that needed to feed. Now was the time. Now was the chance.

And still he hesitated as Santo’s emotions whispered through his subconscious, urging him to stop. To think. Why did this female hold such power over him? Why did she defy the natural order of life and death? Why did she return to the human world when she was meant to move on?

“Why do you live, Roxanne Love?”

It astounded him that he’d never thought to ask before. He’d been so focused on how that he’d never considered the bigger question. He’d attributed Roxanne’s ability to escape her fate to some errant gene, some throwback trait. It happened. Some humans had special senses. Some could see the dead, some could see the future, and others still could move matter with their minds, start fires with a thought, heal sickness with a wish. No one understood why. In the grand scheme, what did why matter?

But once asked, he couldn’t ignore the question.

Why? Why did this woman cheat death?

Curiosity filled him as he glanced at her lifeless form. Who was she? Why had having her become so vital to him? Important enough to drag him from his world to hers?

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Five Deaths of Roxanne Love: A Page a Day (26)

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Beside him, Roxanne’s head lolled to the side.

He’d come to reap her.

He meant to do it still. Even now the reaper inside him felt tight with excitement, imagining her fear, treasuring her pain. But something had soured the pleasure he’d anticipated.

No, not something. Someone. Santo Castillo. Perhaps if he hadn’t taken Santo before his natural death, it would have been different. But in his effort to preserve the vessel, he’d inadvertently saved pieces of the man. And now those pieces bobbed in his bloodstream, pulsed through his heart. Sentiment. Memories. Convictions. Despair. Emotions. . . like grit beneath his skin.

And somehow that terrible miasma of emotion had mated with his own objective. Roxanne. Like a hook sunk deep in his cheek, the crippling feelings tried to steer him from his goal, the vestiges of Santo at the reins. Santo had been unable to save his wife, whose death had crippled and finally stolen his own desire to live. But this woman, Roxanne, he could help. This woman he thought he could save.

From Death himself.

The reaper clenched his jaw and shook his head. No.

He had come to reap her.

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