Descent (Kissed by Death) - Tara Fuller Page 0,11

I’d never have. Things I was never supposed to want. I was merely the spark to ignite the flame. I was never meant to experience the burn.

A lulling hum filled my ears, radiated peace, and told me I was home. We moved toward the entrance to the gate, ducking past the angels who were treating one of my father’s most feared reapers as if he were a sideshow. If they’d seen they way he’d wielded that scythe, I doubted they’d be so curious.

I stopped at the edge of the crowd when I found him again. Dark yet beautiful, a complete contradiction to the light around him. Again, I pressed my feet against the ground, fighting against the sensation in my chest, tugging me toward him and stealing my breath. What was wrong with me? One look at him should have sent me running in the other direction, but when he lifted his gaze, his strange violet eyes connected with mine. Something in me flickered to life. The void inside pulsed, pushing me forward.

“Gwen,” Sky said more firmly.

I sighed. “I know, Sky. I know.”

“Do you?” She raised a perfect blond brow. “Because you’ve got that look in your eyes again.”

The reaper tore his gaze from mine and finished his work, handling over the soul he’d brought with a harsh efficiency I wasn’t used to seeing. Cold. Detached. I shook my head to clear it and turned to Sky.

“What look?”

She folded her arms across her chest and her gaze flitted between the reaper and me. “One that doesn’t belong on your face in the vicinity of someone like him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sky,” I said. “He’s…he’s…”

Tormented. Sad. Beautiful.

“Off-limits,” Sky interrupted my thoughts. “That’s what he is.”

I thought back to the maddening mix of anger and anxiety that had swirled around him when they’d almost lost that soul. What would have happened to him if they had? Knowing my father and his short fuse, nothing good. And it would have been my fault. A chill coursed through me at the thought of that anger, and I rubbed my arms, allowing the joy in my veins to warm me.

“Don’t you feel bad?” I asked. “They nearly lost a soul because of us. We interfered with death, for God’s sake.”

Sky rolled her eyes. “Please. Lover boy would have gotten distracted by a stop sign wearing a skirt. If anything, they got in the way of our job.”

“But I asked him to wait,” I whispered. “He hesitated for me.”

Sky narrowed her gaze at him through the crowd and shivered. “Gwen, honey, I don’t think someone like him hesitates for anyone. He must have had other reasons. Don’t fret about it. Guilt doesn’t look good on you.”

The gates opened, and Sky and I joined the hushed silence around us as another of the Almighty’s creations was ushered to her final home. Every eye was on the vibrant soul as she took a hesitant step forward and touched the gilded bars. Seeing the transition never failed to leave me in awe. My work was on the earth plane, serving the humans who still lived a mortal existence. What must it feel like to be the one to guide them home? I looked to the reaper, expecting to see the same wonder and joy reflected in his eyes, but all I saw was pain. Light exploded from between the gates and he squinted, shielding his eyes from the blinding purity in it. Angels scattered across the courtyard, the essence of so many of them lending a glittery sheen to the cloud base beneath us.

“Look at him. He’s so tainted he can’t even look at it,” a voice sneered from somewhere in the crowd. “He has no business here.”

“Sinful.”

“Go back to the hole you crawled out of!”

The dark reaper’s frame tensed as he lowered his hands and glared at the crowd. His hand clenched into a fist around his blade, and a muscle in his jaw flexed. His anger and pain circled him like smoke, poison to a place like this. He looked poised for battle, but instead of defending himself, he stepped back toward the portal. A foreign feeling swelled inside me, more potent than pain, almost burning my insides. Before I could stop it, it exploded out of me.

“What is wrong with you?” I shouted to the group of angels watching the dark reaper retreat. “You call yourselves angels. Where is your compassion? Where is your kindness?”

An angel with broad shoulders and chin-length white hair sauntered up to me,