Page 38 of Reaper Unhinged
“Choose,” the man snapped. “A soul must burn for the power to be released. Pick quickly. Do it now. Which will you give me? Him?” He pointed at Keon. “Or him.” He pointed toward Uriel.
Keon was out cold, and Uriel remained tied to the tree, his chin resting on his chest, breath even as he slumbered. There would be no discussion. The choice was mine. The burden was mine.
How could I make this choice? “Why are you doing this? There has to be another way.”
His mouth turned down. “Choose one, or you all die.”
Is this what had happened to the Powers? They’d refused to make a choice, and so they’d all perished? Oh, God…The statues with the cracked backs…Were those the Powers? Someone had broken off the stone wings to disguise what they’d been. Would he turn us to stone too?
“Make your choice now,” he boomed.
My chest ached as the decision formed in my mind.
I rolled Keon onto his back. He was beautiful when asleep and unguarded. The harsh planes of his face softer somehow. I brushed his hair back from his face, reveling in the silken nature of the strands that slipped through my fingers. He’d kissed me, and I’d kissed him back, and it had felt…right.
“We would have been friends until the day you killed me. We may even have been more…I’m sorry, Keon. There is no other way.”
“You choose him?” the man asked.
“No.” I stood and walked over to Uriel. I cupped his face and lifted it so I could look at him, and a revelation bloomed in my heart, one I’d neglected to examine until now.
“I think…I think I would have loved you one day.” My eyes pricked, and I leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Ah, you choose the celestial.”
I carefully released Uriel and turned to face the man, this guardian of the thing our worlds needed the most.
“No.”
He ground his teeth. “You must choose.”
The spirits closed in, and the air crackled with menace.
“Choose now,” he ordered. “Or I will take you all.”
What I was about to do might end another life, but then it might not. All I knew was that if I did anything else, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. There was only one choice.
“I choose me.”
* * *
The man staredat me for a long beat. “What did you say?”
“I said, I choose me. Take my soul and let the others go. Let them take the power to the Beyond, please. Just do it quick. Now.”
I fell to my knees and closed my eyes, blood thundering in my ears at the enormity of what I’d just done.
I pictured Azazel’s smile. Imagined Mal’s laughter and felt Grayson’s arms around me. Cora would be so pissed. I knew she would, but she’d understand eventually. Hot tears pricked my eyes, but I squeezed them tight.
I would not cry.
I was going to miss them all so fucking much, but this was the only way to keep them safe.
I swallowed the lump of twisted emotion in my throat. “Please. Just do it.”
There was a whoosh. His blade, no doubt, arcing toward my neck. My insides twisted, and terror grabbed me by the neck. I was about to die. I was about to—
My eyelids bloomed pink as if the world beyond my closed lids had lit up with bright light. Was it about to happen? Why was it taking so long?
