Page 31 of Death and Divination
Chapter 11
Ophelia
“So…what do you think?”
Nash looked down at the two plates. “Sausage gravy. The chipped beef is good, but I like the sausage gravy better.”
I’d brought home pizza last night after meeting with Shelby and we’d had an amazing evening together, but I felt like it was time to get out and expose Nash to more than the limited culinary opportunities in my half-empty fridge. Plus, we needed to check out a few job openings we’d printed out from online ads. As much as I loved cuddling up with the reaper on the couch, holed up in our home, and having sex multiple times a day, I knew we’d need more.He’dneed more. I went back to work Thursday and would pretty much be at the firehouse for four days straight. Nash needed a purpose. He needed friends. He needed to learn how to drive. And he needed a job.
“I’m more of a chipped beef fan, but you do you.” I scooted another plate over to him. “Grits. Love them? Hate them? Thinking you might be able to use them to spackle your drywall in a pinch?”
Nash dropped a pat of butter into the grits and stirred it in with a spoon. “This tastes different than the oatmeal, right?”
He hadn’t liked the oatmeal at all, which kind of sucked since it was my go-to breakfast. Although the reaper had learned a lot of basic food prep in the last twenty-four hours. I had no doubt he’d be whipping up omelets and baking biscuits in no time, especially if he got the kitchen assistant job here at the Stagecoach Diner.
“Not a fan.” He pushed the grits away and took a quick sip of coffee.
“Heathen.” I smiled at him. “Next you’ll be telling me you don’t like bacon.”
“I absolutelydolike bacon.” He reached across the table and took my hand.
I entwined my fingers with his, turning as I heard the chime on the diner’s door. Shelby stood in the doorway, her nose twitching as she looked around. Her gaze settled on me and she took a few steps forward, halting abruptly as her attention shifted to Nash.
Her nostrils flared. With a clenched jaw, she kept moving toward our table as if she was having to force her legs to move against their will.
“Sit,” I told her, indicating a chair. “He’s with me. It’s okay.”
I wasn’t sure what her issue was with Nash. Shelby had always been a bit of a badass as far as werewolves go, but she’d become a whole lot more cautious and wary since becoming a lone wolf. I’m sure it was difficult for someone who was used to having an entire pack at their back to suddenly find themselves on their own and an anathema to their former pack mates.
“Whatishe?” she whispered.
Ah. In a town full of supernatural creatures, Nash must have been nothing she’d ever smelled before. It was all about the nose with shifters.
“He’s…” I paused and looked at Nash, not sure what I should call him. “He’s a reaper.”
Shelby’s eyes widened. “Who’s he here for?”
“Me,” I joked. “Haven’t you ever met a reaper before? With the rate you werewolves kill each other, I would think they’d be a common sight up at the pack compound.”
“They’re not like this.” She motioned toward Nash. “I guess they’re incorporeal? We don’t sense them. We don’t smell them. I didn’t even know there reallywerereapers.”
“There’s no need for us ever to be in physical form,” Nash told her. “Or for anyone beyond the person who is dying to be aware of our presence.”
“So why are you like this now?” She wrinkled her nose. “You smell kind of like the demons, except more…cold. Kind of like…death.”
“He smells like dead things?” I was fascinated by this whole topic of how Nash smelled. To me…well, to me, he smelled damned fine. Warm. Like sunshine on pine needles and hay fields. I remembered how his skin had felt cool when he’d first appeared in Cassie’s kitchen, but it wasn’t like that now.
“No. Dead things smell wonderful. I mean, not dead werewolves. That’s an unnerving kind of smell. Dead prey is one of the best smells there is, but he smells like death. Like cold fire.”
I had no idea what cold fire smelled like. I assumed there were all sorts of nuances to aromas that were absolutely beyond my ability to comprehend but were commonplace to shifters like Shelby.
“You said he’s here for you?” Shelby shot Nash an uneasy glance. “Not for someone else. There’s no one else going to die here, right?”
“Everyone dies eventually,” Nash told her. “So yes, everyone here is going to die.”
There was a reason reapers were often given the title “grim.” As much fun as Nash generally was, any conversation with him that skirted on death was totally a buzzkill. It was “we’re all going to die” and “everyone dies” and “eventually you’ll be dead.” I’d made the decision sometime yesterday that we needed to avoid these topics with Nash, otherwise he would never have friendsorget a job.
“Yeah, but no one’s going to die but Ophelia. Right?”
