Page 80 of Right Hand Of The Reaper
He’d done it. Thane had actually gone and found her. I let my Reaper form fade back into the shadows. I didn’t want to scare the woman. Then again, Thane was still in full Grim mode and I’m sure she could sense the ‘otherness’ in the room.
She turned her gaze to me, and her green eyes blew impossibly wide. “Who are you and how do you look upon me with a face so much like my own?”
I stepped forward but stopped when she flinched. “I’m Roux.”
“What sort of name is that?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
“The only one I have,” I replied. “What’s your name?”
“Sabine,” she said simply.
“Time is limited,” Thane rasped as he looked down at me with his empty eyes. “I won’t be able to hold her here for long.”
I nodded up at him and turned back to Sabine. She was taking in the other occupants of the room with wary eyes. To be honest, I was surprised she hadn’t fled from the room.
“I knew someone like you,” she said, her gaze resting on Atticus.
“Really?” he replied incredulously.
“Yes,” Sabine said. “He was quite the interesting gentleman.”
The way she said that with a little bit of fondness made me think she felt the man was more than just interesting. Wow, she was certainly ahead of her time.
“Time, Roux,” Thane reminded me.
Right. “Sabine, you had your portrait painted but you were sad. Why?”
Her expression fell and she looked away from me, as if she didn’t want me to see the tears. “I lost my husband. He died but I can’t seem to remember how.”
“That might be because of being pulled from the afterlife,” Thane added.
“No,” Sabine said, her mouth pulling down at the corners. “I remember waking one day with no idea how I got there. I just knew I was sad and that—”
“You felt you were missing part of your soul,” I said, interrupting her. Her eyes met mine and I recognised the familiarity of our stories. The helplessness and fear and sorrow.
“Yes,” she said quietly, looking at the floor. “I never wanted to find out where I came from because then I would have to know who he was and, with the grief I already felt, I don’t think I would have survived knowing him and losing him.”
I knew that feeling. When I’d woken in the middle of the field all I could feel was grief. Everything else was peripheral and a fraction of the pain and sorrow that had been coursing through me.
“Have you ever heard of Nyx?” I asked.
She frowned. “The goddess of night?”
“Yes, we think you and I are somehow linked to her,” I said while indicating the rest of the guys.
“And why you think we are mirror images,” she said.
“I’ve a feeling you were out of place in your time,” I said with a laugh.
She smiled back at me. “Yes, I did. If I am being honest, I just felt out of place.”
“Like you didn’t belong there at all.” I had never felt like this was my home. There’d always been something missing and something that had never felt right. I’d made the most of my life, tried to settle and be a good Reaper but there had always been this itch under my skin I couldn’t shake. A sense lingering in the back of mind that I didn’t belong.
“Roux?” Rafe came to stand by my side. “You belong with us.”
I knew he was right; I knew I belonged with the twins and Atticus and even Hades – although I was still figuring that one out – but it didn’t negate the fact that I had no memories of Before which just made me feel unsettled.
Sabine walked towards me, her wisps of white hair escaping the gable hood just like the artist had captured in his painting. She placed her hand on my arm. “I hope you find what you are searching for. What we were both searching for.”
