Reaped: A Book Bite by H. D. Gordon

Author:H. D. Gordon [Gordon, H. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-22T22:00:00+00:00

9

5:45 p.m.

“The Father has not yet set a bounty for your soul, but he will do so soon enough,” says the reaper. “So if you’re determined to doom yourself, you might as well indulge a little first, don’t you think?”

I don’t jump at the sudden appearance, the deep rumble of the voice, though it does raise the hair on the back of my neck and chill bumps over the tops of my arms.

I look over at Samael. He looks the same as ever; strong, imposing, handsome and unyielding. His dark hair eats the sunlight, the muscled wings on his back doing the same. His scythe rests beside his massive thigh, and his posture suggests he hasn’t a care in the world.

But clearly he is here. Again. I can’t help but wonder why, but suspect if I inquire, I will only get veiled truths and half answers. Motives can only ever be truly known by those to whom they belong, anyway.

Also, I am resigned to accept whatever comes following my next actions, and he seems to be as well.

So, I say, “What do you have in mind?”

He shifts a bit, his wings adjusting behind his back and his barbed tail flicking this way and that as he considers. His hood is off, his all black clothes somehow more mournful under the sunlight than intimidating, as they had been every other time I’d encountered him. It is just a glimpse, a flash of a fleeting moment, but I suddenly see the terrible sadness beneath the imposing veneer. For a heartbeat, I am not afraid of him; on the contrary, I feel a bone-deep empathy for him.

How long has he walked alone between the planes? And what did that kind of time do to a soul?

With the way things were going, I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to know, and perhaps this would be a mercy.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he asks.

“I’m afraid of them,” I answer. “But I like to do things that scare me.”

Only after I say the words do I recognize the suggestiveness of them. It is obvious he is a thing that scares me.

He nods, dark eyes roaming over me slowly, as though they are drinking me in. I feel it like a touch, and now the goosebumps that raise along my arms do not have so much to do with fear, but with something else entirely.

Samael stands, glancing around. I am sitting atop a low stone wall that surrounds a quaint house. Bright fuchsia and lavender rhododendrons sit at its base, and duel columns support a porch where rocking chairs that belonged to my great grandmother and grandfather sit waiting for their next occupants. I cannot look at them without seeing myself and my sister playing there as children, back before I lost her and then lost myself shortly after.

Inside, Rose and Kai are preparing an early dinner together, celebrating the coming of their child, the beauty of their lives, standing in the same rooms as did generations of my family before them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.