Reaper (extract)
Yo~ I've been out of action the last month or so and as such the Eben Black series has been put on hold. Been having major writer's block due to personal matters but I feel I'm finally getting there. Anyhow, here's an extract from something I've recently started doing as a bit of a break from the Eben Black stories. Hope you like what you read and if its liked enough then I may consider uploading full chapters from this story, but that may be on another account (if that's allowed?). Regardless, here's an extract from "Reaper". Enjoy~
© All characters and storylines involving said characters belong to me: Eben Black.
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Steam spilled over the bathroom threshold as I padded barefoot from the bathroom, towel draped around my bare shoulders while I donned a pair of denim three-quarter-lengths. I had attempted to get in contact with Xander but had found it somewhat impossible. It was the first time in three hundred years of being a Reaper that I had not been able to contact my death liaison. I'd give him another hour and then I'd head down to Williams and Sons Firm. It was a law firm based in an enormous industrial sect of Los Angeles. It was an actual law firm, but the thirteenth floor was where the death liaisons worked from in LA. Xander would no doubt be there. I wanted to know what would happen now that I'd failed to take the life of a Fated one. No doubt I'd be punished, but I had a good enough reason. The man named Rosco Hudson had no reason for having his life ended. All Fated ones had a reason for dying. The fact this random man had been targeted for blatant assassination pissed me off, but what frustrated me more was that they'd tried to use me as their weapon instead of getting blood on their own hands. Xander had said that I had been chosen for this assignment, so what made me and Rosco so special?
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror suspended on the wall above the bedside table. I had one bedside table since I lived alone and a tall, slender mirror suspended above that. I looked pale but flushed from the hot water as it beaded on my naked flesh. I looked at my reflection with those charcoal-grey eyes with the hint of blue and remembered those had been a trait my father had passed down to me. If I was headed to the firm later then I'd drop in and see how Dad was doing. I hadn't seen him in a couple of months. I glimpsed the black tribal tattoo that spilled across my shoulder and snaked up the side of my slender neck. I looked more like a gay go-go dancer for some seedy club downtown, let alone being a Reaper of the dead.
I walked wide around the queen-sized bed and dried the rest of my hair with the towel. I had the towel draped over my head when something stopped me dead. A smell, a sweet smell that I'd inhaled before. I was rooted to the floorboards of the bedroom, my back to the bedroom window as I took several deep breaths. I knew where that sweet lavender smell was from. I yanked the towel free from my head and whirled around, eyes widened as the failed target known as Rosco took a defiant step across the open window's threshold and onto the window sill beyond. He touched one hand to the frame of the window and glared down at me from behind those bangs. He looked pissed for some reason. Had he seen me? It was imperitive that he hadn't seen me when I'd failed to take his soul earlier that day.
I opened my mouth to speak but stopped dead again. There was something wrong. Rosco still had that gentleman's confidence around him like a warm blanket, and everything about him looked normal. He was still tall, broad and muscular, as well as handsome and that single thought caused a rush of warmth to course up across my face. I focused on the problem at hand. A normal human was climbing in through my bedroom window. I lived a good seven stories up off the ground below. His hand at the frame tensed and a moment later a deep growl spilled from those full, beautiful lips. I took a sharp intake of breath and it was like the world slowed down. The glass of the window shattered and a moment later Rosco crossed the bedroom and was in midair over me. I was staring into those eyes from three inches away. Those once baby blue human eyes had bled to a furious amber with a crimson edge. His hands reached for me. A sheer heartbeat later I'd dived out of harm's way. I gambolled through the bedroom doorway and landed on one knee, braced myself and turned in time to see Rosco lunge after me again. I launched myself as hard as I could and sailed over the plush leather couch and slammed hard onto the crisp floorboards between the back of the couch and the kitchenette's island. I heard heavy footsteps and scrambled to stand up. A warm hand at my ankle pulled me back and with one pull I was turned over onto my back and pinned to the floorboard with a muscular forearm at my chest. Rosco was on all fours, looming over me as he looked at me from inches away again. He took several quick sniffs of the air above me and then let another growl trickle from those full lips. That blush returned in a wash of heat at having such a dangerous, and handsome man this close to me.
A Reaper I might be, but I was human once, and Rosco was my ideal man if I had to pick and choose. I stopped and focused on the fact he was looming over me with murderous intent burning in those amber orbs. "Your a w-werewolf?" I stammered as I looked up into that furious glare. "And your a reaper. A reaper that stalked after me earlier this morning. Now why would you want to do something as stupid as that?" he growled. "I was commanded to kill you, but I decided against it." I figured being honest and up front in this situation was the best course of action. In all honesty it made more sense to simple touch him and kill him then and there. But I'd decided against killing him and confronting Xander at the firm. Killing the target and then arguing against that act would make me look foolish and pety as far as the other reapers and liasisons would be concerned. "You decided against it? Why did you do that? I thought an order of execution was final?" he frowned as he glared at me. I shook my head slowly and added, "A reaper kills because he has a reason to do so. I looked at you and saw no reason to kill. Simple enough." He frowned hard and took another sniff of the air around me and then looked puzzled. "What's wrong?" "There's something-" another sniff, "-else wrong with you?" "Something else wrong with me? You sure do know how to charm a dude," I raised an eyebrow as I spoke. I figured a quick remark wouldn't earn me a broken bone now that he knew I'd decided not to kill him. Another growl spilled from those lips as he glared at me, still puzzled behind that furious amber light. "You smell like death, but its not an...unpleasant smell like most reapers of death." I couldn't speak now as I watched a blush creep across that tanned flesh of his. Then something else hit me. "You know what a reaper's scent is?" I asked. He looked down at me and removed his forearm, choosing to brace himself on his palms against the floorboards while his body still hovered over mine. He watched me as that anger receeded and became caution. "How do you know what a reaper smells like?" I demanded this time. A werewolf would only know of a reaper's scent if he'd come into contact with a reaper beforehand.
I looked up, wide-eyed and suddenly braver than I'd been earlier. I reached up and felt my hands touch the warm tanned flesh of his neck. He was all muscle and lean bone, not to mention being warm like a burning flame. He looked down at me. Those amber eyes with their crimson edge faded and receeded with his anger and caution, and were replaced with that pale sea-blue colour from before. He was containing his beast again. There was a gentleness there now, and around that was a caution, the kind of caution that one lover has with another in the earliest stages of their relationship. The kind of caution you shared before the first... kiss.
That thought alone brought the blush back, but I never faltered and never let it swallow me as I looked up in to those baby blues of Rosco's. He was a werewolf, that much had stunned me, but he was a werewolf who'd encountered a reaper before me and lived. Not to mention he'd tracked one and tackled me head-on.
Just who was Rosco Hudson?