Destined to the Reaper (The Shadow Realms #2)

Epilogue

Pharos

I teleported us outside my… our home. As soon as we appeared, I felt Myress’s presence nearby. Even as I flew towards the balcony to my bedroom, I saw her poke her head out on the main terrace. Our eyes locked for a brief second. Although she was never one to display strong emotions, I felt her joy mixed with a sliver of smugness upon seeing our safe return. She had called it.

And I couldn’t be happier for it.

As was her wont, she made herself scarce again and would redouble her efforts to prepare a celebration feast for us.

But, right this instant, I had a different type of feast in mind.

I landed on the balcony and marched boldly towards the tall doors leading to my room. Using my elemental magic, I flicked the doors open as I carried my mate to my massive bed. A single look at Kali’s face sufficed for me to know she clearly understood my intentions…

…and she was fully on board.

The scent of her arousal whipped my blood into a frenzy. I’d gone through too many emotional extremes over the past few days. Now, for the first time in centuries, I was free, truly free, with the love of my life in my arms.

My Kali, my strong, bold, undaunted bride, who had faced impossible odds without faltering out of selfless love for her brother and for me. I would spend the rest of eternity reciprocating that love.

As I closed the distance with the bed, I claimed her lips in a voracious kiss. Kali responded in kind, her lips eagerly parting to welcome my invading tongue. My cock immediately strained against the confines of my trousers. It throbbed and ached with the need to bury itself deep in the searing heat of my woman’s sheath.

Without breaking the kiss, I laid her on top of the mattress. Kali tried to draw me against her, but I resisted, my hands frantically working on ridding her of the pants she’d worn today for the mission. I made a mental note to forbid her from wearing such obnoxious garments in the future as it blocked my easy access to what I craved. In my aggravation, I nearly tore them to shreds.

Once her belt and buttons gave way, I forced myself to end the kiss in order to tug her pants off her. As I did so, my mate kicked her boots off, aiding me in my task of ridding her of the wretched piece of clothing. I didn’t show her undergarment the same courtesy and summarily sliced right through it with my claws.

Kali’s token protest morphed into a voluptuous moan when I buried my face between her thighs. By the Gods! Her taste on my tongue, her intoxicating musk filling my nose, and the fierce way she fisted my hair sent even more blood rushing into my groin. I almost climbed on top of her to ram myself in.

I wanted— needed —to be one with her. Silencing the burning urge twisting my insides, I licked and sucked on her little nub with the voracity of a starving man. My fingers dipped within her slit, quickly setting a fast pace as I impatiently stretched her to receive me. Her essence gushed all over my fingers, testifying to her own fierce arousal.

Her moans and the way her hips gyrated as I feasted on her heralded her imminent climax. As I needed her to fall apart soon before I lost control, I further accelerated the movement of my hand making love to her. Crooking my fingers, I frantically rubbed her sensitive bundle of nerves until she finally cried out, her legs shaking around my face.

Under normal circumstances, I would pursue my ministrations to keep her flying high longer, but my lust for her had me on the verge of losing my mind. I reluctantly pushed away, settling on my knees between her thighs.

Nine hells, she looked stunning!

Hair splayed around the mattress, her eyes darkened by lust, lips swollen by my kiss, she was looking at me, her gorgeous face dissolved in an air of pure bliss. Her leather vest was partially open from her trying to detach it while I had been devouring her. It made the portrait even more sexy to have her lower half completely bare, her legs spread wide and her petals glistening with her essence from the pleasure I’d given her.

I nearly ripped off my belt before tossing it aside. In my urgency, I didn’t bother undoing the buttons of my trousers and simply tore them right off then lowered the waist enough to free my throbbing cock. Without delay, I pushed myself inside my Kali’s welcoming heat and crushed her lips in a possessive kiss. Despite her body’s initial resistance, I thrust forward with increasing force, spurred on by my woman clinging to me and lifting her pelvis to meet me.

A deep growl vibrated through my chest when her inner walls yielded at last. It had only taken a few seconds, but the rabid hunger clawing at me made it seem like an eternity.

I didn’t give her time to adjust to me and immediately set a punishing pace. Kali’s throaty moans in my ears as she writhed beneath me sent me over the edge. I pounded into her, an inferno raging in my loins as she squeezed my cock from all sides in a greedy caress that drove me insane with lust.

I couldn’t get enough of her or get close enough to my woman. I wanted to touch, caress, kiss every inch of her even as I lost myself in her burning core. But the wretched clothes we still wore cheated me out of it. The distant sound of tearing fabric barely registered in my mind. It was only once I felt the searing heat of her feverish skin against mine that I realized I had shredded her top to pieces.

I took her hard and deep, my head spinning from a whirlwind of sensations overwhelming me. For so long I had ached for the true feel of her, of our bodies coming as one, not just the dimmed coupling in my ethereal form. Liquid flames coursed through my veins as she met me thrust for thrust, her nails raking the sensitive areas at the base of my wings, sending electric sparks to each of my nerve endings.

She was mine… all mine… for eternity.

My bride’s second climax slammed into her unannounced. She cried out, her back arching, and her nails digging into my flesh in the small of my back. Her inner walls clamped down on my cock, and it was as if lightning struck my spine. A bright light exploded before my eyes, and I roared as I slammed myself deep inside my woman. My seed shot out of me in powerful spurts of liquid ecstasy. Violent spasms shook my body. My skin tingled, and the oddest sensation swelled deep inside me, engulfing my entire being in an ocean of love and adoration.

My mate’s soul…

I embraced her, basking in the infinite love she bore me and reciprocating the one I felt for her. We hadn’t spoken those words to each other yet, but we didn’t need to. Our souls had done it on our behalf. There could be no secret when two beings achieved this perfect level of communion.

Once fully spent, I collapsed on top of her, then swiftly rolled onto my back, drawing her on my chest.

“My Kali, my bride…” I whispered, while brushing aside a lock of damp hair on her forehead. “You are my heart, my everything. I am yours, now and for eternity.”

“As I am yours, now and always. I love you, Pharos.”

“My love,” I whispered, my throat too constricted to speak anymore.

After stripping out of my remaining clothes, we spent the next few hours basking in each other’s love, expressing all that we felt for each other with our words, hands, mouths, bodies, and intertwined souls.

KALI

S aying that I was enjoying my new powers would be the understatement of the century. The regeneration gift Azrael had given me not only healed me in seconds but made me nearly immune to pain. Although it made me a little reckless, I didn’t push my luck as far as my sometimes adventurous side needled me to try. Technically, I would survive a beheading since Pharos owning my soul would keep it from departing, therefore giving my body the time it needed to mend itself.

Still, on that front, I was content with assuming that it would theoretically be the case.

However, it allowed me to take on more challenging mandates than before. I used to make a living by ridding villages and random customers of smaller hauntings and demonic invasions. Now, I could take on far more lethal foes with little risk to myself.

That said, I’d also taken a liking to my new role as a bonesetter. Grievous fractures were quite common both among people and animals. Word of my ability to perfectly stitch back any bone, even help grow back those that had been chopped off or never properly developed during gestation spread far and wide, giving me no small amount of business.

In truth, I didn’t really need to work anymore. As my brother’s sole surviving relative, I received a considerable compensation from Cornelius’s estate getting liquidated after his untimely ‘passing.’ I didn’t quite understand the legalities on how they had pulled off getting official papers drawn up for him and his four apprentices. Although he’d been using Jasper as his zombie driver for the past few years, his official contract still had him labeled as one of four apprentices.

Obviously, when he failed to show up for more than two weeks without communicating with his servants, someone was sent to look for him at Glock Manor. They found the mangled remains of his apprentices, and the even less decipherable corpse of whatever Piers had turned into. As some of Piers’s facial features had been recognizable as he partially shifted back to his old self before he died, they were able to identify him. Since the servants confirmed that Jasper had traveled with the rest of them, they simply assumed his remains had been part of the monstrous fleshy remains they found in the courtyard, which were in fact just part of the tentacles Pharos had chopped off during the battle.

Seeing what remained of Cornelius trapped in that eternal torture had the investigators desperately eager to leave that accursed place. The wards themselves sufficed to keep them from coming too close to the necromancer. Countless powerful sorcerers, mages, and conjurers were asked to study the matter to determine if foul play had been involved. The swiftness with which all of them agreed that it was merely the result of an extremely powerful ritual backfiring told me they either feared to anger whatever being had been strong enough to cast such a spell—or rather combination of them—or they hated him enough to protect the culprit.

I suspected it was a mix of both.

No one shed a tear over his demise. To the contrary, many heaved a sigh of relief as the debts or whatever other leverage he held over them like a sword of Damocles had been removed with his death. A few people tried to argue that he was in fact still alive since some kind of soul animated the tortured body crucified to the wall. But with multiple Soul Mages and Necromancers adamantly stating that no true life remained in that shadow of Cornelius, the authorities were more than happy to leave well enough alone.

And with that, Glock Manor became even more of a cursed place feared and avoided by all, just like Hemdell Manor.

But I didn’t care. My brother was free and thriving in the plains of Erebus. I was madly in love with a wonderful man who had made me essentially immortal, and I was living my best life.

“My Kali,” Pharos said, startling me as I was gazing down at the Nephilim Valley from our main terrace. “I have an almathar to release. He is one of those cases to whom I will grant a choice. You were curious about it. Do you wish to bear witness?”

I nodded frantically. He grinned and took me by the hand to lead me to one of the comfortable couches by the sitting area so that I could settle down. As I had given him my soul, I could shadow him whenever he allowed it, my consciousness being a part of him, permitting me to see through his eyes the same way I had done with the magpie.

Once correctly propped in a position that I wouldn’t fall from, I let my consciousness flow towards him as he tugged me in. The disembodied sensation was always odd, but I loved finding myself surrounded by the beauty of my man’s soul.

The world blurred around us, and seconds later, we were standing inside a hospital room. An older man was moaning in excruciating pain. His emaciated face strained as he clenched his teeth, his hands shaking as he tried in vain to reach for the little cord that would ring the bell to call a nurse for assistance.

“Greetings, Paul,” Pharos said in a gentle voice.

The old man’s head jerked to the left, and his eyes widened as he recognized who had come to pay him a visit.

“Reaper!” he whispered in a trembling voice.

The sliver of fear that crossed his features was quickly replaced by one of relief mixed with resignation. To my shock, here inside Pharos, I could perceive so many things I normally never would, including seeing the tiny thread of Paul’s life surrounded by the shimmering colors of his soul. Judging by their pleasant hue, I could only assume he had been a decent person.

“I am ready,” Paul said. “I cannot keep fighting this body that has failed me. Just please tell me that where I’m going will not lead me to even more pain.”

I felt Pharos’s lips stretch into a smile. “No, my friend. There will be no pain where you are going. You have lived a good life and therefore will have plenty of choices for the afterlife.”

“Thank the Gods,” the old man said with a quiver in his voice.

“But before we go, you have one final choice to make,” Pharos continued. “Your estranged daughter and her son have heard of your circumstances. Whatever disagreement tore you apart, she doesn’t want you to leave before you can mend things. She’s but twenty minutes away and hurrying here. If you wish to wait for her, we can delay your departure.”

The old man’s lips quivered as a powerful emotion filled his eyes. Longing, sadness, regrets, and pain fought for dominance within him.

“I want to see her. I was such a fool… such a stubborn and arrogant fool. But I don’t think I can last this long. The pain…”

“If you wish to wait, I can take away your pain so that you can enjoy your last moments with your loved ones,” Pharos said.

“You… you could really do that?!” Paul exclaimed, hope and disbelief lighting up his wizened features.

Outside, the muffled voices of two nurses reached us. As the door was closed, I suspected we could only hear them due to Pharos’s enhanced hearing, but that Paul would be oblivious to them.

“Poor Mr. Lane is talking to himself,” one of the nurses said. “The pain is likely making him delirious again. Do you think we can give him another sedative?”

“We have exceeded the dose already,” a male voice said.

“He only has a few hours left,” the woman argued. “Shouldn’t we try to make him as comfortable as possible in these last few moments? He has no chance of recovering.”

“Very well. One more dose won’t make much of a difference anyway,” the man conceded.

“Yes, Paul. I can really do that,” Pharos replied. “The pain will go away for up to twenty-four hours. When you are ready to go, simply wish for me to return, and I will come back immediately to escort you.”

“And if the twenty-four hours go by?” Paul asked.

“Then I will come in the following two hours,” Pharos replied.

“So I have a maximum of twenty-six hours left,” the older man said with sudden understanding.

Pharos nodded.

“Please take away my pain,” Paul said. “I would hug my daughter one last time.”

Pharos flicked his right hand, and his bone scythe appeared in it, not the ghostly one he previously had. It looked terrifying with its vicious blades at each end. Even the old man seemed intimidated by it. Understanding the fear coursing through him, Pharos extended his open palm towards him. Paul glanced at it, swallowed hard, then placed his wrinkled, bony hand in his with much effort. But as soon as Pharos closed his fingers around it, a sense of peace descended over the old man.

“All will be well,” Pharos said gently before carefully approaching the sharp tip of his blade near his nape.

Although still a little tense, Paul remained still. Through Pharos’s eyes, I could see the glowing outline of his soul trapped inside his dying body, and a slim silver thread binding it to his spine. With surgical precision, my mate severed the thread with a careful flick of his blade.

The effect was immediate. The man’s jaw dropped, his eyes flicking from side to side as if in search of something…

His pain.

“It’s gone! It’s all gone!” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “Thank you! By the Gods, thank you!”

A knock on the door startled me.

“Mr. Lane?” the female nurse called out before entering. “Would you like another dose of painkiller?”

She held a syringe in one hand and a small flask in the other. She showed him the latter with an air of deep sympathy and commiseration. I instantly liked her.

“No, my dear. That won’t be necessary,” Paul said with a surprisingly steady voice. “I have guests coming. Would you help me make myself a bit more presentable?”

The nurse gaped at him in complete shock. Then a sliver of pity quickly hidden crossed her clear brown eyes. She likely assumed him to be once more delirious or delusional. To my relief, she smiled and nodded. My heart further warmed for the young woman. So many would have dismissed him and walked away. But she was a true nurturer. She went to fetch a washcloth to freshen his face and brushed the sparse strands of hair still clinging to his mostly bald head. She even helped him put on a nice robe.

Just as she was settling him back in his bed, another knock on the door startled her. She stared in shock as a young lady, barely a few years older than she was, walked inside the room with a young boy, maybe six years of age.

“Dad,” the young woman said, her eyes misting.

“My baby,” Paul said, his lips quivering.

The room faded around us. A falling sensation swept through me. I blinked and found myself back inside my body, sitting on the couch on the patio door. Pharos was crouching in front of me, his dark wings folded behind him like a long cape.

I cupped his beautiful face with both hands, my heart filling with love for him. I finally fully understood why Cornelius had targeted him, an Angel of Death. He used and abused his natural compassion and empathy to achieve his nefarious plans.

“Thank you for giving them this final peace. Thank you for not allowing that wretched Cornelius to dim your light and the kindness of your heart. I love you.”

“ You , my Kali, are the light of my heart. Thank you for freeing me, for bringing back joy and purpose to my life. I love you, my bride.”

THE END.