Reaped: A Book Bite

Reaped


A Book Bite


H. D. Gordon


Copyright © 2021 H. D. Gordon
Published by H. D. Gordon Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.


For those
who wander
in between.


Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
The End… For Now
Moon Burned
About the Author
Also by H. D. Gordon
Review, please ;)
Wanna come hang out with me?


1 12:01 a.m.
I watch him from the shadows as he draws his final breaths.
He is alone. No one to witness his last moments, but me.
After seven years of service, I am used to this.
I check the hourglass hanging over his head. The tiny grains slip through like liquid.
“What are you doing here?” says a voice from right beside me.
I thank the Father that I don’t startle outwardly. I’d hate to encourage the prick.
Instead, I make a noise in my throat and roll my eyes. My grip adjusts on the scythe in my hand. I lean against it like the weary traveller I am, not a care in all the worlds.
“I ran out of toilet paper and had to get some to wipe my ass,” I say and shrug. “So I was in the neighborhood.”
We both look at the man in his bed. His breathing grows more shallow by the second, heartbeat slowing in increments.
“Liar,” Samael says. “We don’t defecate.”
In fact, we do not. No need to poop when you’re neither dead nor alive. No need to sleep or eat or drink or fuck or anything, really.
Except reap.
“Go away,” I return.
“You go away.” Samael nods toward the dying male in the bed. “This one is mine. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
I take a couple steps toward the bed, shedding the shadows. The dying man gasps and turns his head in my direction. He shivers and trembles, though I know he cannot see me.
Not yet.
“He’s human,” I say. “Which makes him mine.”
“He’s half human,” Samael corrects. “Which gives me as much claim as it gives you, child.”
I’ve only encountered the senior reaper a handful of times, but I know of him well enough. There are only so many of us who cover the Greater Philadelphia area, and his reputation precedes him.
He is not only a Collector, like me, but also an Enforcer. They say he’s as cold and ruthless as he is handsome and deadly—one of the oldest among us save for the Father himself.
“You don’t have to recite the rules to me, old timer,” I say, mocking his years of service same as he had mocked my lack thereof. “My training was much more recent than yours. Like, so much more recent. I arrived at the scene first. That makes him mine under the First Come First Reap Act.”
A sly grin curls up one side of Samael’s mouth. He raises his dark brows. “Are you sure you arrived first?” His head tilts beneath his hood, silky dark hair falling around his shadowed face, similar to the writhing of black snakes. “Are you not afraid of being shredded?”
Of course I am afraid. I am afraid of him. Everyone is. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“He’s mine,” I say instead, and if my voice trembles a bit at the end, so be it.
Samael takes a step toward me, his much larger form casting me back into shadows, the magical blade of his enormous scythe glinting in the low light in the room.
Enormous black leathery wings arch up over his wide shoulders, a barbed tail flicking lazily behind his back. From the bed, the man whose soul we’ve both come for moans and groans and shivers, as if he can sense the lingering presence of Death.
I force myself to hold my ground. I raise my chin and set my shoulders, pulling myself up to my full height. The magical metal of my own scythe tingles against my palm and fingers. I hold Samael’s dark gaze. It’s damn intimidating.
But I’m already damned for eternity, anyway, so what does it matter? Some days, being shredded—having my eternal soul destroyed indefinitely—doesn’t sound so bad.
Samael stares down at me. He is even bigger this close. He has no scent, and his movements are silent, but there is a feel to him, an aura he exudes that is at once terrifying and captivating. There is no pity behind his depthless gaze.
My stomach tightens, but my expression remains flat.
He smirks and steps to the side. Only when the shadow of his form releases me do I feel I can breathe again, though filling my lungs with air is more a habit than a necessity.
“All right, then,” Samael says, and waves a hand at the bed, where the man has just ceased his struggle. We watch as the final grains slip between the narrow neck of his hourglass. “Collect your soul, child.”
I wish he’d stop calling me that. We have maybe three seconds before the man’s soul rises from his body, likely confused and possibly blubbering.
It’s always the men that cry like babies in the end.
I bite off any remark that might persuade Samael to shred me rather than yield, and grip my scythe a little tighter as the man’s soul detaches from his mortal form.
I think this must be a trick. Reapers have been known to fight to the Final Death regarding claims over souls. And one of the most vicious reapers in the Between is just going to let me have