Dark Kiss Of The Reaper by Kristen Painter Read Free Book Online Page A

now human face.
    Sara exhaled. “Your brothers are so freaking weird,” she whispered.
    Azrael stifled a smile. She had no idea.
    Chronos stopped in front of them. He stared at Sara but spoke to Azrael. “This is the one? Interesting that you’ve chosen to bring her with you. Pretty, isn’t she?”
    “I can hear you, you know. And see you.” Sara stood a little taller.
    Chronos smiled and nodded to Azrael. “You’re right. The Fates have it out for you.”
    “She saw Kol, too,” Azrael added. “Saw his eyes.”
    Surprise registered briefly on Chronos’s face. “And she didn’t—”
    “I stepped in before it was too late.”
    A pair of spiders scuttled out from the cowl of Chronos’s hood to mend a frayed edge, then retreated. Sara muttered something under her breath he couldn’t quite make out.
    “Good that you did. I have work.” Chronos pulled his hood back up, the flesh melting off his hands as he did. “Time waits for no one.”
    He strode off in the opposite direction of Azrael’s waiting soul.
    “That was completely bizarre,” Sara said. “Not to mention gross and creepy.”
    Azrael opened his arm toward the way they need to travel. “It must be very hard to understand all of this.”
    Sara shook her head. “Your brother is infested with bugs. What part don’t I get?”
    “Those creatures are part of him.”
    “Great. What’s your secret?” She lifted the edge of his robe. “I hate spiders, so if there’s anything under there I should know about, tell me now.”
    Azrael bit his tongue. This was neither the time nor the place for witty repartee. “Come. A soul needs me.”
    * * *
    The building they entered was dark enough that it took Sara’s eyes a moment to adjust. Worn rugs, woven of scraps, covered the cement floor. Two wooden chairs provided the only seating. A few faded magazine pages hung pinned to the wall. Through a slim opening, the edge of thin mattress was visible, pushed up against a back wall. Was this a home, then?
    Another explosion shook the walls. Bits of dust and a few chunks of debris rained down, but Sara didn’t feel a thing. The fragments seemed to pass right through her.
    Azrael gestured to the opening. She went ahead, watching as he came behind her. His wings folding tighter to his back as he passed through, but they still scraped the narrow passage. His eyes focused beyond her.
    Covered with a tattered blanket, a young man lay on the mattress, his eyes closed, hands crossed over his body. His shirt and vest were dirty and torn, his face unshaved for days. An older man crouched on the floor beside him, rocking back and forth, praying softly in an unknown tongue.
    “His father,” Azrael said, gesturing toward the older man with a tip of his head. “He won’t leave his son while he still lives, even though this area isn’t safe and his wife and younger son wait for him in another village.”
    “He can’t hear us or see us?” she whispered.
    “No. Right now, we exist on a different plane.”
    She tried not to think about what that meant exactly. “Why doesn’t he just carry his son out of here?”
    Azrael didn’t have to answer the question. The father pulled the blanket back.
    A rusty stain covered the mattress beneath the younger man’s torso. His clothing was torn away, revealing a dark, angry wound. The father dipped a rag in a bowl of water, rung it out and gently wiped at the injury. His son moaned.
    Sara put her hand to her mouth. Liquid heat burned her eyes. “He can’t move him. Would the son...pass on his own anyway?”
    “Yes.” Azrael’s wings unfurled as much as possible in the low-ceilinged room. “But it is better that I take the son now, sparing him further pain and setting the father free to reunite with his remaining family.”
    He looked at her, holding her gaze with his dark one. “You understand this? What I do?”
    She nodded. She understood perfectly. He was truly the Angel of Death. The Reaper of Mercy. And knowing who