Hey Everyone!
This is one of my favorite chapters and I didn't really make any edits to it, thankfully. I hope you like it as much as I do!
***
Darkness. That was all Nina saw when she finally came back to herself: complete and total darkness. In the back of her mind, she could remember Uri walking her to a bedroom—her bedroom—and leaving her to deal with whatever she was going through.
Why'd he leave again?
Nina racked her brain and an image of herself screaming at him, raging for peace and solitude sprang up. A self-deprecating laugh escaped her and was instantly consumed by the darkness. "Oh. That's why."
Fidgeting as a sudden need to move consumed her, Nina peered into the blackness, wondering about her next play. She was in the Underworld with Grim nowhere in sight and Uri claiming her as his. Weird didn't even begin to explain the events of the past few hours—days.
Closing her eyes, Nina took a deep breath. Her heartbeat was so slow that she wondered if the quiet little thumps were just her imagination. Concentrating, she could hear her mother's voice advising her: "Close your eyes and focus on one goal. Find it, and keep it close."
"One goal," Nina whispered, focusing on her breathing as she contemplated.
What do I want?
It should have been a simple question, considering that Uri had told her she could have anything she wanted; just not more time.
I want my mother back.
The thought came with a rush of sadness and tears. But with another slow intake of breath, Nina let it go; she let her pain and sadness over the murder of her mother ease out of her as she exhaled.
My goal, what's my goal?
The answer curled around her ankles, up past her calves, between her thighs, over the curve of her belly, between the valley of her breasts, and up the column of her neck until she could finally breathe life into the words; "I want Grim."
As soon as the words were spoken aloud, given a life and a purpose, despite knowing that he would have let her die, despite knowing that there was no future for them, despite knowing that he might be the one to take her soul... Nina's mind was still made up.
She wasn't sure what drew her to him, what had inspired such emotion in those hours bent over a coffee table with the reaper. It wasn't just his looks, or even the way he smiled and flashed her a hint of dimple in his left cheek, it was everything about him. Yes, there was danger, exotic and foreign, but there was also peace, something she hadn't felt in so long Nina had almost forgotten what it felt like. He gave her that feeling back. He was a life raft in a tsunami, the eye of her storm.
Slowly opening her eyes, Nina noticed that the dark didn't seem so endless, so stygian; if anything, it seemed full of undiscovered possibilities, untraversed paths. It was the path Grim walked, the same one she'd follow.
Her joints popped and her muscles ached, but Nina still forced herself to get up and search blindly around the room for a light. It was high time she got out of the darkness.
But she never found the light; her hands closed around the smooth, cool metal of a doorknob instead. For a split second she paused, a million thoughts going through her mind as to the how and why of her decision, but she forced them out of her mind. She was dying, literally dying, and every second she agonized over whether it was right or wrong was another second wasted.
"I've made my decision." There was steadfast conviction in her tone, an assurance that no matter what came to pass, it was the road she would walk.
Nina gripped the knob tighter, and forced her wrist to turn. "There's going back."
***
Grim's power reached for Nina before he could corral it.
Stop!
He commanded himself as the woman in question turned a corner and strode purposefully towards him.
She's not yours, remember?
"You have some crappy guards," Nina said matter-of-factly, her hips swaying slightly as she came closer to him. "You might want to hire some new people."
If he'd still been in his human form, Grim would have smiled at that. "Do you know who I—?"
"Mickey," Nina cut him off as her eyes peered into the black folds of his cloak.
Grim pulled the material closer to himself, needing to separate himself from her as much as possible. The woman was more dangerous for him than anyone; even the Castoff King seemed like a minor nuisance compared to Nina.
He didn't speak for a while, trying to remember why he insisted on standing there with her instead of turning and walking away. It hadn't just been his insane attraction to her that had deterred Grim, but her very humanity. It had been her humanity that had cemented his decision to let her go, no matter how much he wanted otherwise.
A rustle of fabric and a whisper of air through bones was the only indication that he was about to speak. "Can I help you with something, Ms. Strathmore? I assume you're not just here to reprimand me about my guards."
Grim watched her take a step closer to him, her eyes seeming to see past his black cloak and ivory bones to the man hidden inside. It made him feel caught, like an animal in a trap preparing to be taken. Never had he felt like anyone had power over him—even those who truly did have control over him had never made Grim feel base and naked, raw and wanting.
Nina stared at him for another long second, seeming to consider something before she shook her head and dismissed the idea. "What are you doing right now?"
Grim felt his power stir at the thought of spending more time with her, but he knew that he should tell her he was busy, that he had affairs to attend to, that any day now his fiancée would arrive... but he couldn't.
"I was just headed to my study."
Nina swung around to his side and linked arms with him. "Mind if I join you?"
Grim twitched, feeling a bit awkward with a human touching him in his reaper form. No one had ever done that, and for a second Grim worried that Nina would drop dead like in the films. But she just stared up at him, her smile mysterious and her eyes alight.
"You are a curiosity,
Amica
