Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) by Kate Evangelista Page A

tears to actually fall. Just when he thought he’d equated Arianne with the words “lost cause,” she did something that completely surprised him.
    “You done?” she grumbled.
    “Not by half.”

Chapter 10
    CYA
    G RANMARE B ABA’S H OUSE L OOKED …weird. Some kind of black leather made up the walls, but it had red veins, which Arianne had never seen on cow leather before. The same boney material which made up the frame of the bed she’d woken up in stretched the leather. People around the Underverse sure liked their bones for furniture. Death’s chair had been completely made of bone—definitely human judging by the skulls at the ends of the armrests. Something told Arianne they weren’t a fashion statement either. Bleached bones—the next trend in home furnishing. She shook her head. Didn’t have the right ring to it.
    She opened and closed her hand. Her pinky wouldn’t stop twitching. A slight tick had started in her right eye, and her lips felt really dry, like she’d become severely dehydrated. Tomas said she didn’t need to eat or drink, so why did she crave water like the last thing she wanted before she died?
    An itch sprang up on her elbow, which quickly spread to her upper arm by the time they reached the barbwire fence surrounding the little hut Granmare Baba called home. She scratched and scratched until her skin heated beneath her nails. She may be a soul, but she certainly felt like she had a body. Balthazar said something to her, but the itching had gotten so bad she couldn’t focus on his words. What was going on with her?
    Arianne’s vision doubled for a second. She blinked it away.
    She called Balthazar’s name. To her ear it sounded more like a garbled mess.
    “You’re late,” a crony, cackling voice bellowed from within the hunt. Certainly loud enough to pierce through the ringing in Arianne’s left ear. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Balthazar, who’d been facing the hut this whole time, finally turned and faced her. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he’d lost all the color in his already pale face. How weird was that? A pale guy getting paler. She would have laughed if her body hadn’t begun to convulse.
    “Quickly, bring her in,” the voice said from somewhere.
    Arianne’s vision tunneled the second Balthazar swept her up in his arms. She would have resisted, but her limbs twitched too badly for her to control any of them. To be carried the way Balthazar carried her, like some Prince Charming, felt too intimate. Like she was betraying Niko somehow. Balthazar was only trying to help, the part of her brain that was still rational thought. But she wasn’t exactly listening to that part anymore. She was too busy trying not to throw up.
    Her legs went numb when Balthazar stepped into the gloom of the hut’s interior. The place looked bigger on the inside. Despite her tunnel vision—the last step before passing out—she remained conscious. Oh she wanted to, no needed to pass out already. She begged for it. Maybe even heard herself beg aloud. She couldn’t be too sure since the ringing now invaded her right ear too.
    In a corner of the round hut, a hunched mound moved in a flurry. It murmured to itself about Angel’s tears and careless Enforcers—whatever that meant. A kettle floated to a hook by the fire, and in seconds it whistled a shrill tune. A snap of fingers and the kettle unhooked itself and floated back to the mumbling mound that seemed to have a pile of scarves on its shoulders or back—they seemed like one thing.
    All this time Balthazar still cradled her in his arms. He stood there, waiting. She wished he’d just let her go. Lying on the floor right now would be preferable to being this close to his broad shoulders and massive chest. She could feel him inhale and exhale, and if it wasn’t for the ear-infection type of ringing, she’d hear his heartbeat too.
    The mound pointed at a cot in another corner of the round hut. Arianne