RAFE POV
The detective's hand is trembling when she reaches for mine.
Perfect. She should be afraid. Fear keeps humans alive. Fear makes them careful. Fear might save her life when she realizes what I really am.
Except when our fingers touch, everything goes wrong.
Her soul should open to me like a book. I've read a million souls in 847 years—every sin, every secret, every dark thought spilling into my mind the moment flesh meets flesh. It's my gift. My curse. The reason I know exactly who deserves the R.
But Detective Isla Monroe's soul is... locked.
Locked.
I've never felt anything like it. It's like touching a door made of steel with no handle, no keyhole, no way inside. Just smooth, impenetrable nothing.
My fingers tighten on hers automatically, trying to push deeper. Nothing. Her soul stays hidden, protected by something I don't understand.
Impossible.
"Dr. Ashford?" Her voice cuts through my shock. "You can let go now."
I drop her hand like it burned me. She's staring at me with those sharp green eyes, suspicious and tired and so beautifully alive it makes something twist in my chest.
Something that shouldn't exist anymore.
"Forgive me," I say smoothly, forcing my face into a professional smile. "Long flight. Still adjusting."
Lies come easily after 847 years.
Her partner—Detective Chen, the file said—watches me with narrowed eyes. He's protective of her. Good. She'll need protection from what's coming.
From me.
"Shall we discuss the case?" I gesture to the conference table covered in crime scene photos. Twenty-three of my kills staring up at us. Twenty-three perfect Rs carved into guilty flesh.
They have no idea the monster they just invited into their precinct.
TWELVE HOURS EARLIER
The judge's penthouse smells like expensive whiskey and cheaper lies.
I stand in the shadows of his bedroom, watching him sleep. Harold Pierce. Sixty-three years old. Federal judge for twenty years. Took his first bribe at thirty-seven and never looked back.
I can see his soul even from here—it pulses around him like black smoke, thick with corruption. Bribe money. Dismissed rape cases. Destroyed lives. All for profit.
My fingers itch to carve the R.
Not yet. First, I need to be sure.
I step forward, my feet making no sound on the marble floor. Being a Reaper has advantages—I can move through shadows, walk through walls, become invisible when I hunt. Death made me into something between ghost and man.
Something neither alive nor dead.
Something alone.
I reach the bed and place my palm on the judge's forehead. He doesn't wake. They never do when I'm reading them. It's like their souls know judgment has come.
The memories flood into me:
A teenage girl crying in his chambers, begging him to believe her. He dismisses the case. Takes fifty thousand from the rapist's father.
A mother pleading for justice for her murdered daughter. He throws out the evidence on a technicality. Another bribe deposited in his offshore account.
Twenty-three cases. Twenty-three lives destroyed. Twenty-three monsters he set free for money.
Rage burns through my chest—hot and familiar. This is why I hunt. This is why Death chose me 847 years ago when that corrupt lord murdered me. Because I died screaming for justice that never came.
Now I am the justice.
"You had so many chances to be good," I whisper to the sleeping judge. "You chose profit over people. Every. Single. Time."
His soul is rotting inside him, turning blacker by the day. In another year, it'll be completely corrupted. He'll become something worse than human—a pure evil that destroys everything it touches.
I won't let him get that far.
My fingers begin to glow silver as I call on my power. The judge's eyes snap open.
"Wha—"
"Judgment delivered," I say in the Old Language.
I carve the R into his chest with one glowing finger. Not a cut—a brand. A mark that burns away the evil and pulls out the corrupted soul.
His mouth opens to scream.
No sound comes out.
His soul tears free from his body like dark smoke, writhing and screaming silently as it flows into me. I absorb it, let it burn away inside my chest where nothing can hurt anyone ever again.
The judge's eyes go empty. His body goes still.
Body number twenty-three.
I should feel something. Satisfaction. Victory. Anything.
But there's only emptiness. Cold, endless emptiness that's been my companion for 847 years.
I turn to leave, and something catches my eye—a photo on his nightstand. A young woman with dark hair and green eyes, smiling at the camera. Written on the back: Maya Monroe, victim #7, dismissed case 2015.
Monroe.
My dead heart stutters.
The detective hunting me is related to one of the judge's victims? I pick up the photo, studying the resemblance. Sisters, definitely. Same eyes. Same smile.
Detective Isla Monroe's sister was destroyed by this man, and she doesn't even know I just avenged her.
The twisted irony makes me laugh—a cold, bitter sound in the dead man's bedroom.
She's hunting me. I'm killing her sister's murderer. We're on the same side, and she'll arrest me the second she figures out the truth.
Beautiful. Tragic. Perfectly cruel.
I pocket the photo. I shouldn't. It's evidence. But I want to remember those green eyes—so full of life that her sister lost.
So full of fire that might burn me alive.
PRESENT
"Dr. Ashford? Are you listening?"
Detective Monroe's sharp voice pulls me back to the conference room. She's glaring at me like I'm wasting her time.
If only she knew.
"My apologies," I say. "I was studying the pattern. These kills are... personal."
"How so?"
I point to the photos. "Every victim is guilty of something. The Reaper isn't killing randomly. He's hunting specific types of predators—abusers, corrupt officials, rapists who escaped justice."
Her green eyes widen slightly. "How did you—"
"It's obvious once you look at the pattern." I lean forward. "This isn't a serial killer, Detective. This is an executioner. Someone who believes the law has failed, so he's become the law."
Detective Chen shifts uncomfortably. "That's... disturbingly accurate."
Because I'm describing myself.
Detective Monroe stares at me, and I see the exact moment she realizes I arrived at the crime scene this morning before anyone called me. Her eyes narrow.
She suspects.
Good. Let her suspect. Let her dig. Let her get close.
Close enough that when the truth comes out, it'll destroy us both.
"I want to see the bodies," I say, standing. "All twenty-three. Take me to the morgue."
"Now?" She checks her watch. "It's almost noon—"
"The Reaper hunts at night, Detective. We don't have time to waste." I hold her gaze. "Unless you'd prefer to wait for body number twenty-four?"
Her jaw clenches. She hates that I'm right.
She has no idea how right I am.
"Fine. Let's go."
As we head for the door, my phone buzzes. Text from Lucien, my mentor:
You're getting sloppy. The detective found the symbols. Fix this, or I will.
Ice runs through my veins.
Lucien knows about Isla.
And when Lucien "fixes" problems, people die.
I look at Detective Monroe walking ahead of me, her dark hair catching the fluorescent light, her shoulders squared with determination she doesn't know is about to get her killed.
For 847 years, I've felt nothing.
Now, staring at this infuriating, brilliant, doomed woman, I feel everything.
Terror. Rage. Desperation.
And something worse.
Something that feels dangerously close to caring.
I have to protect her.
Even if it means protecting her from myself.