RAFE POV
I'm still kneeling at Maya's grave when the air turns to ice.
Not normal cold. Reaper cold. Council cold.
The kind of cold that means ancient power just arrived, and you're about to have a very bad day.
I spin around, silver blades forming on my hands, ready to fight.
But it's not Lucien.
It's Seraphina. Head of the Council. The oldest living Reaper at 2,000 years old.
And she's walking away from the cemetery gates with Isla.
My dead heart stops.
"NO!" I run toward them, but Seraphina waves one elegant hand and I slam into an invisible wall. It's like hitting concrete at full speed. I crash to the ground, bones cracking and reforming.
"Relax, Raphael," Seraphina calls over her shoulder. Her voice is musical, beautiful, deadly. "I'm not going to hurt your precious human. Yet. We're just going to have a conversation about legends and loopholes."
She's taking Isla. Taking her away from the cemetery. Away from safety.
I pound on the invisible barrier. "Let her go! She doesn't know anything—"
"She knows everything." Seraphina's silver-gold eyes meet mine across the distance. "She knows about the legend. About becoming human through love. About the three steps." Her smile is cruel. "Did you really think we wouldn't notice? The Council has been watching you since you killed Marcus Vane this morning with her sister's name written in blood."
Oh God. They've been watching. The whole time.
"Leave her alone," I beg. "Please. She's innocent—"
"She's contaminated." Seraphina's voice hardens. "She knows Reaper secrets. Council law is clear. Humans who learn what we are must be erased. Memory, existence, everything."
"Unless I complete the legend!" I slam my fists against the barrier again. "If I become human, she's not a threat anymore!"
"If you become human, you're useless to us." Seraphina stops walking. Isla struggles in her grip, but she's frozen somehow, unable to move or speak. "You're one of our best hunters, Raphael. 847 years of perfect service. We're not letting you throw that away for a woman you've known for three days."
Three days. Has it only been three days since Isla walked into my existence and destroyed 847 years of careful control?
It feels like forever.
It feels like not enough time.
"What do you want?" I ask desperately. "There has to be a deal. The Council always offers deals."
Seraphina's smile widens. "Smart boy. Yes. There's a deal."
She snaps her fingers, and suddenly Isla can speak again.
"Rafe!" Isla's voice cracks with fear. "Don't listen to her! Whatever she's offering—"
"Quiet, child." Seraphina touches Isla's forehead, and she goes silent again. "Here's the deal, Raphael. You have two choices. First choice: Complete your little legend. Become human. Spend sixty pathetic years with this woman before you both die and rot in the ground."
"That's what I want—"
"But," Seraphina interrupts, "the moment you become human, you lose all your power. All your protection. And Lucien, who's currently very angry at you, will hunt you both down and kill you slowly. We won't stop him. It's not our problem once you're human."
Ice floods my veins. She's right. Lucien will never stop. Even if I become mortal, he'll find us. Kill us. Make it hurt.
"What's the second choice?" I ask, even though I don't want to know.
"You stay a Reaper. Continue your sacred duty. And I personally erase this woman from existence in a way that's quick and painless." Seraphina strokes Isla's hair almost gently. "She won't feel anything. Won't know she's dying. It'll be like falling asleep. Merciful. Kind. The best death anyone could ask for."
"No." The word tears out of me. "No, you can't—"
"Those are your options. Die human with her after Lucien tortures you both for months. Or let me make it quick and clean right now, and you continue serving the Council for another 800 years." Seraphina's eyes bore into mine. "Choose duty or choose pointless suffering. Either way, she dies. But one way is far less painful."
My mind races. There has to be another way. A loophole. Something—
"Wait." I force myself to think like a lawyer, not a lover. "The legend says I have to give up my immortality willingly. But what if I give it up temporarily?"
Seraphina raises one perfect eyebrow. "Explain."
"What if I become human for sixty years, live with Isla, and then when we die naturally, I return to being a Reaper? I'd be serving the Council again eventually. Just after a short... retirement."
"A sixty-year retirement?" Seraphina laughs. "No. That's not how this works. The legend is permanent. Once you choose mortality, you die mortal. No resurrection. No second chances."
Damn it. I knew it was too easy.
"Then let me fight Lucien as a Reaper," I say desperately. "Let me kill him first, then become human. Isla and I will be safe—"
"You can't beat Lucien. He's 600 years older than you, Raphael. The fight this morning proved that." Seraphina's voice gentles almost maternally. "You're thinking with your heart instead of your head. Let me make this easy. Let me erase her painlessly, and you go back to what you're good at. Hunting. Killing. Serving justice."
"That's not justice. That's murder."
"Welcome to the Council." Her smile is sad. "We've been murdering for justice for thousands of years. Why do you think we're so good at it?"
I look at Isla, frozen in Seraphina's grip. Her green eyes are wide with terror, but underneath the fear, I see something else.
Trust.
She trusts me to find a way out.
She trusts me not to let her die.
She trusts the monster to be her hero.
God help us both.
"I need time to think," I say.
"You have until midnight. Same as Lucien's deadline." Seraphina checks an invisible watch. "Four hours and forty-seven minutes. Then I erase her myself, with or without your permission."
"And if I complete the legend before then?"
"Then you're human, defenseless, and Lucien kills you both within the week." She shrugs elegantly. "Your funeral. Literally."
She releases Isla, who collapses to her knees, gasping.
"Four hours," Seraphina says, already fading into shadow. "Choose wisely, Raphael. Choose duty. It hurts less."
She vanishes.
I run to Isla, pulling her into my arms. She's shaking violently, tears streaming down her face.
"What do we do?" she whispers. "Rafe, what do we—"
"I don't know." I hold her tighter. "But I'm not letting you die. I swear to God, I'm not letting you die."
"Even if it means staying a Reaper forever?"
I don't answer. Can't answer.
Because I honestly don't know which is worse: losing Isla to death, or losing myself to immortality.
"There has to be a third option," I say finally. "Something we're not seeing."
"Like what?"
"Like..." I pull back, looking at her face. "Like what if you became a Reaper too?"
Isla goes very still. "What?"
"The Council can't erase you if you're one of us. And we could be together. Forever. Hunting the guilty. Making a difference." The words tumble out faster. "It's not ideal, but you'd be alive. We'd be together. Isn't that worth something?"
"You want me to become a killer?" Her voice is hollow. "A monster like you?"
"I want you to survive!"
"At what cost?" She stands up, backing away from me. "My humanity? My soul? Rafe, I'd have to kill people. Guilty or not, I'd have to take lives. Could you really love me if I became that?"
"I'd love you as anything—"
"But would I love myself?" Tears pour down her face. "Would I be able to look in the mirror? Visit Maya's grave? Live with the blood?"
She's right. God, she's right.
Turning her into a Reaper would save her life but destroy her soul.
"Then what?" I ask desperately. "What choice do we have? Let Seraphina erase you? Let Lucien torture us? What?"
"We complete the legend," Isla says quietly. "All three steps. We become human. And we spend whatever time we have left running from Lucien until he catches us."
"That's not a plan. That's suicide."
"That's hope." She takes my hands. "Maybe we get a week. Maybe a year. Maybe, if we're really lucky, sixty years before he finds us. But at least we'll be together. At least we'll be human. At least we'll be free."
I stare at her. At this impossible, stubborn, beautiful woman who's choosing a dangerous life with me over a safe death without me.
"You're insane," I whisper.
"I learned from the best." She squeezes my hands. "So what's step three? How do you give up immortality?"
"I have to..." I swallow hard. "I have to let you kill me."
Isla goes pale. "What?"
"The Reaper has to die to become human. Literally die. And the person who loves them has to be the one who does it." I meet her eyes. "You have to stab me through the heart with a silver blade, Isla. You have to kill me, and then I'll resurrect as human. Mortal. Yours."
"I can't—"
"You have to. It's the only way."
She's shaking her head. "I can't kill you. I can't—"
"You can. For us. For the chance at something real."
Behind us, a church bell tolls somewhere in the city.
Seven PM.
Five hours until midnight.
Five hours to decide if love is worth dying for.
Isla looks up at me with those impossible green eyes.
"Okay," she whispers. "Tell me how to kill you."