Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

It would be mine.

And I would damn well make the right one.

“You know, there were times when we were little when I would have done almost anything to be an only child, but now all I want in the world is to be her sister again.”

“You’ll always be her sister, Em,” I said as we backed out of the drive, wishing I could see her face from the backseat. “Even if she doesn’t remember that.”

I’d never had a sister. I’d had Sophie for thirteen years, but she never let anyone labor long under the impression that we were anything more than cousins. Emma was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister, and I knew exactly how Traci felt having lost her, because I’d lost Emma twice before, and both times I’d found a way to bring her back from the dead.

And even if she died a dozen more times, I would move heaven, earth, and the Netherworld as many times as it took to bring her back.

But it would be much easier if I could figure out how to keep her from dying again in the first place.

“Girls.” The tone of Harmony’s voice told me I wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say next. “I can’t explain how badly I hate to have to say this, but I think we need to consider the hard truth here.”

“No.” Em crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the passenger’s-side window. “We’re not killing her baby.”

“Of course not!” Harmony stomped on the brake and the tires squealed as she pulled to a stop two full feet from the curb. She shifted into Park, then twisted in the driver’s seat to face us both. “I would never suggest anything like that. Whether or not to end her pregnancy is your sister’s choice. But you both need to understand that even with my help, there’s every chance in the world that Traci will still lose this baby and maybe her own life in the process. In fact, whatever help I’m able to give her may make that more likely.”

“What? Why?” Em looked almost as confused as she was clearly terrified.

“Because if left alone, her body will almost certainly reject the pregnancy when it starts to threaten her life. That’s the case in a full two-thirds of incubus pregnancies. But if I help her keep the baby into her second or third trimester and her body still rejects it, the miscarriage could kill her, too. You’d be losing not just your nephew, but your sister. Is that something you’re willing to risk?” She was talking to Emma now. I had no say in this.

Emma shouldn’t have either. She shouldn’t have had to wrestle with a decision like that. But she was the only one of Traci’s relatives who knew the truth.

“Me? No.” Em shook her head firmly. “But Traci knows the risks. She made her own decision, and I don’t think that would change, even if she remembered making it.”

“So you’re sure you want me to help her, rather than letting nature run its course?”

Em turned on her, and the spark of anger in her eyes surprised me for a second. “There’s nothing natural about this. Nothing. ” She swiped unshed tears from her eyes in one angry motion. “My sister was raped by a monster, and now she’s carrying one. I was killed by another monster. Nothing will ever be the same for either of us.” She glanced at me and seemed to reconsider. “For any of us. But Traci’s made her choice, and we are damn well going to respect it.”

Harmony nodded. And that was the last of that.

“Where were you today?” I dropped onto the end of Tod’s bed and crossed my legs beneath me, then set my shoes on the floor. They landed on a pile of laundry he wouldn’t get around to washing until he had nothing left to wear. At all.

Laundry day was my favorite day to visit for that very reason.

“Work. I didn’t get your text till this afternoon.” He came out of the teeny bathroom—the only other room in his tiny suite in the reaper headquarters building—holding two plastic cups of water. “I’m all yours now, though. What will you do with me?”

“What are my options?”

“Anything you want, Kaylee.” The heat in his gaze set me on fire in all the right places. “Time is on our side, youth is our immortal legacy, and you are all I’ve ever wanted. This could be the best night of our afterlives.”

“Then what would we do tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow, we top our personal best.” He set the cups on the minifridge serving as his bedside table, and the dim overhead light cast highlights and shadows on every plane and ridge of his bare chest. “I like a challenge.”

“I like you. ” I pulled him onto the twin mattress with me. Tod landed on his side, propped up on one elbow. I leaned down to kiss him, and when I started to pull away, his hand slid behind the back of my head, his fingers in my hair, holding me in place gently so our kiss would last. And last. And last...

When Tod finally let me go, my head was spinning, and that had nothing to do with the fact that I hadn’t taken a breath in several minutes and everything to do with the fact that he made me feel alive. He was the closest thing to a drug that I’d ever experienced, and I had yet to find a limit to what I’d be willing to do to protect him. To keep us together.

I’d spent most of my life setting boundaries. Lines I wouldn’t cross. Lines I wouldn’t let others cross. But with Tod, there were no boundaries. No limits. Time was not an issue. I loved him without reservation. I’d given him everything I had and everything I was, and he’d done the same. He’d given up his life for Nash, but he’d been willing to give up eternity for me. Not just willing—he’d actually done it.

I’d seen Levi, his boss, confiscate his soul and end his afterlife because he’d refused to kill me and reap my soul.

We had eternity to love each other, but after the way our relationship had begun—with loss and death and sacrifice—every single moment felt like a gift neither of us was willing to take for granted.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Tod rolled away from me and reached past the edge of the mattress to pull open the top door of the minifridge, which exposed the even more mini freezer. When he rolled toward me again, he held a small container of Phish Food, my favorite ice cream, and two plastic spoons. “I know it’s small. This is the only size that would fit in the freezer.”

“What’s the occasion?” I took the spoon he handed me while he opened the carton and peeled off the plastic seal.

“Tuesday.” He frowned and twisted to glance at the alarm clock on top of the freezer. “For another forty minutes, anyway.” He handed me the plastic seal and I licked ice cream from it, then leaned over to drop it into the trash can at the foot of his bed. Which was wedged into a scant foot of space between the mattress and the only chair in the room. His place was so small we could practically reach everything in the room from one end of the bed or another.

But it was all his. Ours, he insisted, on nearly a daily basis. We were the only two people in either world who knew exactly where his place was. Nash had been in the room, but Tod had blinked him there, so on his own, Nash couldn’t find reaper headquarters again even if he wanted to. And he did not.

The rest of the reapers and my dad knew where the headquarters building was but not which room was Tod’s.

And the best part about Tod’s place was that there was no exit. Literally. The only door was the one separating the tiny bathroom from the small main room. There was no exit because reapers didn’t need doors, and now I didn’t either, and that was beyond convenient, because this way neither of us could lose the key. The absence of windows made things feel a little claustrophobic sometimes, but the fact that no one could burst in on us made up for that completely.